Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?
Are there problems that by nature can't be solved by businesses because they aren't profitable? What are they? How should they be approached?
42 comments
There are degrees of profitability. Some businesses aren't profitable from a VC standpoint but are by a lifestyle business standpoint. Some businesses aren't profitable from a small business workforce standpoint but are profitable from a single person workforce standpoint. Some businesses aren't profitable from a certain geographical and political standpoint but are profitable from a different geographical and political standpoint (United States vs. China, and visa versa, for example).
I'll give you an example. A friend of mine sells small (US Quarter sized) stickers in sheets to Walmart and Walgreens and a few other smaller retailers in a small geographic area. He makes right about $1,000,000.00 a year in net profit (in stickers, I kid you not). This business is very profitable for himself. His business would not be profitable to a VC or a Incubator because it does not scale well and has certain risks associated with it. But he's quite happy with it.
He had a problem recently. Packaging the stickers (literally pulling the sheets off of rolls and putting them into self sealing plastic baggies) was costing him too much. Not in actual packaging costs but in finding reliable labor that could complete the task in a timely fashion so he could make his production deadlines. Solution: I made a very small business packaging the stickers for him at $0.06 per completed package. Now he can worry about the sales of his stickers and other business needs he has and I can worry about making sure the packaging is taken care of on time. The whole business will make around $120,000.00 a year gross. I will net far less than that. Is that profitable? Not from a VC standpoint. Not from a single owner standpoint (I could live on that but I don't want to). But... my daughter and her friends who want work while being in college full time find the work very fulfilling and very profitable.
So, profitability is a bit of a weird thing to ask about. We need a lot more information if you'd like us to answer what types of currently unprofitable business ventures might be solvable by you.
I'll give you an example. A friend of mine sells small (US Quarter sized) stickers in sheets to Walmart and Walgreens and a few other smaller retailers in a small geographic area. He makes right about $1,000,000.00 a year in net profit (in stickers, I kid you not). This business is very profitable for himself. His business would not be profitable to a VC or a Incubator because it does not scale well and has certain risks associated with it. But he's quite happy with it.
He had a problem recently. Packaging the stickers (literally pulling the sheets off of rolls and putting them into self sealing plastic baggies) was costing him too much. Not in actual packaging costs but in finding reliable labor that could complete the task in a timely fashion so he could make his production deadlines. Solution: I made a very small business packaging the stickers for him at $0.06 per completed package. Now he can worry about the sales of his stickers and other business needs he has and I can worry about making sure the packaging is taken care of on time. The whole business will make around $120,000.00 a year gross. I will net far less than that. Is that profitable? Not from a VC standpoint. Not from a single owner standpoint (I could live on that but I don't want to). But... my daughter and her friends who want work while being in college full time find the work very fulfilling and very profitable.
So, profitability is a bit of a weird thing to ask about. We need a lot more information if you'd like us to answer what types of currently unprofitable business ventures might be solvable by you.
"Some businesses aren't profitable from a VC standpoint but are by a lifestyle business standpoint. Some businesses aren't profitable from a small business workforce standpoint but are profitable from a single person workforce standpoint."
well said, the stickers anecdote is amazing by the way.
well said, the stickers anecdote is amazing by the way.
I was just as amazed when I figured out what he did. Talk about the literal “millionaire next door”. Stickers! Who knew?
Does his name start with a B and he spent considerable time in Japan? If so, I may know him. If not, amazing to hear of multiple millionaires from stickers!!!
Almost anything that involves people NOT doing something.
For example: let's say you dislike the idea of people clubbing baby seals to death for their skins and want to reduce or eliminate the practice. If you start a business buying up seal habitats and selling them to ecological investors that derive utility from there being fewer seal deaths, all that happens is the price of seal skins spikes and (eventually) more and more people get involved in the business, bringing things down to equilibrium again.
It's the same reason that buying all the slaves in the world won't get rid of slavery - it will just encourage MORE of it.
For example: let's say you dislike the idea of people clubbing baby seals to death for their skins and want to reduce or eliminate the practice. If you start a business buying up seal habitats and selling them to ecological investors that derive utility from there being fewer seal deaths, all that happens is the price of seal skins spikes and (eventually) more and more people get involved in the business, bringing things down to equilibrium again.
