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41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

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Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#251

Post by Vivtek »

businessguy wrote: post #175
edw519 wrote: post #30

I don't know about the rest of the world, but we sure are in a bubble here at Hacker News. There seems to be a real disconnect between what people want to build/invest in and what people in the real world actually need and want to pay for. Just as sample of what I've witnessed in the past few years: Ask HN: How do you like my file sharing app? Ask HN: How do you like my social app for niche ? Ask HN: How do you like…

This is very true. I can give another example(maybe bit-offtopic for HN). A very good friend of mine worked in IT for like 10 yrs. He was quite good programmer, CTO etc. One day he decided to radically change his carrer and opened... 5 Subways in Eastern Europe (he is originally from there). FFW 2 yrs => his restaurants making him $400-500k/yr, he spends zero time managing them and just focused on opening new ones. H…

Argh, don't remind me about Subways in Eastern Europe. When Subway opened in Indiana, I told my (Hungarian) wife that if she wanted to make serious money, we'd open a Subway franchise in Budapest. She said, "Why would you try to sell crappy bread like that in Hungary?"

Sigh.

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#252

Post by nikcub »

cookiecaper wrote: post #186
patio11 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add, approximately one half of people in the real world share a common demographic category with a sliver of HN users and a fraction of a sliver of what we create. Women have money. Go take it. Nobody else wants it in tech. (Well, aside from Groupon, Zynga, and a few other companies that missed the opportunity to make an iPhone app that you could wiggle to share photos.)

The Palm Pre used this strategy. Not that it's necessarily bad, but I don't think it's necessarily an instant cash-in either. You have to do things correctly and carefully, and I think the difference between appealing primarily to women and appealing to men is fundamentally a stylistic one.

I don't know how the hell they did it, but it worked for Palm. I was watching 'born rich' recently and one of the celebutantes says, referring to a handbag, 'it has room for my palm pilot, or paper, if you are still into that'.

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#253

Post by pyre »

gaius wrote: post #203
dmarinoc wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do not only have money. They have a strong influence (and almost always the last word) in most of end-consumer buying decisions. It's strange so little companies focus on them

They do, it's just not what you'd expect. For example, here in the UK, Volvo are big sponsors of the Twilight franchise. How does that make any sort of sense!? Well of course it does, because Twilight's core readers aren't teenagers at all, they're 30-something women. Same demographic that're buying all the Kindles. Any ad you see that you don't understand, any product you think is irrelevant, someone must be buying…

  > someone must be buying it or it wouldn't exist
That's assuming that no product is ever a failure.

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#254

Post by danssig »

blhack wrote: post #180
edw519 wrote: post #30

I don't know about the rest of the world, but we sure are in a bubble here at Hacker News. There seems to be a real disconnect between what people want to build/invest in and what people in the real world actually need and want to pay for. Just as sample of what I've witnessed in the past few years: Ask HN: How do you like my file sharing app? Ask HN: How do you like my social app for niche ? Ask HN: How do you like…

You're missing the point. Most geeks that I know aren't trying to build apps that make money, they're trying to build apps that are fun, and that their friends think are fun. If you offered me two choices A) Make a million dollars a year doing something you hate that nobody will know about or care about B) Make no money doing something you love that your friends think is cool. I will almost always choose B, and I thi…

I would take A without question. After just a year or two I'd have enough money to work on my own fun-as-can-be-but-will-never-make-money projects for a decade or two.

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#255

Post by gaius »

pyre wrote: post #253
gaius wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, it's just not what you'd expect. For example, here in the UK, Volvo are big sponsors of the Twilight franchise. How does that make any sort of sense!? Well of course it does, because Twilight's core readers aren't teenagers at all, they're 30-something women. Same demographic that're buying all the Kindles. Any ad you see that you don't understand, any product you think is irrelevant, someone must be buying…

> someone must be buying it or it wouldn't exist That's assuming that no product is ever a failure.

Very few products are not bought by anyone, ever!

