
Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008) - evsamsonov
http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html
======
abalone
My take (just the first five):

 _1\. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom._

Spotify & Apple Music. Pay $10/mo for unlimited access to most music. Took the
wind out of music piracy. (TV & film are undergoing a similar transition to
subscription models, more slowly.)

 _2\. Simplified browsing...Grandparents and small children don 't want the
full web..._

Apps. Remember this list is from just one year after the iPhone launched, so
everything was still "the web". It was almost unthinkable that native,
installed apps would have such a resurgence. But the iPad is exactly this, a
simplified computer that young kids and grandparents love to use.

 _3\. New news._

Still in flux. Nobody has figured out a business model. Over the past century
consumers were trained to expect free, ad-supported news. Surprisingly, online
ads have not worked out well for publishers.

 _4\. Outsourced IT. & 5\. Enterprise software 2.0._

AWS. There's a lot of higher-level SaaS packaged services too and it sounds
like that's what pg was envisioning. But the real hero here is AWS and its
"primitives"-based, bottom-up approach to outsourcing all computing.

~~~
hakanito
> 3\. New news

I think this is where blockchain tech will prosper. Integrated wallet in you
browser and nano payments to purchase access to articles. I don't want to
subscribe to FT or New York Times, because I only read one or two articles per
week. But I would happily pay 50c per article to get a few days access

~~~
ghaff
Micropayments as an idea have been around for maybe 20 years. The technology
isn’t really the problem and you don’t need blockchain. You just need a
centralized frictionless payment system that everyone uses. Clay Shirky wrote
off the problem to transaction costs. It’s too much mental energy to decide
whether to pay 10 cents to read an article.

I don’t disagree it would be nice. $100 per year subscriptions are a pretty
high bar for me. But the evidence that people will consume digital news and
other articles transactionally just isn’t there.

------
lr4444lr
Fix news? _it was enough to keep writing stories about how the president met
with someone and they each said conventional things written in advance by
their staffs_

Yeah, we now recognize that as propaganda. Maybe the web is finally helping
people wake up to the fact that news was never really working.

~~~
shaki-dora
This comment lacks both an appreciating for the nuance of international
diplomacy, as well as journalism.

~~~
lr4444lr
Then my hometown newspapers, whose "investigations" of local concerns consist
of these same perfunctory recapitulations of representatives from the area
politicians, and whose revenue by large comes from the full page ads paid for
by those same politicians campaign bank accounts and even the taxpayer under
the guise of questionable "public service" expenditures, must be brimming with
the subtleties of diplomacy and journalistic excellence, I'm sure.

------
ghaff
It's interesting to read the list and contemplate among other things the ideas
that have arguably been solved (or at least partially solved) but in ways that
weren't obvious.

For example, #1 about RIAA, I'd argue that it was never solved but with
streaming stations in particular, it's just not such a pressing issue today.

Some certainly haven't happened (e.g. fixing news).

The list also seems to assume a lot more replacement of incumbents
(Craigslist, Ebay, Wikipedia) than has been the case.

~~~
aganders3
Regarding the RIAA one: I find it interesting how similar the streaming
services are to the system of Voluntary Collective Licensing advocated by the
EFF starting in 2003 [0].

Video content is moving in another direction with more walled gardens
supported by original content. Maybe it's because of the costs required to
produce quality content, or the size of the total library. Maybe it has
something to do with how we watch video vs. listen to music (i.e. I may listen
to a song or album 100x, but rarely watch any movie even twice).

[0] [https://www.eff.org/files/eff-a-better-way-
forward.pdf](https://www.eff.org/files/eff-a-better-way-forward.pdf)

~~~
ghaff
There was also a fairly long-standing set of licensing and royalty practices
in the music industry that you could more or less use whatever you want so
long as you pay the appropriate royalties for it. Of course, this could have
all broken down with the shift to digital but it didn't. I expect the market
position and determination of Apple and Steve Jobs played at least some role
in this.