It's the same reason that buying all the slaves in the world won't get rid of slavery - it will just encourage MORE of it.
There are also problems that can't be solved by businesses because they ARE profitable.
For instance, a lot of aspects of poverty. Because people living paycheck to paycheck are desperate for cash and typically don't have enough savings to open bank accounts, they're easy prey for money lending at incredibly high interest rates - including payday loans and pawn shops; and for check-cashing services that take a significant cut of their paycheck. If your credit score is low, you may be able to get a pre-paid debit card (since credit/debit cards are necessary these days even to do things like open App Store accounts so you can get [even free] apps on your phone in order to do things like apply to jobs or know when the bus is coming), but it'll eat away at your money with monthly fees - whereas if you have good credit and pay your balance monthly you can be fee free.
For instance, a lot of aspects of poverty. Because people living paycheck to paycheck are desperate for cash and typically don't have enough savings to open bank accounts, they're easy prey for money lending at incredibly high interest rates - including payday loans and pawn shops; and for check-cashing services that take a significant cut of their paycheck. If your credit score is low, you may be able to get a pre-paid debit card (since credit/debit cards are necessary these days even to do things like open App Store accounts so you can get [even free] apps on your phone in order to do things like apply to jobs or know when the bus is coming), but it'll eat away at your money with monthly fees - whereas if you have good credit and pay your balance monthly you can be fee free.
There should be a line drawn between services that cater to lower income people that are blatantly exploitative and those that appear to be profitable but are highly risky.
Pawn shops and loan sharks are explorative. Yet, there has been much research done in recent years on the business of check-cashers and payday loans. They may appear profitable based on fees, yet the reason they charge fees or higher interest rates are due to the high cost of serving their populations. A higher risk of default means a higher rate of borrowing to compensate for the risk. Lisa Servon at Penn has done a lot of interesting work on this topic, and financial services for underserved populations in general: https://www.lisaservon.com
Pawn shops and loan sharks are explorative. Yet, there has been much research done in recent years on the business of check-cashers and payday loans. They may appear profitable based on fees, yet the reason they charge fees or higher interest rates are due to the high cost of serving their populations. A higher risk of default means a higher rate of borrowing to compensate for the risk. Lisa Servon at Penn has done a lot of interesting work on this topic, and financial services for underserved populations in general: https://www.lisaservon.com
Yes, they solve one problem related to poverty. But because their motive is profit, they can do so only at a cost that exacerbates the underlying problem of not having enough money.
Sure, it certainly does. Yet there are also for-profit solutions that are helping significantly with poverty as well and helping people manage the cash flow and savings issues of being poor — take Instant Financial, for instance, which allows workers to get paid daily[1], and Walmart’s MoneyCard app, which uses behavioral finance to trick people into saving money.
When we close ourselves off to the idea that financial insecurity cannot be solved profitably, we close ourselves off to a multitude of potential solutions.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/apps-let-workers-make-every-day... [2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article...
When we close ourselves off to the idea that financial insecurity cannot be solved profitably, we close ourselves off to a multitude of potential solutions.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/apps-let-workers-make-every-day... [2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article...
Medical and health are significantly harmed by most for-profit models. You pay your doctor and big pharma for treatment, not for a resolution of the problem. This is an inherent conflict of interest.
I have a serious medical condition. I walked away from conventional treatment. I have thought a lot about how to share information about what works. Even sharing that info comes with huge challenges. I am still trying to solve that angle and may never figure it out. Figuring out monetization is even further out and looks pretty hopeless.
I have a serious medical condition. I walked away from conventional treatment. I have thought a lot about how to share information about what works. Even sharing that info comes with huge challenges. I am still trying to solve that angle and may never figure it out. Figuring out monetization is even further out and looks pretty hopeless.
That's because people will pay for a cure / treatment when they are sick. Unfortunately they won't pay for prevention so that they wouldn't get sick in the first place.
Besides doctors can't guarantee a resolution, they can only guarantee treatment. If doctors would get paid only for a cure, it would just create different problems. Some people would be refused treatment because the odds of getting paid would be too low, others would have their treatment stopped because continuing would likely be unprofitable and only large institutions would be able to afford to provide services since only they could play the numbers in order to statistically stay profitable.
