Do you also lament the creation of things like the fore-runner of the Internet that was created by the military industrial complex? Or the countless other advancements we use every day that were driven by military R&D? Or are you just completely and totally unaware of the significant contributions that military R&D has made to civilian lives?
The fact that it's considered contrarian to advise people to start with building a profitable and sustainable business model is a sad testament to the "startup culture" that emphasizes hype over substance.
I've run my own software business for over a decade now and I still have a boss. It's called The Free Market.
I can decide I'm above doing certain tasks, but my customers can also decide to go to my competition if my company isn't taking care of their needs. And sometimes my customers need things that I really don't feel like doing.
But I do them..because they are my customers; they pay the bills. They are the boss.
I think it's a worthwhile goal to attempt to achieve this in other companies, but it's also important to truly understand why this works so well at GitHub.
GitHub is largely developers writing software for other developers. An interesting problem to a GitHubber is just as likely to be something that their customers are interested in.
GitHub is a classic example of dog-fooding. They use their own product and many of their employees used the product before they came to work there. A typical developer at Github is very likely to have the same vision (and passion!) for the product as the owners of GitHub.
If your product is software for a vertical that doesn't happen to be other developers then are going to be likely challenges. What is interesting to the developers very well might not be interesting to their customers.
It might have been AutoData, but they have merged with Chrome. Edmunds has a decoder, but it's pretty laughable. I'm not aware of any other major players in that field outside of those.
Chrome offers 1-1 matches on VIN to style Ids for most OEM's, but it's an additional cost.
Trucks are certainly the most difficult to decode. But if you are using something like ChromeData for the VIN data, and combine that with the info from the dealer's site then you can usually narrow the vehicle down to a specific trim level.
Not always however. Dealers frequently have incorrect or missing information on their websites, so garbage-in, garbage out.
This is why scraping dealer websites for data is always going to be problematic. Far better to work with the providers to have them send you the data. It's faster, easier and you get far better data.
What about trim levels? Trim levels are crucial in the buying decision. For example, if you search for a Ford F-150 on your site, there is no way to see if it's an XLT, King Ranch, Raptor, etc. The price and equipment difference in those vehicles is huge.
What about options and equipment? Does the car have navigation? Sunroof? Most consumers have specific option packages in mind when searching for car online.
This is why VIN explosion is necessary for any serious automotive shopping site. If a consumer can't narrow the vehicles down to a trim and option package level then it won't get wide adoption.
Exactly. Anyone who takes a look at revenues in an industry that they know nothing about, then extrapolates that to some measure of profit is being fairly naive. He goes a step further and determines his domain is "worth it" based on his guess at the profits.
Of course, he has a great domain name and he is well within his rights to ask whatever he wants for it. But to imply it's affordable without having any factual data to back that up is a bit much.
A Utopia? Perhaps you are setting the Utopian bar a bit too low?
There was very little, if any freedom of expression or freedom of speech. Not very utopian.
Average citizens had their exposure to the outside world limited. Not very utopian.
Citizens lived in a very tightly controlled society. A society controlled by the government and secret police. Not my idea of utopia.
Even if the modern internet had existed then, it's doubtful that a citizen would even be allowed to come to a site like this and even have this discussion.
As far as the Stasi go, you can't just say "without them it would have been fine" because they are completely intertwined with that society. That society required very little or no dissent to continue and that is why the Stasi existed: To crush dissent and keep everyone thinking how wonderful their "utopian" existence was....
I think Jamie Smyth should get over himself. I understand his point about it not being particularly fair to the developers, but guess what? It's a free market and if developers choose to spend their time working for free for Campbells then that is their business. All of his self-righteous posturing about developers "having the most sought-after skills in America" comes off as very oddly paternal. We're all adults and we can all make our own decisions about how we choose to spend our time. Nobody tricked or forced those developers to work for free.
How do you plan on advertising this? If I'm looking for a DJ, etc, I wouldn't consider or think of looking for a site like this. I'd just use Google or ask friends for a reference. The network effect is tough to overcome; you've got to have sufficient entertainers and sufficient people who know to look for entertainers. Is this really an area where there is sufficient pain?
I don't mean to be a killjoy; I've run a software business for over 10 years and learned a few things along the way and the key thing I've learned is that I have to be solving a very real problem and I just don't see that here.
Geesh, and all anyone else here is saying that his political beliefs on anything else aren't relevant to anyone who is genuinely interested in helping the cause that Aaron fought for. Cornyn, for whatever his agenda might be, is trying to help. And that isn't good enough for you because he's a Republican. And that is just pathetic partisanship.
You're blasting Corynyn because you don't agree with his politics. Fine. But that has absolutely nothing to do with anything here.
But if a Democrat were to have written the same letter, that would have been ok with you? Then he wouldn't have been "a clown"?
Here we have a Senator who is at least drawing attention to the situation, but that isn't welcome because he comes from the wrong side of the aisle?
I'm sure Cornyn is using this for political gain. Of course he is. But if you think there is anyone in Washington who isn't motivated by political gain then your being very naive.
Developers are a small percentage of the overall market. Sure, we might think it's cool because it's running Ubuntu. But the vast majority of the population is going to look at it and say "How is this going to make my mobile experience better in a way that I don't already have from IOS or Android?"
I wish Canonical luck, but I just don't see my non-technical friends caring one whit about this phone unless it does something extraordinary that they can't get elsewhere. And I just don't see that happening.