Of course, the dollar amounts involved are a matter of ongoing debate. But,
for the most part, if you want to setup a music streaming service or store,
you could probably get access to at least a very large library at rates
comparable to your competition.

The basic problem with video seems to be that the content owners by and large
aren't jumping to broadly license content, even much of their back catalog, at
rates that would support an all-you-can-eat subscription service. So all the
services are basically doing original content that they pad out with the
mostly mediocre stuff that they can license for a reasonable rate.

------
CodeSheikh
For #8. Dating, it has progressed pretty significantly with the likes of
OkCupid, swipe-based apps (Tinder, Bubmle, Hinge), CMB to name a few. Heck it
has done so well that IAC spun off its dating group as a separate business
entity with its own IPO of The Match Group.

~~~
encoderer
Tinder has changed everything here. Top grossing app last year. Real genius is
not the swipe interface it’s the double opt-in that solves a lot of the signal
v noise problem on old time dating sites like okcupid, match, etc.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
Dating is still pretty broken for minorities or people who aren't into the
heteronormative scene. Grindr has been great for gay men, but for minority
folks (whether they be part of a minority group or have minority preferences),
dating is still very much unsolved.

~~~
tlb
HER ([https://weareher.com/](https://weareher.com/)) is dating for lesbians
and other non-heteronormative people.

Color Dating
([http://www.colordatingapp.com/](http://www.colordatingapp.com/)) lets you
match by race/ethnicity.

Muzmatch ([https://muzmatch.com/](https://muzmatch.com/)) has features needed
by Muslims.

[All 3 are YC-funded]

~~~
Karrot_Kream
Oh yeah I love the fact that there are startups in this space, I just meant
that dating is not yet solved in the minority space.

------
BerislavLopac
My main problem with this list is that in most of the cases it's basically
asking for "faster horses". Most of the items are not problems themselves, but
traditional and long existing solutions for problems: news (for the problem of
being informed), dating sites (for the problem of meeting romantic partners),
auctions (the problem of buying and selling unwanted items), advertising (for
the problem in making money when publishing content) etc. The WebOS, really?
Sir Tim solved that long ago.

------
pascalxus
I solved #16! If you are "searching" for a food or recipe based on it's
nutritional contents (for example: I want foods/recipes high in potassium and
selenium, but low in sodium), check out
[https://kale.world/c](https://kale.world/c) You can search by over 20
different nutrient types, weight them, and filter them to your hearts content.

~~~
HugThem
Where is that data from?

Also, it looks like you republish recipes from other websites. Do you have
their permission to do so?

~~~
pascalxus
i don't have the actual recipe, just the ingredients. With a link to their
recipe. there are no instructions on our site, except their description which
they publish through JSON+LD. Basically all the info we show is just stuff
they publish through JSON+LD

~~~
HugThem
You make it sound like somebody gives up their copyright by using a certain
data encoding.

~~~
Trundle
What copyright? Maybe I'm missing a section but nothing on his site looks like
it would fall under copyright protection.

Lists of ingredients aren't protected by copyright. Hell, neither are basic
instructions and he doesn't even have those.

Photos are but this looks like it would fall under fair use. If you have a
fashion blog you're allowed to use a photo of a dress from the makers website
when you're writing about it. It's hard to comment on a product if you can't
share a photo of the product. This guy is commenting on various foods by
showing their nutritional value.

------
curo
pg is Nostradamus, this list is amazingly prescient

\- #5 explosion of upstream SaaS

\- #6 tons of higher-res components of CRM software

\- #9 instagram

\- #11 google drive

\- #22 smartsheet

wonder if the few on here that haven't been solved (wrapper for customer
service) are simply unsolvable, or something has to shift for the economics to
make way for them.

~~~
raleigh_user
Id __almost __argue that intercom /drift are making customer service a lot
easier. The chat bubble lets you connect with users of your product a lot
faster than a phone call and paired with some other softwares can do a lot of
what you need.