Besides doctors can't guarantee a resolution, they can only guarantee treatment. If doctors would get paid only for a cure, it would just create different problems. Some people would be refused treatment because the odds of getting paid would be too low, others would have their treatment stopped because continuing would likely be unprofitable and only large institutions would be able to afford to provide services since only they could play the numbers in order to statistically stay profitable.
Historically, we had a tradition of having religious types also provide health care, a la the tribal medicine man who was both a spiritual leader and person who would treat medical stuff.
Doctors under a for profit model are not remotely the only possible approach to this problem space. Some good for profit health models include gym memberships and green grocers. Eating right plays a very important role in health and welfare and you don't have to wait until you are sick to wonder if your diet could stand to be improved.
Doctors under a for profit model are not remotely the only possible approach to this problem space. Some good for profit health models include gym memberships and green grocers. Eating right plays a very important role in health and welfare and you don't have to wait until you are sick to wonder if your diet could stand to be improved.
Historical practices are not counterarguments against for profit models of medicine. Even if it was, historic non-profit models do not scale.
Doctors for profit might not be the only model, but I'd like to see you propose any other model that actually works.
> Eating right plays a very important role in health and welfare and you don't have to wait until you are sick to wonder if your diet could stand to be improved.
Er, you do know most people are either overweight or obese? It's once thing to know what's right to do, but people don't do it or spend money on it.
Doctors for profit might not be the only model, but I'd like to see you propose any other model that actually works.
> Eating right plays a very important role in health and welfare and you don't have to wait until you are sick to wonder if your diet could stand to be improved.
Er, you do know most people are either overweight or obese? It's once thing to know what's right to do, but people don't do it or spend money on it.
I used to weigh 245 pounds. I am a lot smaller these days.
Good for you! Not that I know what it has to do with the issue at hand.
There is an excess of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans, leading to global warming and ocean acidification.
There hasn't been a profitable way to reduce that excess. It doesn't appear like there will be a profitable way.
There hasn't been a profitable way to reduce that excess. It doesn't appear like there will be a profitable way.
Actually someone has worked out a way of making a profit from reducing CO2 by causing algal blooms in the deep ocean via phosphate fertilization [0]. The basic concept is you use the blooms to support fisheries that provide the profit - fish are expensive these days.
0.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_fertilization#Phosphorus
0.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_fertilization#Phosphorus
I don't think it's economically feasible. The amount of CO2 reduction needed will drop the cost of fish enormously, such that there isn't the profit to make it be sustainable.
The world produces about 5 metric tons of CO2 per capita ("only fossil fuels and cement manufacture", says Wikipedia). 27% of that is carbon.
That's 1 ton of carbon per person.
Let's assume fish are pure carbon.
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/fisheries/l-2/06-fish-consumpti... says "Preliminary estimates for 2006 indicate a slight increase in global per capita fish supply to about 16.7 kg."
That's rather smaller than 1 ton.
https://www.popsci.com/were-catching-way-more-fish-than-we-t... says we currently take about "130 million tons of fish out of the oceans".
Fish aren't pure carbon. In humans, carbon is 18% of the body. I'll assume it's about the same for fish. That's 7.5 metric tons of fish, per capita, per year.
Another way to think of the sizes, and realize how small the fish population is, comes from https://what-if.xkcd.com/33/ :
> Marine fish biomass dropped by 80% over the last century, which—taking into consideration the growth rate of the world’s shipping fleet—leads to an odd conclusion: Sometime in the last few years, we reached a point where there are, by weight, more ships in the ocean than fish.
The world produces about 5 metric tons of CO2 per capita ("only fossil fuels and cement manufacture", says Wikipedia). 27% of that is carbon.
That's 1 ton of carbon per person.
Let's assume fish are pure carbon.
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/fisheries/l-2/06-fish-consumpti... says "Preliminary estimates for 2006 indicate a slight increase in global per capita fish supply to about 16.7 kg."
That's rather smaller than 1 ton.
https://www.popsci.com/were-catching-way-more-fish-than-we-t... says we currently take about "130 million tons of fish out of the oceans".
