
Ask HN: What software will you build if your financial needs were full covered? - curiousgeek
While many of us have reasonably fulfilling professional lives, there is still the need to make mortgage payments and other financial needs that will keep us grinding away at a day job for years to come. And thus we find ourselves working on problems or industry sectors that we don&#x27;t particularly care for.<p>So I wanted to try this thought experiment: Imagine that you are immediately freed of all financial obligations for the rest of your life (housing, taking care of family, saving for retirement etc).<p>What kind of software would you be bringing into existence <i>then</i>?
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benologist
I think we could be doing much more to enable the other 1/2 of humanity to
join us online as equals, Stripe Atlas is like a tentative step 1 of many.
People in developing countries face such stupid limitations that effectively
restrict them to just being consumers of the internet. I have some ideas
percolating that I hope will help democratize the internet a little bit more
for when I finish with my current company.

There are also a lot of shitty practices I would like to help erode - like
automatically converting abandoned free trials into paying customers, or not
providing an online way to cancel online trials etc. "Dark patterns" rely on
nobody calling them out.

Frivolous privacy violations and impediments are also an area of interest,
especially as the least democratic countries join us online encumbered by
hateful laws.

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lj3
I'd create an alternative mobile OS from the ground up. I've become
disillusioned with iOS and Android both. Neithor of them nor any of the
alternatives make full use of the hardware. Phones are capable of doing so
much, yet in practice they fail when you ask them to do much of anything.

Or, maybe I'd just build myself an electric motorcycle. There's a lot of
interesting work in Battery management these days and a motorcycle is a good
platform for experimentation.

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Lordarminius
> Or, maybe I'd just build myself an electric motorcycle...

If you do, and its well made and competitively priced, I guarantee you you
will become a billionaire in less than a decade.

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lj3
Doubtful. There are dozens if not hundreds of guys who have made their own
electric motorcycles[0]. Getting it to production is a whole other ballgame,
one that only two companies out of dozens have managed to pull off (Zero and
Brammo).

[0]: [http://www.evalbum.com/type/MTCY](http://www.evalbum.com/type/MTCY)

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Lordarminius
You must be from the West. I repeat, a competitively priced motorcycle would
upend the market and make you a very very rich.

The vast majority of motorbike users reside in Asia and Africa.

Imagine being able to charge your spare batteries using solar panels during
the day and no longer paying for gas; an electric engine would be quieter and
require less maintenance. In performance and ruggedness it would have to
supersede current offerings and I guess that is quite difficult or else
Yamaha, Honda, Sukam and the rest would have built one already.

If I were rich I would certainly consider funding such a project.

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lj3
> I repeat, a competitively priced motorcycle would upend the market and make
> you a very very rich.

There are dozens of cheap chinese knockoff electric scooters available in
Asia. Upend the market? Please.

> Imagine being able to charge your spare batteries using solar panels during
> the day and no longer paying for gas.

I don't have to imagine. Been there, done that, along with hundreds if not
thousands of others. As I said before, you have no idea what it takes to go
from a working prototype to a finished, mass produced shippable product.
There's a reason only 2 companies have ever pulled it off and one of them went
bankrupt. If you want a fun rabbit hole to dive down, google 'homologation'
sometime.

I'm not saying somebody with access to billions in capital can't eventually
break even and start making a profit, but we're talking a 10-20 year break
even period. Longer, if you have to do what Tesla did and create an entire
solar infrastructure in Asia and Africa.

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sharemywin
I've gotten bored with software so, I'll take your question and extend it to
my interests. Found a motor with pretty good torque(~2 ft/lbs):

[https://www.servocity.com/html/124_rpm_econ_gearmotor__63835...](https://www.servocity.com/html/124_rpm_econ_gearmotor__638352.html#.V3bIa_krJdg)

Want to turn it into a servo and eventually a robotic arm which could extend
out 3 ft and lift about 1-1.5 lbs. for about $200.

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strcpy1980
I would contribute to ReactOS — opensource reverse-engineered WindowsXP.

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jeditobe
+1

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msie
Too many dreams: I would build a better Second Life. A programming language.
Something to aid medical research. A low-cost, widely accessible medical
imaging solution (MRI would be the start).

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shylor
I would jump into community education and helping find opportunities.

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humbleMouse
I would build a better Soundcloud, and I would make a point of sales system
targeted at the medical marijuana market.

I would also make a dating website for artists.

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allendoerfer
Wow, you are consistent.

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humbleMouse
LOL, I suppose you can parse out a lot about my hobbies and interests by what
software I would make.

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partisan
An idea I have to encourage charitable giving, a SaaS. It would be for profit
because that would be a worthwhile motivation for me.

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purans
Would do farming, at the end world needs to eat

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J_Darnley
Well if all that were true and I had the skills to: a Winamp v5 clone, a
Firefox < v4 clone.

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dchun
I'd contribute to computer vision. It's a thorny field with lot's of
opportunity

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tmaly
I have wanted some solutions for learning for kids 2-4 years of age.

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bbcbasic
This one is good [http://readingeggs.com.au](http://readingeggs.com.au)

