Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16014378

by dev_256 • 9 years ago

26 81 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

cagenut• 9 years ago

I'd love to pay taxes for universal healthcare.

justincormack• 9 years ago

The future is just not evenly distributed, try Europe.

GFischer3• 9 years ago

Or Uruguay here in South America, or New Zealand... You can actually emigrate here very easily.

Maintaining an U.S. lifestyle OTOH is much more expensive, but healthcare is a BIG plus.

And you WILL pay a lot of taxes - Healthcare-only taxes are 4.5 to 6% of your gross income, and sometimes more on top of it. And then you have 22% VAT and something like 30% of your salary if you're a software developer, and the 12.5% social security tax (all of those on your GROSS salary, and almost no deductions)... prepare to get paid less than half your gross salary in hand.

sioux776• 9 years ago

I live in apartment complex. I’d like to buy my own washer and dryer and be able to rent out a place with water/dryer hookups and pay a monthly and usage fees as to not use the gross common laundry machines. To my knowledge no such service exists.

dh-g2• 9 years ago

How is this use case not covered by apartments with in suite laundry?

sioux776• 9 years ago

They wouldn't use the service, I'm not sure what you are asking.

bovermyer2• 9 years ago

Why not use a laundromat, then?

sioux776• 9 years ago

What do you think a laundromat is?

mattmaroon• 9 years ago

Wouldn't common laundry machines that somehow don't become gross be much more efficient in terms of space and resources?

sioux776• 9 years ago

I know they are trying to do vibrating dryers which don't become as gross, but washing machines are the main problem in terms of cleanliness, but I'm not sure if there are any new advances on that front.

mariusz331• 9 years ago

I'd like a similar service or product. My issue with a shared solution like a common area W/D besides grossness is that I need to remove my clothes from the machines within a few minutes of cycle completeness or I risk ticking off my neighbors. I push off laundry unless I'm sure I have a 1.5 hour block to be able to tend to each load. When I had an in unit W/D that wouldn't be necessary and laundry would be a chore I managed throughout the day.

gwbas1c5• 9 years ago

When I lived in an apartment without laundry services, I found it was cheaper to just pay a laundry service for pickup and drop-off at my front door. I paid about $50 a month, when an in unit washer dryer would cost a lot more.

I also looked into a washer dryer unit that I could plug into my sink. They are really common in Europe but not in the United States. The problem is that American voltage is too low to run a dryer without a dedicated outlet.

With the way that batteries are going, you could probably make a dryer that has a battery in it so it doesn't need a dedicated high voltage and high amperage plug. Because all dryers need counterweights, the battery really won't add weight to the dryer.

Without technology changes, you can still get an apartment washer dryer unit. Most appliance store should be able to special order one for you. The problem is that they will take all night to dry your clothing, because you are stuck with the limited voltage and amperage that comes out of the standard American wall outlet.

adrianN2• 9 years ago

I don't understand how $50 a month can be cheaper than having your own machine. A machine should pay for itself in less than a year.

RhodesianHunter2• 9 years ago

It's not just the voltage / amperage. Even if you buy a really expensive over-under that plugs into a 220 the lack of an output vent slows down drying dramatically.

sioux776• 9 years ago

Unfortunately laundry services also use machines of variable quality/cleanliness, so not help there for me at least.

royka118• 9 years ago

Password manager!

volent• 9 years ago

Why would you pay for something that is already free ?

exDM693• 9 years ago

A phone that will last for 10+ years. Easy change of battery, glass, display, connectors, etc without specialist tools. Doesn't matter if it's a bit bigger than a nice form factor phone, I'm just sick and tired of phones dying on me and not being able to service them.

dh-g2• 9 years ago

You can do this with older iphones (I have a 5s made from parts). You will need about a dollars worth of tools.

nickjj• 9 years ago

If you're cool with only using your phone as a phone + texting device you can get 5+ years out of current day non-smartphones and it only costs like $30 to fully replace it, so there's no need to swap individual components.

My current phone's battery goes 3-4 days before I need to charge it, cost around $30 and it's currently been in use for 3 years with no signs of getting worse or breaking.

exDM693• 9 years ago

I'm not. I do need a browser and maps.

I've been considering moving to a dumb phone, but I do need some basic features.

Klathmon4• 9 years ago

I'm convinced this is basically impossible currently.

Promising software updates alone for 10+ years is going to be a difficult sell, even if you really intend to. And it's going to cost a significant amount of money.

And 10 years is a LONG time. 10 years ago android didn't exist, iOS had JUST come out, basically every "smartphone" out there was called a "PDA" and used windows mobile with a stylus. Even getting connectivity hardware that would work on those timescales is starting to get hard.

And let's be honest, the market would be extremely small. Most people want the newest device every year, because hardware is still improving, new features are added, form factors change, and styling is important. Trying to sell a device which looks worse, costs more, is larger and has less features to the general public just isn't going to work.

