JohnFriel

This is interesting. Do you know what features the classifier is matching on? Like how much does stuff like whitespace matter here vs. deeper code structure? Put differently, if you were to parse the AI and non-AI code into AST and train a classifier based on that, would the results be the same?

This is a really compelling idea – but I'm having a little trouble making the leap from the high level description to what it would mean for my projects in more concrete terms. Would it be possible to show off some example tests that the model generated and maybe even a story about how the generated tests caught a bug before the code made it to production?

Wow, this blew my mind! I read all the pg essays when I first started programming so I must have read this at some point!

To that end, I'd like a view where the focus is the art itself.

This is something we've been trying to figure out! If you have an account, you can view this: https://artinres.com/recommendations -- you're randomly shown one work at a time and you can like, dislike or skip. We use the data to recommend you additional artworks, and soon we're going to roll out a digest / news feed of new recommendations for users.

I don't really know what I'm looking for in art. I just know some things I like, but probably not all. I love Monet and other impressionist painters, but I also love old Japanese woodblock prints like the great wave. I'm also a huge fan of cubism and I can't get enough of art nouveau. I'm not a huge fan of abstract art, but I like some. I love evocative photography, especially in black and white. I feel like maybe my taste profile fits a multi-spoke radar chart, where each data point is a relative preference rather than a binary I like this or that type tick box filter.

I'm very much with you on this. In my experience, taste has less to do with discrete, obviously-nameable qualities like a certain color or subject matter, and much more to do with the way the parts fit together to make a cohesive yet surprising whole. That said, we had to start somewhere -- and the filters have been pretty useful to a portion of our users.

Like you mentioned, as more people use the site, we're building up the ability to recommend art to people and we anticipate that being a rewarding way to discover new art.

I love artists and design, and am shocked this has not happened yet, so Im rooting for you.

I really appreciate it! And I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your questions.

One aspect is that we're not business people looking at this problem in a cold, analytic light: we care about the wellbeing of artists and the joy that people get from having art in their homes. I know from my experience as an artist that most artists are suspicious of new businesses – but we've found a way to work with artists where they really trust us. We do more for our artists than just provide a self-service tool for them to list commodities and get some sales – we coach them on selling; we help them build community with other artists; we're building new features to fit their workflows; and we'll even hop on the phone with them and let them vent to us about life as an artist, haha.

Artsy seems like a great platform, but we're mostly targeting a different type of buyer than they seem to be. We're also working with artists directly, rather than through their galleries. So, despite both being online art marketplaces, I think it's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison between us and them.

Regarding the rest of the startup graveyard, when we talk to our users on the buyer side of our marketplace, they haven't heard of things like Saatchi, or even Artsy, in many cases. So I think that, to a significant degree, the mental category of "place to buy art online" is still open, at least for people who aren't already experienced art collectors.

So I think in our case the answer is timing + obsessive attention to our users.

Not a noob question! It's a deep and interesting question. :)

Pricing art is harder than pricing most other things since artworks are, by definition, non-fungible / unique. This makes it hard for there to be a "correct" price. For the most part, we address this by letting our artists set their own prices (they have more information than we do.) Other factors that play in are the cost of materials and labor (often hundreds of dollars per painting) and the potential for the artwork to go up in price some day, like a stock.

This is a great catch! Thank you for pointing that out.

- I don't really care much about the Covid-19 relief. If you are donating then good for you and for helping the community. But I do actually avoid websites/services that try to advertise donations as a selling point. I can donate myself if I want to. - Also, do not penalize artists who do not want to donate to Covid-19. That's their business. They might be giving more, through other ways, to the community. They might be tight with money. Whatever. But the way the website is presenting it is that these guys are the generous guys.

More than anything else, we rolled out the 'COVID-19 support' features because of what our artists were telling us. We got flooded by artists telling us that they wanted to use their art sales to raise money for COVID-19 relief. But we also knew that many artists are tight on cash, so we said "instead of sacrificing your cut, let us give our cut, and you can keep yours during this insane time." The last thing we wanted was to penalize anyone.

- I don't know how New York is but this photo is NSFW and probably not so for families: https://artinres.com/artworks/marika-wagle-day-13-2020 You might want to have a filter for that.

You're right! It's time for us to implement filtering based on sensitive content.

Early on, when Art in Res was just an idea, we played with a model where we took zero commission and monetized other ways. But, when we talked to our artists about it, they were skeptical and would ask "but how will you make money?"

I hear you that, when looked at in a certain light, it might seems high – but we work closely with our artists and they seem to all like that our incentives are aligned. Plus, we do our best to use that 30% in ways that benefit them, e.g. by guaranteeing that they get paid if someone absconds with their work without paying it all the way off.

We take on the risk (it's one of the main reasons for our commission). If someone stops paying, either they send their artwork back to the artist or, in the worst case scenario, we pay the artist their full cut at a loss to us.

Totally with you on this. It's super annoying! We're working on a fix.

100% agree this is annoying. We're working on a fix.

Thank you! We're makers, so we built it.