Fish aren't pure carbon. In humans, carbon is 18% of the body. I'll assume it's about the same for fish. That's 7.5 metric tons of fish, per capita, per year.
Another way to think of the sizes, and realize how small the fish population is, comes from https://what-if.xkcd.com/33/ :
> Marine fish biomass dropped by 80% over the last century, which—taking into consideration the growth rate of the world’s shipping fleet—leads to an odd conclusion: Sometime in the last few years, we reached a point where there are, by weight, more ships in the ocean than fish.
It is a lot more complex than this (more than a HC post), but the simple version is most of the carbon captured is due to carbon rich waste products falling below 200m (about 400t of carbon for every t of phosphate), while the money is made from selling the fish.
I did a rather detailed investigation into the scheme a few years ago. The end result is provided you have a cheap source of phosphate (phosphate-rich rock is fine) and a good slow release system (think something like pumice), then the whole thing is both a massive money spinner and will capture enough carbon to reverse the current CO2 rise.
I did a rather detailed investigation into the scheme a few years ago. The end result is provided you have a cheap source of phosphate (phosphate-rich rock is fine) and a good slow release system (think something like pumice), then the whole thing is both a massive money spinner and will capture enough carbon to reverse the current CO2 rise.
I agree it's complex. I see I also made a mistake - my calculations were for "fish and fish wastes", not "fish".
I still don't see how the numbers work out. You need about 7 tons of fish+waste per year to keep CO2 levels as they are. Only a few tens of kilos of those will be extracted via fishing.
The numbers I see are something like 1.5 kg feed for 1kg of salmon, so there's not that much waste.
You're going to have to cover huge amounts of ocean, as otherwise you're limited by the diffusion rate.
And what's the supply curve for fish? If twice as many fish are harvested, would the prices be the same? What about 10x as many fish?
How much fish are needed to reverse the current CO2 rise?
Then there are other questions like, will it induce algal blooms? if there's a surplus of phosphate then what becomes the limiting nutrient?
I still don't see how the numbers work out. You need about 7 tons of fish+waste per year to keep CO2 levels as they are. Only a few tens of kilos of those will be extracted via fishing.
The numbers I see are something like 1.5 kg feed for 1kg of salmon, so there's not that much waste.
You're going to have to cover huge amounts of ocean, as otherwise you're limited by the diffusion rate.
And what's the supply curve for fish? If twice as many fish are harvested, would the prices be the same? What about 10x as many fish?
How much fish are needed to reverse the current CO2 rise?
Then there are other questions like, will it induce algal blooms? if there's a surplus of phosphate then what becomes the limiting nutrient?
I think where you might be going astray is confusing the biomass of the fish with the carbon fixed. The fish sit at the top of the food chain and account for a tiny percentage of the carbon captured - they are just the profit center.
Most of the carbon is fixed by phytoplankton and the next stage in the food chain. As these die the carbon in the water column increases and eventually the excess carbon settles below 200m where it is trapped for thousands/millions of years.
The limiting factor to primary productivity in most oceans is the phosphate concentration. As long as you don't release too much phosphate at once then you limit the algal growth. You get around 400 tons of carbon fixed for every ton of phosphate added.
Yes we are going to have to use a large amount of the deep ocean, but there is more than enough ocean to do the job.
Most of the carbon is fixed by phytoplankton and the next stage in the food chain. As these die the carbon in the water column increases and eventually the excess carbon settles below 200m where it is trapped for thousands/millions of years.
The limiting factor to primary productivity in most oceans is the phosphate concentration. As long as you don't release too much phosphate at once then you limit the algal growth. You get around 400 tons of carbon fixed for every ton of phosphate added.
Yes we are going to have to use a large amount of the deep ocean, but there is more than enough ocean to do the job.
Thank you. Yes, that was what I was missing.
"400 tons of carbon for every ton of phosphate added" ... how long does that take? It's diffusion limited, yes?
Ahh, I followed the Wikipedia link to https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/5539/2009/acp-9-5539-2009.... .
> Ocean fertilisation options are only worthwhile if sustained on a millennial timescale and phosphorus addition may have greater long-term potential than iron or nitrogen fertilisation.