This probably is more meant to challenge bad customer service like ATT/Comcast
but the (non legacy) software world is doing better with this I think.

~~~
ghaff
Arguably, we've either automated or made self-service a lot of the things that
you'd have historically had to talk to a customer service rep about. The
problem is that, with a lot of companies, if you do need to deal with a human,
it's at least as bad as it ever was.

------
markivraknatap
#17 New payment methods - Cryptocurrencies

~~~
doctorOb
The Bitcoin whitepaper came out just three months after this post, if I'm not
mistaken.

~~~
anonymous5133
First post was 2008-11-01

link:
[http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/#...](http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/#selection-11.0-11.10)

------
seanalltogether
I would love it if someone tackled the auctions market better. Ebay continues
to focus more on being a marketplace, and promoting buy it nows. A real
auction house should extend the time limit as long as people are putting in
bids.

~~~
mrep
I'm amazed auctions have not taken over live show tickets. Scalpers skim off
millions of dollars every year that events/middleman startup could capture
themselves if only someone designed a proper live show ticket auction.

~~~
spacehome
The artists don't want this. They want fans long-term, and for the fans to not
feel excluded because of monetary reasons. They believe that keeping the
tickets at a below-market rate achieves this. Whether this strategy has the
effect they desire I have no idea.

~~~
mrep
So create a double selling strategy which sells low priced tickets for super
fans and sell the rest at auction.

Let's be honest, the "long-term fan" strategy is generally just a profit
maximizing strategy due to repeat sells.

------
kayall
>2\. Simplified browsing.

Midori is the simple browser I have ever used.

[http://midori-browser.org/](http://midori-browser.org/)

>17\. New payment methods

This one has certainly come true! Cryptocurrencies have absolutely exploded.

>28\. Fixing email overload. A

Astro tries to solve this problem.
[https://www.helloastro.com/product/](https://www.helloastro.com/product/)
Know what to focus on and what to clean up

Astrobot’s AI-powered Insights remind you to follow up on important emails,
questions, time-specific requests, and @mentions.

Plus, Astrobot makes suggestions about lists to unsubscribe from, emails to
archive, and emails to move to folders.

------
nathan_f77
I've been working on something related to 7. Something your company needs that
doesn't exist.

I built FormAPI [1] because I used to work at a company that needed to fill
out a lot of forms. (Gusto [2])

Turns out there's not a huge number of programmers that need to fill out PDFs.
But there's a big market for things like online forms and electronic
signatures, so I'm looking into some different directions. But I think 7. is a
great place to start.

[1] [https://formapi.io/](https://formapi.io/)

[2] [https://gusto.com/](https://gusto.com/)

------
alant
I wonder how this list changed in the past 10 years. Time for a new list PG?

~~~
vincentleeuwen
[https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

~~~
alant
thank you!

------
shafyy
#13: "One route would be to start with test prep services, for which there's
already demand, and then expand into teaching kids more than just how to score
high on tests."

This is what we're trying :-)

Especially the paragraph:

~~~
dwighttk
that was a good paragraph

~~~
shafyy
The best ever. Copy and paste fail.