I get 5 years, but 10 seems to be really pushing it.

adrianN2• 9 years ago

My current laptop is nine years old. Phones are just smaller laptops without a keyboard. I don't think there a fundamental engineering problems that need to be solved before a smartphone could last as long as a laptop.

exDM693• 9 years ago

Smartphones stopped being status symbols years ago and the development of phones has stagnated. I could not tell the difference between my old and my current phone apart from battery life.

Looking back 10 years doesn't make sense because development was rapid then. But look back 5 years and there isn't a huge difference. A phone from 5 years ago would be fine in 5 more years.

Software updates and hardware serviceability are the bottle necks in phone longevity. The challenge is economical, cultural and political, not technical.

melvinmt• 9 years ago

I believe the Nokia 3310 was just relaunched this year that has 22 hours talk time, 31 days standby for just $52 https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2017/04/13/nokia-33...

GFischer3• 9 years ago

Sounds great, I wonder about the maintainability, sounds like what the OP asked:

http://run-belay.ru/to-completely-disassemble-the-nokia-3310...

GFischer3• 9 years ago

Do you want it to do something besides calls? I've got 2 phones that have lasted 10+ years: Nokia 1100 and Nokia 5110 (the 5125 variant).

I actually had to stop using the 5110 because the technology wasn't supported anymore (the frequencies were re-purposed for something else), and that's probably what will happen to your 10+ year phone.

You can still purchase a Nokia 1100. It's the world's best-selling handset because you can do all you mentioned.

I still have both in a drawer, and they boot when charged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_5110

brndnmtthws• 9 years ago

Pay someone a small fraction of my salary to show up at work and pretend to be me.

sharemywin• 9 years ago

Peter: "Is there any way that you could, sort of, just zonk me out so that, like, I-I don't know that I'm at work... in here? Could I come home and think that I've been fishing all day, or something?"

turc1656• 9 years ago

One of the best comedies ever.

scarface744• 9 years ago

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169528579...

cm2187• 9 years ago

Should that also include trolling on HN?

therealmarv2• 9 years ago

a good open source comment system which works with static websites which let's me avoid vendor/one-point lock in.

gingersnap• 9 years ago

Agree. I would like open source + hosted version. Really simple hosted version for a couple of $ so you can have it on personal/project pages. There is of course disqus today, but never liked their ads, and of course its lock in.

vortico• 9 years ago

Seconded. Disqus is bloated beyond repair. Open source + hosted is a fantastic model for consumers and entrepreneurs, and the hosted money would be enough to get rid of advertisements.

jonas123• 9 years ago

Take a look at https://github.com/gka/schnack https://posativ.org/isso/ https://github.com/adtac/commento :)

therealmarv2• 9 years ago

They all lack on one point. Schnack: Requires Github or Twitter account it seems (not everybody who comments has a twitter account). Isso: In princible ok too paranoia (strange icons, no Gravatar or any log in at all). Commento: Does not know how to handle links in comments and no login system.

So they are all ok but far away from a Disqus alternative.

maxxxxx• 9 years ago

I would pay for a service that gives me constant 6% return on my money. Since all financial advisors tell me that the stock market returns are muh higher they should be all over this and make a lot of money.

hendzen• 9 years ago

You could even call it Madoff Securities LLC.

philco• 9 years ago

The good ones subscribe to Modern Portfolio Theory and don’t tell you stock market returns are much higher than 6%. The bad ones try to sell high fee advisory with a marketing ploy of getting you “alpha” (outsized returns). It’s just a way to take 1-2% of your capital for doing nothing.

gwbas1c5• 9 years ago

Economics isn't that magic. Everyone has to share some of the risk!

Services like this exist, but you is really need to do your own research. Your research is required in order to help keep scams out of the system.

The major investment firms, like fidelity, Ameritrade, T Rowe Price, Etc, can probably recommend conservative investment vehicles for you that get pretty close to your goal. It just takes a phone call or a chat session.

Then there are more modern investment sites where you just tell them your risk profile and they choose the Investments for you.

greaseball2• 9 years ago

I'd love to see a SAAS product for watching sports. Similar to Netflix in terms of UI and pricing, but also with the support for live content. I know this probably won't happen any time soon since major US telecom providers have exclusive broadcasting rights to major sports games.

aglionby• 9 years ago

Not just the US -- BT paid £1.18 billion for 3 years worth of football which is just insane.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/mar/06/bt-keeps-ch...

jlgosse• 9 years ago

DAZN is making moves in Canada + a handful of other locations

greaseball2• 9 years ago

This looks promising. Although, it seems they only offer NFL, soccer, and tennis coverage currently. Hopefully some day they'll add NHL and NBA games as well.

rpedela• 9 years ago

Sling TV?

