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Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

242 points by evsamsonov 9y ago

evsamsonov 9y ago
This list is worth to recall and consider because it is actual in our days.
- evsamsonov 9y ago
  Comments of that post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704
notjustanymike 9y ago
For #26, we got chatroulette. Be careful what you ask for.
CodeSheikh 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    That feature reminds me of what they had in Logan's Run. A lot of stuff feels like people trying to implement an idea from one of their fav sci-fi books or movies.
    - busterarm 9y ago
      The part where at 30 you're deemed useless to society?
      - failrate 9y ago
        That definitely sounds like Tinder to me.
      - chaostheory 9y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlRMDzHYgt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlRMDzHYgt4
  - pishpash 9y ago
    Next step to make it more efficient is to accept rank lists and to federate, solving the matchmaking problem globally.
    - matte_black 9y ago
      No, the next step is to tie in with DNA and ancestry services like 23andMe to help find a real mate for long term relationships and bearing children, and not just short flings or one night stands.
      - paganel 9y ago
        The DNA thing sounds dystopian. Maybe that’s where we’re heading, anyway, but it doesn’t feel right.
        matte_black 9y ago
        To me it sounds like the opposite, a utopia. All throughout history, genes have been passed down through natural selection based on short term traits. If we can select partners based on things like longevity, cancer resistance, disease risks, IQ, we can produce a better world filled with better humans, slowly but surely.
        sebleon 9y ago
        > better humans Ah, sounds like you’re into eugenics. Do you believe humans are wise enough to determine what traits are favorable? Increased longevity, for instance, seems short-sighted. We already have extreme population growth. While natural survival instincts strive to fight death, what’s the net benefit to society of helping more people make it through their 90s? Phases like childhood and parenthood would become smaller fractions of life, does extending old age make your overall life experience better? Would society progress as quickly with more old people around?
        matte_black 9y ago
  - Karrot_Kream 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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 9y ago
        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.
    - exolymph 9y ago
      That's a problem with more demand than supply, fundamentally.
- wuliwong 9y ago
  OkCupid was founded in 2004. But Tinder definitely changed the space.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    I have a question for anyone in their twenties, and thirties. What percentage of your friends use Tinder on a regular basis? Just a rough estimate.
curo 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
gregorymichael 9y ago
> 22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid. Airtable founders: "Hold my beer."
kayall 9y ago
>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.
ghaff 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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.
- 9y ago
markivraknatap 9y ago
#17 New payment methods - Cryptocurrencies
- doctorOb 9y ago
  The Bitcoin whitepaper came out just three months after this post, if I'm not mistaken.
  - anonymous5133 9y ago
    First post was 2008-11-01 link: http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/#selection-11.0-11.10 http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/#...
peter303 9y ago
Cloud may have done some these like 4 5 7 9 11 18 22
bencollier49 9y ago
Arguably, things like DoNotPay are a response to 24 ("A buffer against bad customer service")
beefman 9y ago
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-goodbye http://blog.silk.co/post/167155630197/its-time-to-say-goodby...
dzink 9y ago
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.
alant 9y ago
I wonder how this list changed in the past 10 years. Time for a new list PG?
- vincentleeuwen 9y ago
  https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/ https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/
  - alant 9y ago
    thank you!
seanalltogether 9y ago
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.
- ghaff 9y ago
  The pros and cons of ending at a specific time were discussed ad nauseam back in the day. There isn't a clearcut "right" approach. To the broader point, I do wonder to what degree participating in eBay auctions was something of a fad. eBay was a bit of a hobby of mine for a while. In part, my buying habits have changed but I'm not sure you can separate out the "thrill of the hunt" from the more utilitarian aspects of using eBay to buy and sell.
- sincerely 9y ago