How long would it take a company to be in the black with phosphorous mining? First the phytoplankton, then eventually the fish, so that's a few years of waiting, yes?
Since fish move, isn't this the sort of project where one company pays to put the phosphorus in but other companies can profit off the increased fish? So it requires a change to the international fishing laws for the fertilisation company to make a profit?
"400 tons of carbon for every ton of phosphate added" ... how long does that take? It's diffusion limited, yes?
Ahh, I followed the Wikipedia link to https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/5539/2009/acp-9-5539-2009.... .
> Ocean fertilisation options are only worthwhile if sustained on a millennial timescale and phosphorus addition may have greater long-term potential than iron or nitrogen fertilisation.
How long would it take a company to be in the black with phosphorous mining? First the phytoplankton, then eventually the fish, so that's a few years of waiting, yes?
Since fish move, isn't this the sort of project where one company pays to put the phosphorus in but other companies can profit off the increased fish? So it requires a change to the international fishing laws for the fertilisation company to make a profit?
You actually have to provide homes for the fish (floating structures) that act like a surface wreck. The fish then hang around the floating material and and breed and grow.
The response to phosphate addition is surprisingly fast - depending the fish you wanted to harvest you are looking at a couple of years at most before you had a harvestable amount of fish to sell.
The law in this area is uncertain. Under the various international treaties it is not legal to dump garbage in the oceans, but no one is exactly sure where phosphate fertilisation sits. Even if turns out to be illegal all you need to do is find a friendly pacific island nation and do all the phosphate dumping in their waters and let the ocean currents do the work for you :)
The nice thing about this idea is that it turns what appears to be an impossible dream and makes it possible to make a profit solving it.
The response to phosphate addition is surprisingly fast - depending the fish you wanted to harvest you are looking at a couple of years at most before you had a harvestable amount of fish to sell.
The law in this area is uncertain. Under the various international treaties it is not legal to dump garbage in the oceans, but no one is exactly sure where phosphate fertilisation sits. Even if turns out to be illegal all you need to do is find a friendly pacific island nation and do all the phosphate dumping in their waters and let the ocean currents do the work for you :)
The nice thing about this idea is that it turns what appears to be an impossible dream and makes it possible to make a profit solving it.
Thank you for your patience with me. Your comments were quite informative. I'm now well beyond the point where I can make even somewhat relevant questions, much less comments. :)
EDIT: Oh, wait, I do have one more question. In order for this to be an effective form of carbon reduction, how much will the fish population increase? As the supply goes up, the prices will go down, and I'm still not convinced that the amount of carbon capture needed is economically justified by the increase in fish supply.
EDIT: Oh, wait, I do have one more question. In order for this to be an effective form of carbon reduction, how much will the fish population increase? As the supply goes up, the prices will go down, and I'm still not convinced that the amount of carbon capture needed is economically justified by the increase in fish supply.
This is a rather hard question to answer as it would depend on how elastic demand is for fish and how efficiently the phosphate is converted to fish.
You could choose to run the whole operation semi-inefficiently where you chose to only catch and sell a portion of the fish, or use the fish as feed for other higher value fish like salmon and bluefin tuna.
My minor contribution to the idea was to workout that you don’t need purified phosphate to fertilise the oceans. We could just use phosphate rich rock to make a slow release pumice-like fertiliser that floats on the surface (using a photo-degradable polymer). This gets the phosphate cost down from around US$1600/t to something under $50/t. I wrote a paper on this many years ago, but I never got around to publishing it. I might try and turn it into a blog post if I get a chance.
You could choose to run the whole operation semi-inefficiently where you chose to only catch and sell a portion of the fish, or use the fish as feed for other higher value fish like salmon and bluefin tuna.
My minor contribution to the idea was to workout that you don’t need purified phosphate to fertilise the oceans. We could just use phosphate rich rock to make a slow release pumice-like fertiliser that floats on the surface (using a photo-degradable polymer). This gets the phosphate cost down from around US$1600/t to something under $50/t. I wrote a paper on this many years ago, but I never got around to publishing it. I might try and turn it into a blog post if I get a chance.
[deleted]
My sister has a very serious, rare, disease. No companies have incentives to innovate in this field (pharma or whatever).
