Programming skills do not translate into solutions to big problems. The amount of education required to tackle something serious weeds out nearly all coders. Most programmers spend their careers writing code to someone else's spec, and a Yo app is a fantastic — and lucky — way to escape that fate. My hat is off to the creator for doing it, getting attention, and raising money.
We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
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Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#42Unfortunately, this line of criticism works equally well about all games, art, haute cuisine, movies, national parks, and about 96% of our economy. More importantly, it also works against articles that gripe about effort wasted on apps the author doesn't care for.
None of those fields beat the "change the world" drum as hard as tech startups do. This article seems to be an attempt to an attempt to reconcile action and rhetoric by asking "us" to live up to it.
So yes, you can poke the hole that you do. But that's just pretending to miss the point.
Personally, I think the reconciliation is rhetoric coming back to earth. It's self-perpetuating saccharine and delusion that should probably stop.
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#43I wonder if Yo is popular because people feel it is a funny pointless app or because it makes a common message incredibly easy to send?
I like apps like Yo. They do exactly what they say they will do. Yo requires fewer taps than texting "Yo" to somebody. It's refreshing!
I would venture a guess that the people who are solving for big problems can be inspired by how minimal Yo is, and the decisions that stem from that inspiration may be the tipping point they needed for their businesses. There may be applicable uses for the Yo type of simplicity for any of the problems mentioned in the blog post.
There's a good place for apps like Yo. They challenge the status quo. They disrupt. They prove that removing mundane steps to doing something as common as texting can be popular and worth testing as a business model.
Maybe Yo has already solved a big problem. Maybe we have yet to experience the ripple effect.
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#44How about we don't even talk about Yo?
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#45Sorry, I can't agree with this argument, as the line of reasoning essentially boils down to:
"Don't spend your money on things I don't think are important."
That is the great thing personal freedom and property rights. we all have the choice of how we want to spend our money. If you don't like what other people are spending their money on, spend your own money on something else.
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#46Yo's popularity entirely rides two facts: (1) it's a silly app, (2) it got a million dollars. We currently know nothing about user engagement and retention. I'd be surprised if anyone uses it for more than a few weeks.
If an app that does nothing and has a half life of 3 weeks can raise $1 million, then the industry has a problem.
And what problem is that? That people are spending their money in a way you don't like?
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#47The title should be "Let's not 'invest' in apps like Yo"
For a programmer this is only a win-win scenario. The founder gets experience, funds, exposure, and something whimsical to hack on for awhile. The people in return get this insane idea plastered all over the news only to hopefully inspire a couple hundred kids to get into programming with their chance to strike it rich.
If you hope for anything, why don't you hope that all investors in this idea take a huge loss and do their part in stabilizing tech valuations.
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#48Let's build apps like Yo. They're good practice. Doing silly things that amuse oneself is a critical component of hackerdom. Let's just not fund them.
>> "They're good practice"
...In releasing massive security flawed apps.
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of your examples take a great deal more work than Yo.
1.)Not necessarily, and 2.) is "amount of work required" the critera a pursuit must meet to be valid?
> 2.) is "amount of work required" the critera a pursuit must meet to be valid?
To many (most?) people, unfortunately, yes.
Re: We have the potential to solve the biggest problems of today
#50> "Some expressed anger that there own startups hadn't received funding" Hard to take this guy seriously when he can't even grammar right in his intro paragraph. I love yo.
> "Hard to take this guy seriously when he can't even grammar right in his intro paragraph. I love yo."
Can't "grammar" right? Can "grammar" be a verb?