  I use Yahoo Auctions a lot because it’s the only place to get certain goods and sellers have the option to turn on a feature where every time someone bids with less than 5 minutes left, the timer extends to 5 minutes.
- padobson 9y ago
  I wouldn't mind seeing an auction site with a far more limited scope, and a limited number of auctions. Say, like, a site for old video games. Anyone who wants to sell Street Fighter II for the SNES submits it to the Street Fighter II auction, and anyone who wants to buy it bids on it there. There aren't 500 Street Fighter II auctions, there's just one, creating a more efficient commodity market for Street Fighter II. Maybe the answer here is a service where people can build their own auction sites around product categories they care about. The service, the auctioneer/curator, and the seller split up the proceeds of each sale.
  - ccozan 9y ago
    What could possible result by marrying Reddit and Ebay?
  - emagdnim2100 9y ago
lr4444lr 9y ago
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.
- methehack 9y ago
  It works a lot better than the comments section. You include this comment and yours in that.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  This comment lacks both an appreciating for the nuance of international diplomacy, as well as journalism.
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    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.
shafyy 9y ago
#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 9y ago
  that was a good paragraph
  - shafyy 9y ago
    The best ever. Copy and paste fail.
Kluny 9y ago
Use words, not list numbers, people. You're not doing yourself any favors.
- lamby 9y ago
  Hm?
golergka 9y ago
#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 9y ago
  >#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.
pascalxus 9y ago
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 9y ago
  Where is that data from? Also, it looks like you republish recipes from other websites. Do you have their permission to do so?
  - pascalxus 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      You make it sound like somebody gives up their copyright by using a certain data encoding.
      - pascalxus 9y ago
        The whole point of JSON+LD is to make that information more accessible to the outside world (like to search engines), why else would they publish that? is there any reason to think any site wouldn't want their recipe showing up in a search result? the 2 sites I talked to were overjoyed to have their recipes shown in my search results.
      - Trundle 9y ago
        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.
hal9000xp 9y ago
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.
nathan_f77 9y ago
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/
nickpsecurity 9y ago
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/AAAAAAAAFwg/ZkvyGKqZRws/s1600/funny-graphs-pirates-vs-players.png http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1ToS1gYD3wQ/TlxUHSp-uKI/AAAAAAAAFw... 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.
abalone 9y ago
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.
- reza_n 9y ago
  > 3. New news. NY Times topped $1 billion in subscription revenue last year. Quite a feat and definitely an indication that money is to be made in digital news. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times-company-earnings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times-c...
  - ethbro 9y ago
    The question is whether that's zero-sum consolidation (as competitors close) or sustainable.
    - jacobr1 9y ago
      It can be both. Indy bookstores seemed to have reached an equilibrium point after the onslaught of both the big boxes and Amazon. There are many fewer stores, but those that remain are often profitable with loyal followings. They had to innovate to branch into things like becoming half-coffee/half-bookstores, or become better big-boxes themselves, or focus on community events and authors. Perhaps we'll see a collapse of local news (which really has already happened) and the resurgence of quality national news on a smaller, less competitive, but sustainable basis?
nugi 9y ago
Still largely unsolved, or poorly solved issues. Seems less precient than timeless.
BerislavLopac 9y ago
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.
Zak 9y ago
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.
jamestimmins 9y ago
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.
g5095 9y ago
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.
symbolepro 9y ago
Read this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704
itronitron 9y ago
for hi-res CRM I encourage people to look at Tenfold, which is a startup in Austin
itronitron 9y ago
just realized this was originally posted 10 years ago...
eliblock 9y ago
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.
thirdreplicator 9y ago
Weak ass list for YC management to come up with. No mention of blockchain, self driving cars, quantum comptuers or AI..... Seriously, pepes.... It's your job to see in the future. That was only 9 years ago!
vinchuco 9y ago
A 10-year followup to this could be interesting.