------
golergka
#1 Spotify #2 Facebook #3 Facebook, Buzzfeed #8 Tinder #9 Instagram #10
Alibaba? #12 Facebook #13 Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy #14 Fitbit? #17
Stripe, crypto #19 AWS #27 IoT #29 WIX

~~~
anonymous5133
>#13 Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy

All have fallen very short IMO. Coursera's courses are generally pretty
watered down compared to the real undergraduate versions with a few exceptions
here and there. Udemy focuses more on skill-based courses and they also have a
huge issue with enforcing copyright. A lot of people are uploading pirated
materials to the site and masking it as their own creation. The courses aren't
that high quality compared to a traditional university setting. As with
coursera, there are a few exceptions but overall most courses are low quality.

Khan academy is more for short tutorials where you need help here and there.
It does play a role though but I don't think it is anywhere near possible to
replacing traditional university education.

I think most people would agree that they want to see some sort of online
learning system that can actually compete with a traditional university. As
in, if I want to take physics 101 I can take it either at a traditional
university or this online university. The online university would offer
cheap/free and high quality courses such that you would basically be learning
the same thing as the traditional course. It would also be possible to have a
better overall learning experience thanks to internet/computer enhanced
features (simulations, interactive videos etc.). Ultimately it would have some
sort of certification, verification system that employers would place value
upon, similar to the value currently being placed on BA degrees.

------
symbolepro
Read this post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704)

------
notjustanymike
For #26, we got chatroulette. Be careful what you ask for.

------
eliblock
I'd say that almost everything besides #1 has been well addressed by new
companies or the big 5 since 2008. But the RIAA is a symptom that went away -
the problem is still there, and streaming is only part of the answer. Spotify
may seem like a solid solution to end users, but artists can't earn much from
their content alone, and that means less people can work on creative projects.

------
g5095
I have the answer to #3, New news, I really do. It's been percolating in my
mind for 12 months now, I know how to build it too. However I am not a
business man and I have a family to feed so I'm working on someone else's
software to put the kids through school. - every-dev-ever.

------
nugi
Still largely unsolved, or poorly solved issues. Seems less precient than
timeless.

------
jamestimmins
For bad customer service, I'm curious if he meant services that the
corporation can pay for to outsource quality CS, or a concierge approach where
the user calls the concierge, who then messages the relevant company.

------
hal9000xp
About "8\. Dating". I think over last 10 years, online dating has not been
solved at all.

Here are typical problems which nearly all dating sites run into:

1\. Women got way more attention than men. Such environment stimulates
aggressive strategies on both sides. Men must spend a lot of effort to reach
as many women as possible. Women must filter out males as hard as possible.
Men are discouraged to carefully read profile of women because probability of
particular woman responding a message quite small. By the same reason, men are
discouraged to write personalized first message. Such economics create hostile
environment for both genders. Men got upset that women don't respond them or
respond lazily (i.e. on your long sentence or question, she may just say -
"nice"). Women got upset that they have inbox full of messages from men but
nobody seems have deep interest in them. And I didn't even mention the case
when lots of sexually unsatisfied men may harass women because it's cheap
(i.e. no consequences). And just banning those men isn't viable long term
solution. An apps like Tinder, where you can't write a message till you get
mutual likes don't change dating economics at all.

2\. Both genders are encouraged to participate in aggressive photos contest.
I've had countless personal disappointments on the first date when I've seen
completely different woman in real life than on pictures. They can use
Photoshop, they can take selfies under specific angle. It's very often that
pictures does not show real person at all.

3\. Similarly, I've had countless personal disappointments because she turned
to have completely different character in real life. The problem is that you
used text messages in order to know each other. Dating is very subtle area and
you cut off a lot of information if you rely only on text messages and 2D
photos. There are much more information in non-verbal communication about your
possible compatibility.

I've never seen a single serious attempt to solve this problem. Tinder doesn't
even try to solve these problems, they just used mobile apps hype in order to
get traction. I've seen the same model (mutual match before you can write
message) in 2006.

Dating is area full of stereotypes and political correctness. It's easy to
take side. Either feminist side and blame men for being sexual predators or
you can blame women as being harsh filtering out men without giving any second
thought.

Instead we should think for game theoretic data driven approach.

Now, we have advanced ML algorithms and big data. We can use ML, we can use
game theory. Why not create online dating startup which encourages people to
know each other well. And discourages aggressive behaviour on both sides. In
other words, we should create totally different economics of online dating.

An online dating site which promotes quality over quantity and personalized
behaviour.

P.S. I have no idea why I gather downvotes as problems with dating sites are
very obvious. They are pretty hard to solve but it doesn't mean these problems
do not exist.