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#256

Post by ChrisCooper »

klenwell wrote: post #159
grellas wrote: post #134

I guess it is a matter of terminology but I have to disagree on this one. A bubble is all-pervasive and extreme. It represents a systematic investment mania where everything becomes surreal. People sell vast tracts of land for a prized tulip. Junk companies with nothing to offer but a vague concept about revolutionizing how this or that will be done owing to some new phenomenon such as the internet make serial stock…

This is a great point. To condense what you said a bit: the dot-com bubble followed the democratization of stock trading (which itself got a technological assist from the internet). Lots of people, myself included, who never bought a stock start using online trading accounts. The housing bubble followed the democratization of home buying. Lots of people who never had bought a house before (or a second or third house)…

There has been a recent democratization of web- and mobile-applications, has there not? It's super easy for me now to make an site with Rails to do x. Same goes for creating and publishing mobile applications. Anyone can now easily make and sell an iPhone app. When has this ever been possible? This is the current democratization, and I don't think it would be unrealistic to suggest it could lead to a bubble.

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#257

Post by revorad »

bambax wrote: post #217
patio11 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add, approximately one half of people in the real world share a common demographic category with a sliver of HN users and a fraction of a sliver of what we create. Women have money. Go take it. Nobody else wants it in tech. (Well, aside from Groupon, Zynga, and a few other companies that missed the opportunity to make an iPhone app that you could wiggle to share photos.)

> Women have money. Go take it. What do they want?!? I could never figure that one out.

Shoes.

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#258

Post by dagw »

blhack wrote: post #180
edw519 wrote: post #30

I don't know about the rest of the world, but we sure are in a bubble here at Hacker News. There seems to be a real disconnect between what people want to build/invest in and what people in the real world actually need and want to pay for. Just as sample of what I've witnessed in the past few years: Ask HN: How do you like my file sharing app? Ask HN: How do you like my social app for niche ? Ask HN: How do you like…

You're missing the point. Most geeks that I know aren't trying to build apps that make money, they're trying to build apps that are fun, and that their friends think are fun. If you offered me two choices A) Make a million dollars a year doing something you hate that nobody will know about or care about B) Make no money doing something you love that your friends think is cool. I will almost always choose B, and I thi…

Writing a video sharing app is a lot more fun than writing a software that reduces credit card fraud.

I knew a guy who wrote software to reduce credit card fraud and he thought it was great fun with lots cool statistical analysis and data mining problems to play with. And personally I think that sounds a lot more fun than writing video sharing apps.

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#259

Post by lubos »

dagw wrote: post #258
blhack wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Most geeks that I know aren't trying to build apps that make money, they're trying to build apps that are fun, and that their friends think are fun. If you offered me two choices A) Make a million dollars a year doing something you hate that nobody will know about or care about B) Make no money doing something you love that your friends think is cool. I will almost always choose B, and I thi…

Writing a video sharing app is a lot more fun than writing a software that reduces credit card fraud. I knew a guy who wrote software to reduce credit card fraud and he thought it was great fun with lots cool statistical analysis and data mining problems to play with. And personally I think that sounds a lot more fun than writing video sharing apps.

this is true. definition of hacker is being always hungry for challenge. nothing to do with being cool... damn, we are freaking introverts, right?

Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble

#260

Post by sudonim »

run4yourlives wrote: post #207
edw519 wrote: post #30

I don't know about the rest of the world, but we sure are in a bubble here at Hacker News. There seems to be a real disconnect between what people want to build/invest in and what people in the real world actually need and want to pay for. Just as sample of what I've witnessed in the past few years: Ask HN: How do you like my file sharing app? Ask HN: How do you like my social app for niche ? Ask HN: How do you like…

Re: Customer 2: How can we reduce inventory by $300 million? I'm wondering if anyone has explored the outsourcing of inventory? In other words, would it be viable to establish a giant warehouse of all things that people could use as their own personal warehouse... like co-locating a server.

Probably unsurprisingly, Amazon and a bunch of others offer this. http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-amazon....
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