Here's the stack:

- React & redux on the front end

- Rails on the back end

- Postgres & redis for persistence

- Stripe (including Connect) for payments

(edited for line breaks)

So I love the idea, but to me it seems the challenge you face is how to present the art. Sorry I don't really have any great suggestions -- more views of each piece that allow for examining the technique? More careful lighting of the photos in a way the best complements the art? It is a big challenge and I don't have any great ideas.

I agree with you on this! We're planning to roll out detail shots and installation shots soon, and I think those will go a long way to helping viewers get a sense for the IRL presence of certain works.

Also, while we don't have a concrete plan for it yet, it's clear that some artists need help photographing their work.

Very sincerely best of luck, I hope you succeed for your artists.

Thank you!

At first I found it hard to find the "next" arrow at the bottom. After scrolling through the first page, I gave up trying to find the next arrow and moved on to looking at the filters. Because all the text was greyed out, at first I thought they were unavailable, like perhaps you have to first sign up for an account before you can use the filters. I would have liked the "size" filters to be multiple-selection; I wanted to see all medium and large art, but couldn't select both.

Thank you, this is super helpful! We'll find a way to make it more clear that those UI components are there and should be used.

One suggestion: add the ability for some people to create curations. I know I'm not going to like a majority of the art that's listed, so being able to find a couple people with similar taste and browsing their selections would make it more likely I'd stay more engaged with the platform.

This is in the works!

But perhaps I'm just not the target audience, too. I'm an art collector with a couple dozen pieces, in the $X00 to $X000 range. I prefer galleries to online marketplaces, because the curation provides real value to me; I consistently patronize the couple of galleries that match my preferences, and the limited selection in each exhibition reduces decision fatigue while providing reasons to come back consistently over time.

You seem like the target audience to me! This is insightful and helpful feedback and I'd love to talk more if you want: jf@artinres.com

This is so cool – and so flattering!

Hard to say when we'll be hiring next, but let's talk: jf@artinres.com

- Why fixed installments? Why not say "this piece costs 300$ buy now, or pay 10 installments of 35$ or 20x20$" (forget the numbers, just an example).

We're considering adding more options like that. The only reason we haven't so far is that we're weighing it against overwhelming people with too many options and also other features we want to implement.

- why are there so few pictures of the work? If I buy a piece of art I want to look at it from all angles, get up close, see the structure, see it from far, see the frame etc.

I totally agree with you on this. This is actually one of the features we want to add before adding additional installment options.

- since you got excited from seeing artists' workspace, why not show them to us? Why not show those cool warehouses/storage containers/houses where the art is piled floor to ceiling? - When I click on an artist's bio, the last thing I want to see is a full-bleed picture of his face. I want to see where he works, how he is inspired or how this piece was formed.

Again, I couldn't agree more. For the time being, we've been getting our photos from the artists themselves and they tend to have better portraits of themselves than shots of them visible in their studios.

- out of curiosity: how did you come up with the 30/70 split between fees/artist's check? How do the artists respond? Have you had anyone say the fees are too high?

Traditional brick-and-mortar galleries take a 50% cut so we're taking significantly less than that. We also 'insure' the art ourselves: if someone stops paying and the artwork can't be reclaimed, we pay the artist their full cut anyway, even if it's a loss to us.

I love that idea!

It's US only for now, but once we figure out shipping and taxes we're excited to open up internationally.

Edit: Roger that, we're showing the full price now.

--

This is super helpful, thank you! The last thing we want to do is to deceive people.

There's a lot of information we want to convey in those little artwork thumbnails and we've been struggling with how to cram it all in. We thought that two prices in that small space would be confusing –– but I think you're right that it was a mistake and we need to find a way to work it in.

Oh wow, thank you, this is really, really helpful to know!

We're so used to the paying-in-installments piece that we must have gotten blind to the fact that people seeing it for the first time would think it's the total price.

Same thing with the delta – it's always 1 / 24 of the final price (you pay the artwork off over two years), with a minimum monthly price of $30 (for the artist's sake.) Put differently,

  if ( fullPrice / 24 ) > 30
    monthlyPrice = fullPrice / 24
  else
    monthlyPrice = 30
  end

Thank you! This is great feedback. The filters are lower contrast because we want the attention to stay on the art. But they might be too low-contrast and introduce usability problems.

We love sculpture and we're really excited to have it on the site. Sculpture is tricky, though, because shipping is usually more expensive and it's trickier to pack sculptures in a way that keeps them safe. That said, we're gradually rolling it out. We have a tiny number of sculptures on the site right now and we're going to add more as we get more confident in shipping them.

Thank you!

If someone stops paying, they're required to return their artwork (we even used to frame the relationship as a "rental"). In the case of a truly bad actor that stops paying and goes MIA, we make sure the artist gets paid, even if it's a loss for us.

For now, we charge a flat price for domestic shipping (with two tiers based on parcel size.) A near/medium-term goal is to integrate with shipping APIs for more nuanced shipping prices.

We take a percentage. For a given sale, 70% goes to the artist and 30% goes to the platform.

What's that?