~~~
pascalxus
For your point #1, the reason you have this problem is ultimately supply and
demand. There's certain subsets of demographics that are highly uneven due to
many factors: 1 of which is that men date younger women, hence women in
greater demand than younger men, and older men in greater demand than older
women, etc. A dating site won't be able to fix this.

~~~
hal9000xp
It's true that it's supply and demand problem. However, I noticed that problem
#1 is much more acute in online dating than in real life. I personally had
much greater success in real life dating than online dating. It's strange
since online dating supposed to make dating easier, not harder!

There should be a way to discourage quantitative behaviour (i.e. when you play
statistics game) and encourage qualitative behaviour (i.e. when you are more
focused on speaking with less people).

In other words, in real life, you don't try to talk with 100 women in one
evening. However, it's cheap in online dating to spam many people.

So online dating should be closer to real life.

It should be more expensive to reach and even like more people in short
timeframe. On the other hand, somehow we should guarantee that pictures (and
probably video) should give maximum of information about appearance. It should
be encouraged to provide as many high quality pictures as possible.

~~~
always_good
Online dating is only an accurate caricature of real life. It's a pure numbers
game. Instead of 10 guys hitting on the girl you think is cute, now hundreds
of them are.

I don't know what it means to be closer to real life. The reason your have
social less momentum in your day-to-day is because you just don't meet that
many people.

Also, I'm not sure what increased qualitative behavior would mean in online
dating. Sure, there are bozos who just say "hey" to everyone, but those are
trivial to filter out. Online dating is a vessel for quickly escalating to a
meet-up. I think you should put less importance on the quick-fire internet
game because most people don't want to languish there either. People want to
meet, fuck, make connections just like you.

