Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 71 posts

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#61

Post by Retric »

fastball wrote: post #58
mlinhares wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is there is no money in this for the private market, so the government will have to pay 10x more to get a patchwork of private entities to do the work the government was already doing. If we don't get these people out and revert all they did there won't be much of a future for this country that isn't becoming another failed economy with a few places being a little bit better than the others. The US will be a…

Yes, the US Federal Government, famous for doing things efficiently and cheaply when no private contractors are involved.

The quiet parks of government really are, privatizing the VA was looked into several times but the numbers were prohibitive.

It took me a while to realize there’s just less money to be made when the system actually works.

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#62

Post by Wololooo »

fastball wrote: post #58
mlinhares wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is there is no money in this for the private market, so the government will have to pay 10x more to get a patchwork of private entities to do the work the government was already doing. If we don't get these people out and revert all they did there won't be much of a future for this country that isn't becoming another failed economy with a few places being a little bit better than the others. The US will be a…

Yes, the US Federal Government, famous for doing things efficiently and cheaply when no private contractors are involved.

Some things cannot be done cheaply or extremely efficiently but needs to be done.

One of the reason for governments to exist is to deliver services to the communities that, by essence, should not be seen as primarily a source of revenue, but enabling communities to thrive in order to generate an environment where the generation of wealth for the community is facilitated.

And tell me how actually efficient and cost saving having many entities that have as sole mission to generate profit really helped (take a look at privatisation of any entities that were of public interest and the good that it did long term... Spoilers It didn't...)

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#63

Post by hodgesrm »

thrance wrote: post #14

Welp. Good for them I guess, too bad weather reporting was gutted and is no longer a public good. At this rate, we'll soon see YC startups raising money to maintain roads.

> At this rate, we'll soon see YC startups raising money to maintain roads.

That model has existed for hundreds of years. It's called a turnpike. There were hundreds of them in the US and UK. [0] Many still exist today.

[0] https://eh.net/encyclopedia/turnpikes-and-toll-roads-in-nine...

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#64

Post by mlinhares »

Wololooo wrote: post #62
fastball wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the US Federal Government, famous for doing things efficiently and cheaply when no private contractors are involved.

Some things cannot be done cheaply or extremely efficiently but needs to be done. One of the reason for governments to exist is to deliver services to the communities that, by essence, should not be seen as primarily a source of revenue, but enabling communities to thrive in order to generate an environment where the generation of wealth for the community is facilitated. And tell me how actually efficient and cost sa…

No natural monopolies should ever be privatized and there's no reason to have more than one entity collecting weather data. Also, this has been one of the best and most reliable services provided by the government, no one ever bothers thinking about the weather because its always there and it is also very right.

Maybe they were just too good and now everyone thinks this is easy and every single other country works like this with weather service. I'm in florida and I know i'm fucked this hurricane season.

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#66

Post by guywithahat »

huslage wrote: post #8

This is an anti-pattern. Doing the work that the government should be (and was) doing and then selling back the data to them or others when the data should be (and was) public domain is absolutely terrible for society. No one should fund this.

This is exactly the kind of thing that should be done by private companies, what are you talking about? This data should be something companies compete at to get better at

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#67

Post by guywithahat »

wturner wrote: post #5
xnx wrote: post #3

Good timing "At least 10 sites have suspended or limited weather balloon launches because of the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Weather Service." https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/weather-balloon...

Their agenda is to intentionally make government dysfunctional as a catalyst to privatize everything. It's working.

I feel like there's important context here, such as this company was founded before Trump entered office, and the government weather balloons were so inefficient that a private company thought they could compete with free data.

Government weather data is exactly the kind of thing that should be private.

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#68

Post by fastball »

Retric wrote: post #61
fastball wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the US Federal Government, famous for doing things efficiently and cheaply when no private contractors are involved.

The quiet parks of government really are, privatizing the VA was looked into several times but the numbers were prohibitive. It took me a while to realize there’s just less money to be made when the system actually works.

Realistically this is only because our private sector in that area is incredibly broken, not because the government is doing an incredible job.

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#69

Post by fastball »

Wololooo wrote: post #62
fastball wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the US Federal Government, famous for doing things efficiently and cheaply when no private contractors are involved.

Some things cannot be done cheaply or extremely efficiently but needs to be done. One of the reason for governments to exist is to deliver services to the communities that, by essence, should not be seen as primarily a source of revenue, but enabling communities to thrive in order to generate an environment where the generation of wealth for the community is facilitated. And tell me how actually efficient and cost sa…

When Japan privatized their train system, the system improved massively.

Re: Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons

#70

Post by Retric »

fastball wrote: post #68
Retric wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quiet parks of government really are, privatizing the VA was looked into several times but the numbers were prohibitive. It took me a while to realize there’s just less money to be made when the system actually works.

Realistically this is only because our private sector in that area is incredibly broken, not because the government is doing an incredible job.

There’s many other comparisons where the government comes out ahead when you balance quality of what’s done vs cost. The overhead of the social security administration is far lower than other pensions, and that’s with everyone else piggybacking backing off your SSN. Some of this is scale but economies of scale only go so far.
Post reply on HN