SJMosley• 9 years ago

Not affiliated with them in any way. And the pricing is higher than Netflix.

http://www.flosports.tv/

awinder• 9 years ago

https://www.fubo.tv/welcome

cardplayer• 9 years ago

There’s a better way to ask this question if you want Good responses. Just ask for unsolved problems and listen or even better...go out and observe.

weego• 9 years ago

Potential spoiler: most people will not actually pay for something they say they will pay for when asked for an off-the-cuff idea

enraged_camel• 9 years ago

Seems to especially be the case on HN. Whenever someone releases something, common responses are “oh this is like X but actually worse” or “I could do this with 10 lines of code in my sleep”

scarface744• 9 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

eurticket• 9 years ago

+ A test or a person that tests and tracks my health and body nutrients or lack thereof. Then designs a list of items or orders the food/vitamins that have all the micro nutrients that a health body would require.

+ Accurate food product reviews that test what is inside of the item and reflect if the nutrition labels are correct.

atwebb• 9 years ago

Labdoor for supermarket foods? Gotta keep them honest, as an app combine it with price comparisons (where possible I know those DBs are hard).

gwbas1c5• 9 years ago

A better way to hire software engineers, or to find a software engineering job.

The problem, when I'm hiring, is that so much of the interviewing process is about determining competence. When I'm job-seeking, a lot of my time is spent determining the competence of the people in charge of the company.

In the medical field, doctors and hospitals are accredited. Thus the interviewing process isn't really about a doctor proving his or her competency, nor does a doctor have to worry about the hospital going bankrupt three years after taking the job.

We really need a professional licensing process for software engineers and the firms that hire us. Even though the tools we use change from year to year, the fundamentals of software development change about as fast as the medical field.

I haven't really come across any hiring firm or headhunter who is really good at determining the competency of a software engineer or the legitimacy of a business trying to hire. It doesn't matter who they are, they always boil down to middle men trying to sell whatever goods they have on hand while making a honest attempt to manage their reputation. They need the licensing process as much as we do because they just don't have the background to determine competence.

BjoernKW2• 9 years ago

There are several differences between the medical field and software engineering, some of which are:

1. The former is highly regulated because of potentially highly catastrophic outcomes in most cases.

2. The former also is several thousand years older than the latter.

gwbas1c5• 9 years ago

The modern medical field is not thousands of years old. It actually emulates the air traffic control system when it comes to its internal regulations and division of labor. This is how they keep out quacks who still believe in bloodletting.

We could do a lot better if we got over our hubris and tried to learn from how other more mature feilds run themselves.

With self-driving cars on the horizon, and with our entire communications infrastructure defined by software, the potential for catastrophe in our industry is greater than the medical industry.

RandomCSGeek2• 9 years ago

on a similar note, I'd like to have better job listing aggregators. Something that better understands me.

Currently, when I search for fresher jobs, I always end up getting jobs for 5-6 year experience, or those way away from cities I entered, or those from completely irrelevant fields.

NLP and Deep Learning should be able to do this.

fiveFeet2• 9 years ago

An app/service which provides the location of one mobile phone to another mobile phone. It should work across different manufacturers (iphone <-> blackberry), across different service providers (verizon <-> t-mobile).

RandomCSGeek2• 9 years ago

Google Maps does that.

ComputerGuru• 9 years ago

I don’t like it, but WhatsApp does that.

fiveFeet2• 9 years ago

Good to know but it is a no go since WhatApp is ending support for BlackBerry on Dec 31st, 2017. https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000617/WhatsApp-support-for-mobi... . May be it is time for me to move away from Blackberry altogether.

jacknews• 9 years ago

I would pay (a little) for a purchasing/problem fullfilment agent.

An example: I have one of the new macbook pros, and it came with a "free" 3rd party cheap-china usb C -> usb 3.0 hub. The problem (which I believe is quite common) is that attaching it, disables wifi - I guess it's just crappy low end chinese design and total lack of care for wireless compliance, etc.

So, I'd like to buy another hub that actually works without disabling my wifi. I don't want to pay Apple prices. I don't want to spend a day reading between-the-lines on aliexpress/ebay to ensure that it is genuinely compatible and non-interfering with my macbook wifi. I'll pay a premium (but not too much) for the best/best-value usb C hub for my purposes.

There are numerous examples of this kind of problem when buying products, particularly electronics, of having to read the fine print to get particular revisions that support some obscure use-case that I'm particularly interested in, and it's a real drag to try and hunt the right combinations.

Another example: I got interested in mechanical keyboards. (I think) I'd like a 68-key layout with rgb backlighting and gateron brown switches. Find one for me.

lukego• 9 years ago

Alert me when my service providers introduce newer better deals and quietly grandfather me onto older worserer ones. Like today I called my ISP to upgrade to a faster connection that is cheaper than my old slow one.

majewsky3• 9 years ago

Twitter without bullshit (algorithmic timeline, "how to follow", ads, tracking, t.co).

dualogy• 9 years ago

Oh yeah? And how much do you believe you would pay for that =)

majewsky3• 9 years ago

5$ per month

crummy• 9 years ago

Mastodon?

majewsky3• 9 years ago

Network effect.

Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

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