------
evsamsonov
This list is worth to recall and consider because it is actual in our days.

~~~
evsamsonov
Comments of that post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704)

------
nickpsecurity
No 1 isn't a startup problem: it's regular political corruption. An industry
cartel looking to preserve or expand on billions in revenue paid politicians
to ensure that with stronger copyright laws. That's on top of their business
practices they control. The combination keeps them rich on monopolies in an
industry they control rather than the artists the laws are supposedly there
for. Similar claims can be made for US patent system as well with big
companies suppressing innovation with them or trolls draining the economy.
Similar concepts. The people did nothing to counter these with many not even
knowing companies were paying for these laws or with what effects. One result
among many on copyright side is the legitimate buyers of content might have to
deal with the experience in the link below since it can be a felony to do
otherwise.

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1ToS1gYD3wQ/TlxUHSp-
uKI/AAAAAAAAFw...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1ToS1gYD3wQ/TlxUHSp-
uKI/AAAAAAAAFwg/ZkvyGKqZRws/s1600/funny-graphs-pirates-vs-players.png)

So, the solution to this very political problem might be one of the following:

1\. Creating non-profit organizations that collect dues to lobby on behalf of
voters against corporate interests. They'll need to have focused legislation
and marketing to reach a lot of people. They'll need a lot of money to
outspend the plutocrats who have piles of money. The competition will at least
be happening where the root problem is to eliminate some things like bans on
reverse engineering, the severity of punishment for filesharing, or changes to
copyright itself that limits labels control over business models. The rest
will follow after root causes are solved at level of corrupt politicians
introducing them.

2\. They eliminate all politicians doing that in ways that cause consumers
harm. This might take a combo of political campaigns for replacements plus
media campaigns about harms predecessors were/are doing. Copyright/patent
system would be but one. Might also try to get the new politicians to pass
laws limiting donations by private parties with corporate ones eliminated
entirely. Taxpayers themselves will pay whoever wins a fortune plus subsidize
various stages of the election process so they work for us. Bribes will be
felonies leading to life in prison.

This is all kind of like how we say certain things like governments banning
encryption are political rather than technical problems. The people's action
in legal system and media are needed to solve them. Lawmakers that will
constantly do what's in incumbents' interests, even imprisoning innovators
making alternatives, have to be fought at their level for best results. I
mean, do combine as many methods of resistance as possible. Just startups or
tech alone aren't the solution if problem starts with laws paid for with
bribes.

------
vinchuco
A 10-year followup to this could be interesting.

------
dzink
We are fixing 12 (Advertising) all the way down to the fundamentals, with
sprinkles of 16 (A form of search that depends on design) and 20 (Shopping
guides) in the mix.

------
itronitron
for hi-res CRM I encourage people to look at Tenfold, which is a startup in
Austin

------
Zak
As I was on HN in 2008 and paying attention to these sorts of things, I'll
pretend I'm qualified to offer opinions.

1\. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom - Streaming, both
paid and ad-supported seems to be the answer here. It's prone to monopolies
and music streaming doesn't seem to pay artists very well, but Netflix is
producing quite a bit of original content.

2\. Simplified browsing - mobile ate this.

3\. New news - appears largely unsolved. A few big national newspapers are are
doing serious reporting, some newcomers (blogs) are doing the same without a
print version and local newspapers are still mostly bad. Social sharing of
news mostly hasn't made things better.

4\. Outsourced IT - "the cloud" hasn't replaced everything, but increasingly,
companies do seem to like software that stores data on someone else's server
and gets delivered by a browser.

5\. Enterprise software 2.0 - not a field I have enough contact with to
comment on.

6\. More variants of CRM - as above, I'm not very qualified to comment. I know
there are startups doing things in this space.

7\. Something your company needs that doesn't exist - kind of too vague to
respond to. AirBnB was an example of this.

8\. Dating - Tinder is the main winner I'm aware of. I'm not quite sure how
