

Ask HN: Which web apps you pay for suck? - KishoreKumar

I'm talking about those web apps you are paying for yet not satisfied. May be you didn't like the UI or you think it is overpriced or you aren't getting enough out of it?
======
Jd
I purchased a year subscription to RescueTime but now think it was a total
waste of money and configuration. It is a minor curiosity to see where I spend
my time, but gimmicks to keep me from doing things I am otherwise inclined to
do (like spending an hour or so on HN a day), are not good long-term solutions
-- often ultimately creating a backlash as they are perceived as solutions.

For example, I know someone who created a weight-losing app in which you bid
against yourself to meet certain goals for losing weight. It is sort of a
perverse incentive and it is much better to encourage healthy habits (e.g.
exercising, eating better) than try to stop people from doing things that they
have an inclination to do. As an example, it is better to give someone who
only knows McDonalds a good burger so that they go out of their way to eat a
good burger (presumably less frequently) rather than creating a system that
gives them a minor electric shock every time they show up at McDonalds.

I suppose you could make a case for RescueTime on the basis of monitoring your
employees, but I'm also generally opposed to this also. You should basically
only hire employees that want to do their job, rather than hiring people or
tools to monitor and "enforce" productivity.

Which is to say, peak productivity comes from within and from being engaged in
the project one is doing, rather than any quantity of external stimuli. I
stopped perceiving a need for RescueTime as soon as I left behind crappy
consulting gigs and started doing things I enjoyed again.

~~~
michaeldhopkins
If you have 1.00+ scores, the positive feeling from being way up in the blue
is nice. Also, I have a max distraction goal and I get some reinforcement from
not seeing it until late in the day if at all. However, I agree I'm paying for
little more than to support the free service.

~~~
Jd
Yeah, the being way up in the blue is nice, but it all depends on how you
weight the programs.

~~~
michaeldhopkins
Do you change many settings? I rate what's not categorized (mostly netflix -2
and my project sites as +2) but leave default settings almost whenever I can.
Its ability to give useful reports immediately is what I like about it.

~~~
Jd
A bit, but so much for me ended up being generic browser usage (I also use a
web-based browser) that not all that much was useful. I think it might have
been a bug in RescueTime that didn't always capture the information on the
site visited in the browser.

Anyways, I don't think about it much, I don't use it, and I don't miss it.

------
matdwyer
It doesn't "suck" at all, but I wish Freshbooks did a whole lot more. I've
sent in at least 5 feature requests that seem relatively simple, but are
dismissed (as far as I know).

I'm happy with the service and pay the $30 bucks without cringing, but it
could be much better.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Tried Invoice Machine?

~~~
matdwyer
Nope, I'm pretty committed with Freshbooks at this point. Here are some of the
features I'd love though: 1) Ability to upload files to my invoices 2) Ability
to send as a PDF 3) Ability to use my customers address data in ways that lets
me analyze it (i.e. geographic distribution, avg. invoice price per city, etc)
4) Ability to discount specific line items rather than global 5) Sending HTML
emails 6) Default payment methods (per customer or globably) 7) Custom payment
methods (i.e. marking payments as "email money transfers - this one they said
they will put in for a next release)

Anyway, I'm just telling them anything I can think of as I can see on their
forum that they have a lot of user feedback. If enough people want something
I'm sure it will come aometime)

The coolest and most useful thing would be analytics with the data they
have... I'm sure it wouldn't be horribly difficult either, if I can export the
customer data I'm sure I could do it myself (oh there is another one, I don't
think I can export my data easily)

------
pasbesoin
I guess you could consider Safari a "web app", of sorts. I like access to the
content including from any machine having a web connection -- but the
interface has remained an uncooperative, buggy PITA for some time, now.