There are lots of rare diseases that need someone to find funding and push the research.
Saw this one in the WSJ:
https://themighty.com/author/luke-rosen/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-the-way-to-a-rare-disease-cu...
And this one on ABC News tonight:
https://donate.curecmt4j.org/campaign/cure-cmt4j-advancing-g...
Saw this one in the WSJ:
https://themighty.com/author/luke-rosen/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-the-way-to-a-rare-disease-cu...
And this one on ABC News tonight:
https://donate.curecmt4j.org/campaign/cure-cmt4j-advancing-g...
In the US, the FDA tries to incentivize it:
https://www.fda.gov/ForIndustry/DevelopingProductsforRareDis...
The problem is this results in drugs that cost a fortune and still only helps a small percentage of sufferers, like the $300k drug for CF that only helps 5% of CF patients.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/nova-scotia/cystic-fibros...
https://www.fda.gov/ForIndustry/DevelopingProductsforRareDis...
The problem is this results in drugs that cost a fortune and still only helps a small percentage of sufferers, like the $300k drug for CF that only helps 5% of CF patients.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/nova-scotia/cystic-fibros...
Pure math, pollution, educating people with no money, income inequality, homelessness, universal health care, ...
Re: Homelessness. I have two profitable solotions for you:
1) Build affordable housing.
2) Create flexible earning opportunities that serve the types of people who are at high risk of homelessness. Ideally, make them accessible to both homeless and housed people.
A lot of homeless people have some income, just not enough to finance a middle-class life. The US has largely eliminated affordable housing, which can be profitable but probably has low profit margins.
1) Build affordable housing.
2) Create flexible earning opportunities that serve the types of people who are at high risk of homelessness. Ideally, make them accessible to both homeless and housed people.
A lot of homeless people have some income, just not enough to finance a middle-class life. The US has largely eliminated affordable housing, which can be profitable but probably has low profit margins.
If there was money in solving homelessness it would already have been done. If you tried to do this you would be rapidly discouraged. Just like some products don't have positive unit economics, some people don't have positive unit economics. The big "profit" from solving homelessness would be peace of mind and a better experience walking down the street. Hard to make money from these things.
I know of a writing service that works well for handicapped people (or single parents, etc) to make money flexibly. The service profitable and working for them helped me get off the street and back into housing.
They have no goal of "solving homelessness." They are just looking to be a successful writing service. People who sign up are 1099 contract workers. I am not the only homeless person who ever worked for them.
I am currently in the process of trying to figure out how to foster more of this locally. I would like to help people with the kinds of barriers to employment who are at high risk of homelessness to figure out how to make money online. I am going to public meetings and talking with folks. So far, I have been well received. It has not been a discouraging experience.
What I have to show so far from the little amount of time I have invested up to this point is a new website aimed at becoming a resource for Independent Digital Workers:
http://independentdigitalworkers.blogspot.com/
The cheap rental I currently live in that got me off the street is market based housing. It is a for profit thing. It is not part of some homeless services program or other charity. My landlord is making money off getting me off the street.
I have also applied for a job where I have proposed developing Independent Digital Workers further as part of that job. So I find myself sitting here wondering if there is any way to "take your bet."
If I get the job and some local organization pays me to help reduce homelessness locally, would that count in your eyes as profiting from my solutions? Or would you find some new excuse to simply be dismissive?
I suspect the answer is the latter. I am pretty appalled at hearing you say that some people don't have positive unit economics. Pronouncements like that tend to be self fulfilling prophecies. There are myriad ways to sabotage someone's efforts to make their life work and see to it that they are incapable of having positive unit economics.
People with such attitudes in online forums were the bane of my existence while I was homeless. They not only would not give me useful answers to my questions about "How does one make money online?" they also were contemptuous, dismissive and actively did what they could to undermine my efforts to figure out how to make money online. I firmly believe that if I had gotten genuine support instead of this nonsense, it would have taken me less time to build my online income and I would be in better shape financially.
They have no goal of "solving homelessness." They are just looking to be a successful writing service. People who sign up are 1099 contract workers. I am not the only homeless person who ever worked for them.