they solved the chicken and egg issue, though it appears they were helped by
Facebook-based login and doing their initial release to students at a small
set of universities.

9\. Photo/video sharing services. Instagram seems to be the biggest winner
here. Imgur, started as image-hosting for reddit is trying to offer reddit-
like features and keep the users on its own site.

10\. Auctions - I think this one missed the mark a little. People don't want
to _auction_ things for the most part, they just want to _sell_ things. As an
online marketplace accessible to individuals, nothing has really displaced
Ebay. Facebook is doing a bit for some niches with sale-oriented groups and
built-in payments, and there's Etsy. It's possible to sell on Amazon as an
individual, and a few people do, but Ebay still dominates.

11\. Web Office apps - Google ate this, and Microsoft has entries in this
space too.

12\. Fix advertising - Facebook and other social platforms have at least made
the problem _different_ by having businesses interact with customers directly
and paying for reach. This is not a solved problem by any means.

13\. Online learning - massive open online courses are improving access to
education, but the fact that a lot of situations still demand credentials from
more traditional educational institutions is keeping this approach from being
too dominant. I expect more development here long-term.

14\. Tools for measurement - this seems like a feature more than a product. A
lot of productivity tools have metrics built in, e.g. github.

15\. Off the shelf security - there seem to be some things available here, but
nothing really dominating the market.

16\. A form of search that depends on design. I'm not certain, but I don't
think there's anything here. What people seem to be more interested in is
something that's not big, scary and delivering tailored results. That's not a
huge market, and DuckDuckGo seems to have most of it.

17\. New payment methods - Paypal is still big, Facebook handles payments now,
mobile OS makers and device manufacturers are doing things. Stripe and Square
helped with credit card processing, but that's not really a new payment
method. Cryptocurrency is a thing, but nobody's been very successful actually
using it as a payment method.

18\. The WebOS - stuff like Zapier and ITTT are providing some plumbing, but
nothing very OS-like.

19\. Application and/or data hosting - "the cloud" is obviously huge and
dominated by AWS and Google.

20\. Shopping guides - I'm calling this a miss, with most of the exceptions
being niches too small to be more than supplemental income for one person
([http://flashlights.parametrek.com](http://flashlights.parametrek.com) is a
neat example, and the creator has an account on HN by the same name). Most
people just shop on Amazon. There's low-quality content/affiliate marketing in
this space, but that's arguably just SEO spam.

21\. Finance software for individuals and small businesses - I'm not sure
what's going on in this space. I haven't heard about anything making big
waves.

22\. A web-based Excel/database hybrid - Unless Google Sheets counts, I don't
think this has panned out yet.

23\. More open alternatives to Wikipedia - Deletionists still seem to rule
Wikipedia, and nothing has displaced it.

24\. A buffer against bad customer service - I'm not sure there's been much
movement here. I suppose you could use something like Taskrabbit to hire
someone to talk to Comcast for you.

25\. A Craigslist competitor - Facebook groups have displaced Craigslist a bit
and Ebay has experimented with some local marketplace stuff, but I think
that's mostly it.

26\. Better video chat - Google and Apple built better Skypes. There's
appear.in, Discord offers video, etc.... There's a lot happening here, but it
seems essentially evolutionary, not revolutionary.

27\. Hardware/software hybrids - smartphones ate a lot of the applications for
this, but Arduino and various single-board computers enabling DIY projects are
cool.

28\. Fixing email overload - I'm not seeing a single overarching solution
here, but things like Gmail priority inbox, in-browser notifications and such
seem to be chipping away at it.

29\. Easy site builders for specific markets - I'm sure there are a few of
these that are more niche. Shopify is kind of Viaweb 2.0. People in some
niches seem to prefer to just have accounts on social media and have little
interest in standalone websites.

30\. Startups for startups - I probably haven't been paying attention to the
right things to list these. A lot of stuff that's not very startup-specific
like CRM, "cloud" services and finance software can, and probably does make
inroads by being startup-friendly.

