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Does “building in public” work?

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Re: Does “building in public” work?

#31

Post by jcgrillo »

ekianjo wrote: post #20
sokoloff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one will pay for the solution, the problem might not be that important.

volunteers do un paid work all the time that is actually important. not everything needs a price tag to matter.

True, but important software doesn't (by and large) benefit very many people. Instead it makes a very few people extremely wealthy, and makes a somewhat larger number of comfortably upper middle class engineers' lives a little easier. Often those engineers are building products which actually harm most of their users.

I labor in this industry because I enjoy the work and it pays better than anything else I could do, and I try to work for companies doing good things, but I have some misgivings about seeing unpaid open source work in the same light as volunteering. To be clear, as an engineer who benefits I'm grateful, but I'd rather developers were compensated fairly.

EDIT: given the down votes, let me pose it as a question--Is software obviously a public good? Are we actually making things better on balance?

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#32

Post by paxys »

This is just an extension of the LinkedIn/YouTube/X "thoughtfluencer" epidemic. If the person sharing has a successful track record in the field and is genuine about sharing/helping - great! 99% of them are, however, only interested in building clout and expanding their personal brand.

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#33

Post by stonethrowaway »

charlie0 wrote: post #27

If I have to think on first principles, the reason why people are building things in public is because that's just a form of marketing and self-promotion. We're way past tech being the hard part of launching a product. The harder part is building the audience and trying to stand out. Building in public is probably the easiest way to build buzz, gain an audience, and name recognition.

The elephant behind the elephant in our room is an inability to be honest and upfront about this kind of stuff and instead we have to dance around it. This essentially means we can’t have a decent discussion on any topic that carries actual risk and instead we focus on low-risk banalities.

Also I should add there are a lot of young posters who are, and I won’t sugarcoat it, hopelessly naive at times - certainly saying shit I’d never think about saying when I was their age, so with that we are on a treadmill of constantly seeing, mocking, relearning etc past mistakes.

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#35

Post by senko »

patrickhogan1 wrote: post #6

I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now. 1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it. 2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works. 3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.…

In the good ol times, being a hacker meant you love tinkering with tech and are good at it.

Then media started using it to mean "computer criminal", which was annoying.

Then "I don't code I solve problems" tech bros coopted it, which is worse. Looks like now you're a hacker if you identify a need and monetize it.

I am fully cognizant I am writing this on a VC-backed founder oriented site called Hacker News, but I like to think there's still some good ol hacker spirit here, YC being named after an extremely nerdy thing and not "SaaS Launchpad" or somesuch.

(yes yes old man yelling at cloud, get off my lawn, etc)

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#36

Post by zaptrem »

patrickhogan1 wrote: post #6

I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now. 1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it. 2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works. 3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.…

There's another very large subgroup you're missing: the hackers that build things (even for $0) because they're fun/cool, not because they solve a specific annoying problem/inefficiency.

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#37

Post by charlie0 »

stonethrowaway wrote: post #33
charlie0 wrote: post #27

If I have to think on first principles, the reason why people are building things in public is because that's just a form of marketing and self-promotion. We're way past tech being the hard part of launching a product. The harder part is building the audience and trying to stand out. Building in public is probably the easiest way to build buzz, gain an audience, and name recognition.

The elephant behind the elephant in our room is an inability to be honest and upfront about this kind of stuff and instead we have to dance around it. This essentially means we can’t have a decent discussion on any topic that carries actual risk and instead we focus on low-risk banalities. Also I should add there are a lot of young posters who are, and I won’t sugarcoat it, hopelessly naive at times - certainly sayin…

Say more.

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#38

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

sokoloff wrote: post #8
patrickhogan1 wrote: post #6

I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now. 1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it. 2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works. 3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.…

If no one will pay for the solution, the problem might not be that important.

Well, that pretty much rules out email, maps/navigation, messaging, and quite a bit more.

Somehow, this suggests that perhaps your rubric needs amending.

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#39

Post by zaptrem »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #23
al_borland wrote: post #17

To me, it always seemed like the "build in public" folks were doing it more for themselves. A way to not feel so alone on the journey, while ultimately working alone. If it helped with marketing and launch, that would be a bonus.

Attention seeking activity... I guess it's one form of marketing, but if the attention is on the builder, probably not

Building something big alone is really tough and demoralizing. If this is a way they can mitigate that until they can find others to join them, more power to them. However, I've also heard of the dangers of oversharing early and losing the incentive to finish the project because you already got the attention dopamine hit.

Re: Does “building in public” work?

#40

Post by [deleted] »

zaptrem wrote: post #36
patrickhogan1 wrote: post #6

I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now. 1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it. 2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works. 3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.…

There's another very large subgroup you're missing: the hackers that build things (even for $0) because they're fun/cool, not because they solve a specific annoying problem/inefficiency.

[deleted]
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