I am currently in the process of trying to figure out how to foster more of this locally. I would like to help people with the kinds of barriers to employment who are at high risk of homelessness to figure out how to make money online. I am going to public meetings and talking with folks. So far, I have been well received. It has not been a discouraging experience.
What I have to show so far from the little amount of time I have invested up to this point is a new website aimed at becoming a resource for Independent Digital Workers:
http://independentdigitalworkers.blogspot.com/
The cheap rental I currently live in that got me off the street is market based housing. It is a for profit thing. It is not part of some homeless services program or other charity. My landlord is making money off getting me off the street.
I have also applied for a job where I have proposed developing Independent Digital Workers further as part of that job. So I find myself sitting here wondering if there is any way to "take your bet."
If I get the job and some local organization pays me to help reduce homelessness locally, would that count in your eyes as profiting from my solutions? Or would you find some new excuse to simply be dismissive?
I suspect the answer is the latter. I am pretty appalled at hearing you say that some people don't have positive unit economics. Pronouncements like that tend to be self fulfilling prophecies. There are myriad ways to sabotage someone's efforts to make their life work and see to it that they are incapable of having positive unit economics.
People with such attitudes in online forums were the bane of my existence while I was homeless. They not only would not give me useful answers to my questions about "How does one make money online?" they also were contemptuous, dismissive and actively did what they could to undermine my efforts to figure out how to make money online. I firmly believe that if I had gotten genuine support instead of this nonsense, it would have taken me less time to build my online income and I would be in better shape financially.
If you are on Hackernews posting well written comments then I think you don't fall into this category of people who I would say have negative unit economics. But consider people with down's syndrome or severe mental disorders. Should we leave these people out to dry? I certainly don't think so. However, are they ever going to be able to contribute more to society than society contributes to them? Probably not. This might not be politically correct but I think the more we can accept reality the better we can do to improve it. There are no safety nets in the US, you are always a few disasters away from being homeless, this is a real problem that needs to be fixed, even if solving this problem costs more dollars than it generates.
Most people on the street do not fall into the categories you list here.
When I was homeless, my comments on the internet were full of typos and other problems. People dismissed me as a delusional lunatic. Etc.
If anything, I am absolute proof of how wrong you are, yet you will not acknowledge it.
My claim that there are solutions that can be both profitable and effective is not an assertion that we should abandon people with Down's Syndrome.
I think the best I can say is that you and I are talking past each other. That still doesn't make it a positive experience for me to have my ideas so completely dismissed, but I don't really expect that engaging you further will go anywhere good.
When I was homeless, my comments on the internet were full of typos and other problems. People dismissed me as a delusional lunatic. Etc.
If anything, I am absolute proof of how wrong you are, yet you will not acknowledge it.
My claim that there are solutions that can be both profitable and effective is not an assertion that we should abandon people with Down's Syndrome.
I think the best I can say is that you and I are talking past each other. That still doesn't make it a positive experience for me to have my ideas so completely dismissed, but I don't really expect that engaging you further will go anywhere good.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
I think you were looking for this
I think you were looking for this
Death. Oh wait, Nevermind...
Racism
I would argue that racism is impeded by the profit incentive. If someone refuses to trade or interact with another on the grounds of race, they act against profit.
But racism isn't defined by or limited to refusal to trade with certain individuals. That is to say economics is only one intersection in the set of racist behavior present in our society, eliminating those economic inequality does not solve structural inequality.
Furthermore, it's so important to demographics in the midwest that they're able to refuse service to individuals they perceive as 'others' that laws have been created protecting economic discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_...
Anecdotally, There's a pizza place in Indiana that went on the news and clearly stated they refuse to service to gay couples. The pizza store owners then raised $800,000 from kickstarter. While it's definitely an anecdote, I think it shows that discrimination can actually be quite profitable.
Furthermore, it's so important to demographics in the midwest that they're able to refuse service to individuals they perceive as 'others' that laws have been created protecting economic discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_...
Anecdotally, There's a pizza place in Indiana that went on the news and clearly stated they refuse to service to gay couples. The pizza store owners then raised $800,000 from kickstarter. While it's definitely an anecdote, I think it shows that discrimination can actually be quite profitable.
There is gold in the ocean, in very small quantities. It's not viable to extract it.
That's not really a problem.