Ask HN: What service are you willing to provide for $1? - mkovji
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mark212
I'll tell you you're a cheapskate. IaaS -- insults as a service.

~~~
DoreenMichele
But for an entire dollar, I want custom insults. None of this telling me the
same thing you told the last ten people who gave you a dollar. Cuz, wow, lazy.

;)

~~~
mark212
I’m sorry but auditing is only available in the Enterprise Plan

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tonyedgecombe
Nothing, I wouldn’t want someone who places so little value on my work as a
customer.

~~~
Gustomaximus
Remember Whatsapp used to charge a dollar. Multiply $1 by how many millions of
users. That's not bad assuming a profit margin is there.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
You can't make it up in volume :)

It might be irrational but people value what they buy by how much they spend.
I remember when I left my last full time job I felt we were undercharging our
customers. I went back to those same customers doing the same work and charged
them three times as much as they had been paying. Their attitude towards me
changed completely, I was really shocked at the difference, I'd gone from
being a grunt who installed systems to a valued member of the team.

~~~
cimmanom
You can't make it up in volume when you're charging directly for your time.
But you can with a service where the marginal cost to serve an additional user
is less than that $1.

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cimmanom
A smile.

Note that there are a lot of things many people are willing to do for free but
wouldn't do for $1. Such as answering this question.

That's because taking money for it interferes with the personal satisfaction
of an altruistic or community-building or socially responsible act.

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fundamental
The key thing that seems to be missing is $1 from how many people?

$1 from one individual involves a lot of overhead to complete a transaction
(for your average person), but $1 from N people who each require a minimum of
interaction can make much more economical sense. This can be multiplied by
getting $1 from N people every X days.

Per the original question there's fairly little I'd be willing to provide to a
single individual at $1, but in aggregate (high N, reasonable X) there's a
number of viable options (mostly in the software realm).

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ai_ia
One minute call twice everyday by real human.

1\. First to remind me the things, I would be doing today. 2\. Following up on
the tasks, I am supposed to do today.

I tried to do using Alexa. Didn't go as expected.

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cakridge
Distributed accountability buddies. I like it.

~~~
odonnellryan
Neat idea that has existed in other spaces for a while.

There are groups of sailboats on longer voyages that keep in contact, often
back to a base on land, over SSB. If you don't respond to the daily check in
it is assumed something is wrong, and everyone is told about it and if anyone
is close to your last position you hope they can look for you.

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soulchild37
I have been selling Android/iOS apps with a $1 price tag on it, I get 1 star
review almost everyday blaming why the app isn't free.

There's a lesson on don't price your app at $1.

~~~
mkovji
I don't think that is the right lesson to learn from the given point. There
are lot of $1 apps that are successful. There is a huge difference between $1
and free if you can see it.

This for example.
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halfbrick....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halfbrick.fruitninja)
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.explodingk...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.explodingkittens.projectbombsquad)

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Blackstone4
Sounds like you've seen earn.com and the emails they send users. For $1 sign-
up and get some crypto.... the monetary value here is crazy low. The tasks
they seem to set probably take ~5mins which translates into $12 p/h... so
you've got to really be into crypto.

Service am I willing to provide for $1? Watch my favorite Netflix shows and
give you a thumbs up or down :).

~~~
beojan
I can easily automate that by calling /bin/true.

------
deft
Find someone/something to solve your problem by providing internet research on
the topic. Max 5 minutes.

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jason_slack
I'd be willing to:

1\. provide positive inspiration

2\. provide an answer or at least initial research within 5 minutes of time.
(using some automated tools I write)

3\. provide a daily list of facts about that day at various points in time.

4\. teach a child a simple task.

5\. provide the top "movers and shakers" in the stock market from the last
day.

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lake99
You know the service that Bob Newhart provided, as a psychologist? He charged
5$ for 5 minutes. I'd be willing to do that for 1$.

Ref.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw)

~~~
muzani
How does someone really do that? It takes a few minutes just to arrange a
meeting or enter the room and sit down with someone.

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nanospeck
Be Your Personal Job Hunt VA: Share your linkedin/resume and I will search for
the whoishiring posts or SO ads that match your job profile and send you a
custom intro email draft. 1$ per draft, hurry limited time offer!
akhil.karunAtTheRateGmailDotCom

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canterburry
I am actually working right now on a runtime configs management service for
which I am initially planning to charge $1/month/client in blocks of 10
clients with a minimum commitment of 1 year...but still $1 per client per
month.

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xstartup
Self-hosted [http://killbill.io/](http://killbill.io/) with working bitpay
plugin.

Or if you are selling bitpay and other plugins for killbill, i'll gladly pay
more.

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muzani
Almost nothing really. The cost to agree upon any service costs more than $1.

~~~
taprun
The trick is to productize it and then aggregate many tasks from others at
once.

~~~
31reasons
Thats exactly what $1 apps do in the App Store, no?

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C_System
Take a photo of what I'm looking at in the real world.

This is kind of what Indeed is doing via the Job Spotter app. They pay users
~$1 for snapping photos of help wanted signs.

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spacesarebetter
You can talk to me for 1 minute. I'm great listener.

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hood_syntax
Send someone an anecdote from my life every month. Not that my life is
interesting, but it would be worth the effort from my end.

~~~
deft
I kinda like this idea. A subscription based generic version of FML

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CloudBuddy
[https://cloudbuddy.cloud/](https://cloudbuddy.cloud/)

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netrap
One minute of my time.

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tmaly
I will recommend one amazing food dish per month for $1

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marssaxman
It'd be less hassle to just give it away for free.

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yesenadam
Transcribing about 40 seconds of voice audio.

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txsh
Turn down service.

~~~
mark212
as in "No, sorry" or you'll come to my hotel room and fold down the blankets
and put a nice chocolate on the pillow? Because I would love to have the
latter for $1, especially if the chocolate is included.

~~~
txsh
> you’ll come to my hotel room and fold down the blankets and put a nice
> chocolate on the pillow?

No, sorry. You now owe me $1.

~~~
whatsstolat
I'll buy that debt for $0.02

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chewyland
Buy me a beer and I'll tell ya.

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quickthrower2
7 function calls.