~~~
parametrek
Hi! To expand on #20 there is a lot of stuff going on but like you said most
of it is SEO spam.

It is further hampered by planned obsolescence and the increasingly fast pace
that new products are released at. It is very difficult and expensive to
maintain actual experience with everything in a product space.

It can't be crowd sourced either because most people are overly attached to
their purchases and can't give objective comparisons between something they
don't own.

~~~
ghaff
I think the closest thing to shopping guides is review sites like Wirecutter
or magazines/blogs that run end of year Best of... issues. I do have to some
go to sources for gear in particular categories. And for some specific
electronics that I need, I find that Wirecutter won’t steer me far wrong.

~~~
parametrek
Those are still pretty spammy and often full of misinformation. Wirecutter's
flashlight recommendations have always been terrible and so I have no faith in
them at all.

~~~
Zak
They came up with surprisingly good recommendations for lights: Thrunite
Archer 2A, Manker E12, Mini Maglite Pro. Their general advice was also
reasonable: adjustable focus is overrated, use rechargeable batteries.

It's not perfect. I'd have liked to see a recommendation for something more
powerful with an 18650 battery and USB charging and perhaps something more
pocket-friendly. They only mention color temperature briefly, while I consider
it important (most people prefer neutral white after trying it outdoors). 2xAA
is not a battery configuration I'm fond of. All that aside, these aren't bad
recommendations. Maybe the Maglite is a little questionable, but you could do
worse.

[https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-
flashlight/](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-flashlight/)

Outdoor Gear Lab on the other hand did a terrible job - so bad that they
pulled their article after it got an extremely negative reaction on
/r/flashlight.

------
itronitron
just realized this was originally posted 10 years ago...

------
peter303
Cloud may have done some these like 4 5 7 9 11 18 22

------
beefman
_1\. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom._

Music became irrelevant.

 _2\. Simplified browsing._

The web became irrelevant. Replaced by Wikipedia, Amazon, and Facebook (none
of which YC funded).

 _3\. New news._

Journalism never covered itself in glory, but approximately half of the
separation between the NY Times and Weekly World News has been erased since PG
wrote this. Reddit probably didn't have anything to do with it.

 _4\. Outsourced IT. 5\. Enterprise software 2.0._

These two items seem to be the same. It's one area where I would say startups
have been tremendously successful. If you can call thought-terminating
technologies like Slack successful.

 _6\. More variants of CRM._

Interacting with customers hasn't got much better.

 _7\. Something your company needs that doesn 't exist._

I'd say this has been a success. Everything from corporate formation to
payroll to office space is now plug-and-play.

 _8\. Dating. 9\. Photo /video sharing services._

The iPhone existed when this was written, but that the smartphone represented
a shift at least as large as the original PC revolution is nowhere on the
radar.

 _10\. Auctions._

Everybody hates them. The last 5 times / 5 years I've used Ebay, it's been
with the "buy it now" feature. I can remember at least two smartphone apps
that promised to get rid of unwanted stuff through auctions, which no longer
exist, but I can't remember their names.

 _11\. Web Office apps._

The Windows desktop world was already looking dire in 2008, and its slide
continued. Web apps, mostly from Google and Microsoft, picked up some of the
business. Rich text documents (Word) are also a lot less important today.

 _12\. Fix advertising._

I've been blocking them since this was written, so I'm not sure. In general,
I'm skeptical that "paid human discourse" is something that can be fixed.

 _14\. Tools for measurement._

I think he means SEO, aka "machine learning".

 _15\. Off the shelf security._

Doesn't exist, but a lot of it is sold. Did YC get any of that action?

 _16\. A form of search that depends on design._

?

 _17\. New payment methods._

Apple Pay has potential but has so far been disappointing. Same with
cryptocurrencies.

 _18\. The WebOS._

Nope.

 _19\. Application and /or data hosting._

Sure.

 _20\. Shopping guides._

Stores are so 2008.

 _21\. Finance software for individuals and small business._

Mint was acquired I guess, but nobody uses it.

 _22\. A web-based Excel /database hybrid._

There was a good try at this, which existed when this was written: Dabble DB.
It went under in 2011. Silk shut down in November,[1] leaving Airtable and
Fieldbook...

 _23\. More open alternatives to Wikipedia._

Doesn't exist, and at this point we're lucky to have Wikipedia. It's clear to
me that our society could not presently create it from scratch.

 _24\. A buffer against bad customer service._

While good customer service is not more common than in 2008 (see #6 above),
really really bad service is much more rare. Not sure who gets credit for
this. Twitter and other platforms that let word about bad service spread
easily may deserve some credit.

 _25\. A Craigslist competitor._

Pretty much every startup ever. Still no overall competitor for the general
case (online classifieds) though.

 _26\. Better video chat._

Video chat is too intrusive for many applications. Apple Facetime, Google
Hangouts, and Microsoft Skype own the market.

 _27\. Hardware /software hybrids._

?

 _28\. Fixing email overload._

It wasn't fixed but email has become less relevant.

 _29\. Easy site builders for specific markets._

Again, websites are less important now. Squarespace isn't more specific than
Weebly.

 _30\. Startups for startups._

See #7 above.

[1] [http://blog.silk.co/post/167155630197/its-time-to-say-
goodby...](http://blog.silk.co/post/167155630197/its-time-to-say-goodbye)

~~~
galo_sengen
please enlighten us on how music is less relevant than it was in 2008

~~~
ideophobia
i'm imagining the better statement is 'music ownership became less relevant'

------
Kluny
Use words, not list numbers, people. You're not doing yourself any favors.

~~~
lamby
Hm?

------
gregorymichael
> 22\. A web-based Excel/database hybrid.

Airtable founders: "Hold my beer."

------
bencollier49
Arguably, things like DoNotPay are a response to 24 ("A buffer against bad
customer service")

