
Too Much Suckage - drm237
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/04/too-much-suckage.html
======
wanorris
The set of things that will change the world is not at all the same thing as
the set of things that people will pay for. Linux has come a long way toward
changing the world (especially on the server side), and it's free. People
happily pay for the Wendy's Baconator and caramel Reese's Cups, but neither is
on track to change the world.

~~~
hank777
I dont think it says anything about things people pay for changing the world
or even that payment means something will change the world. In fact it says
"Or if its free, at least figuring out how to do some stuff that has the
potential to really make a difference". In other words if you are not going to
make money at least do something important. Clearly linux would qualify.

~~~
wanorris
The article references three different posts about how startups need to aim
higher and try to change the world, then conflates it with "trying to do
something really useful like making things that people actually _want_ to pay
for," before falling back to the comment on "or if it's free."

My point is that making something people will pay for is vastly different from
what any of those articles he was referencing is talking about.

Honestly, the whole post kind of struck me as a retread dressed up to be
linkbait. Which, ironically, is what he's complaining about in startups.

~~~
aston
By "he," you mean "you." Grandparent poster is the author.

------
glymor
Well, I agree that everything sucks, particularly the article, it had almost
nothing to redeem it.

It not a new problem, thinking of new things is hard, trying to convince
people to want new things is harder. I'm pretty sure there's a pg essay about
it, it should be practically canonical my now.

------
dgabriel
Sturgeon's Law, baby. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law>

------
0x28aa1f185a6b4
It is foolish to blame startups for this. Non-business consumers will not,
with extremely rare exception, pay for anything online. There will always be
another startup that will be willing to give your product away for free if
it's successful. So what does suck? Consumers.

Also, the iphone doesn't really have much to do with the "web"...

~~~
tx
_"There will always be another startup that will be willing to give your
product away for free"_

If you're product is so easy to copy that _another_ company will be able to
give customer _the exact your product_ for free, then yes - lame startups are
to blame. Gimp has been "giving Photoshop away" for years but it doesn't stop
Adobe from charging $600 for it.

How can you blame customers for not willing to pay you for what you've made?
Imagine General Motors blaming Americans for not buying enough Silverados in
their quarterly earnings report.

Business models employed by most "Web 2.0" startups are old. They're nothing
but electronic versions of magazines. There have always been subscription-
based periodicals, 100% ad-supported publications and many more in between.
People always paid for the good stuff.

The problem is: that there is "nothing to read", and of course there isn't,
since most startups aren't solving the problem of "creating". Instead
everybody is into sharing, discovering, aggregating.

Just imagine a news stand with hundreds of magazines that have short snippets
of actual articles from another magazines, claiming that their "content" is
pre-filtered to fit your preferences by thousands of editors.

Will you pay?

~~~
0x28aa1f185a6b4
Everyone does steal photoshop except for when it is for business related use.
So you have not invalidated my point.

Again, don't compare non-web products to web based. It is vastly different.

Yes it is perfectly fine to blame the normal customer for what he wants and
what he is willing to pay. I myself have very different tastes than the normal
customer. At least faulting the customer makes more sense than blaming the
startups that are just doing what makes the most money. The consumers can
change their mind about what companies they will make successful but the
companies cannot change what the customers desire.

No real exit is based around the "magazine business model".

~~~
tx
_Again, don't compare non-web products to web based. It is vastly different._

No they aren't. Flickr Pro, Quicken, Mac OSX and the toaster in my kitchen are
all exactly the same: I saw them, liked them and paid money to get them.

Stop thinking that you're different. First, you aren't. Second, it's not
healthy.

~~~
0x28aa1f185a6b4
You pay money for anything you like regardless of if there is a free version
that is just as good in every way?

~~~
tx
Well, don't build easily reproducible shit then. Become a Photoshop, not Gimp.
There isn't anything "as good in every way" as Flickr. And if you give me a
crappy toaster as a gift, I'll throw it away and pay for a better one.

I don't understand why "web 2.0" entrepreneurs think they're different. I can
imagine it may be hard for many to accept that what they do isn't worth a dime
in consumers' eyes. Accept it and move on - build something with value, and do
it better than the next guy.

~~~
0x28aa1f185a6b4
Stop bringing up non-web products. If they are not at all different then you
wouldn't have to keep doing that.

People would not pay for toasters if you could download them for free. This is
getting idiotic.

~~~
tx
_Stop bringing up non-web products. This is getting idiotic._

Indeed. You still don't get it.