242 points by evsamsonov 9y ago

evsamsonov 9y ago

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

evsamsonov 9y ago
Comments of that post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704

notjustanymike 9y ago

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

CodeSheikh 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.
- chaostheory 9y ago
  That feature reminds me of what they had in Logan's Run. A lot of stuff feels like people trying to implement an idea from one of their fav sci-fi books or movies.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    The part where at 30 you're deemed useless to society?
    - failrate 9y ago
      That definitely sounds like Tinder to me.
    - chaostheory 9y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlRMDzHYgt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlRMDzHYgt4
- pishpash 9y ago
  Next step to make it more efficient is to accept rank lists and to federate, solving the matchmaking problem globally.
  - matte_black 9y ago
    No, the next step is to tie in with DNA and ancestry services like 23andMe to help find a real mate for long term relationships and bearing children, and not just short flings or one night stands.
    - paganel 9y ago
      The DNA thing sounds dystopian. Maybe that’s where we’re heading, anyway, but it doesn’t feel right.
      - matte_black 9y ago
        To me it sounds like the opposite, a utopia. All throughout history, genes have been passed down through natural selection based on short term traits. If we can select partners based on things like longevity, cancer resistance, disease risks, IQ, we can produce a better world filled with better humans, slowly but surely.
        sebleon 9y ago
        > better humans Ah, sounds like you’re into eugenics. Do you believe humans are wise enough to determine what traits are favorable? Increased longevity, for instance, seems short-sighted. We already have extreme population growth. While natural survival instincts strive to fight death, what’s the net benefit to society of helping more people make it through their 90s? Phases like childhood and parenthood would become smaller fractions of life, does extending old age make your overall life experience better? Would society progress as quickly with more old people around?
        matte_black 9y ago
- Karrot_Kream 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      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.
  - exolymph 9y ago
    That's a problem with more demand than supply, fundamentally.
wuliwong 9y ago
OkCupid was founded in 2004. But Tinder definitely changed the space.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  I have a question for anyone in their twenties, and thirties. What percentage of your friends use Tinder on a regular basis? Just a rough estimate.

curo 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

gregorymichael 9y ago

> 22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid. Airtable founders: "Hold my beer."

kayall 9y ago

>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.

ghaff 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
9y ago

markivraknatap 9y ago

#17 New payment methods - Cryptocurrencies

doctorOb 9y ago
The Bitcoin whitepaper came out just three months after this post, if I'm not mistaken.
- anonymous5133 9y ago
  First post was 2008-11-01 link: http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/#selection-11.0-11.10 http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/1/#...

peter303 9y ago

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

bencollier49 9y ago

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

beefman 9y ago

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-goodbye http://blog.silk.co/post/167155630197/its-time-to-say-goodby...

dzink 9y ago

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.

alant 9y ago

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

vincentleeuwen 9y ago
https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/ https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/
- alant 9y ago
  thank you!

seanalltogether 9y ago

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.

ghaff 9y ago
The pros and cons of ending at a specific time were discussed ad nauseam back in the day. There isn't a clearcut "right" approach. To the broader point, I do wonder to what degree participating in eBay auctions was something of a fad. eBay was a bit of a hobby of mine for a while. In part, my buying habits have changed but I'm not sure you can separate out the "thrill of the hunt" from the more utilitarian aspects of using eBay to buy and sell.
sincerely 9y ago
I use Yahoo Auctions a lot because it’s the only place to get certain goods and sellers have the option to turn on a feature where every time someone bids with less than 5 minutes left, the timer extends to 5 minutes.
padobson 9y ago
I wouldn't mind seeing an auction site with a far more limited scope, and a limited number of auctions. Say, like, a site for old video games. Anyone who wants to sell Street Fighter II for the SNES submits it to the Street Fighter II auction, and anyone who wants to buy it bids on it there. There aren't 500 Street Fighter II auctions, there's just one, creating a more efficient commodity market for Street Fighter II. Maybe the answer here is a service where people can build their own auction sites around product categories they care about. The service, the auctioneer/curator, and the seller split up the proceeds of each sale.
- ccozan 9y ago
  What could possible result by marrying Reddit and Ebay?
- emagdnim2100 9y ago

lr4444lr 9y ago

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.

methehack 9y ago
It works a lot better than the comments section. You include this comment and yours in that.
shaki-dora 9y ago
This comment lacks both an appreciating for the nuance of international diplomacy, as well as journalism.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  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.

shafyy 9y ago

#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 9y ago
that was a good paragraph
- shafyy 9y ago
  The best ever. Copy and paste fail.

Kluny 9y ago

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

lamby 9y ago
Hm?

golergka 9y ago

#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 9y ago
>#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.

pascalxus 9y ago

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 9y ago
Where is that data from? Also, it looks like you republish recipes from other websites. Do you have their permission to do so?
- pascalxus 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    You make it sound like somebody gives up their copyright by using a certain data encoding.
    - pascalxus 9y ago
      The whole point of JSON+LD is to make that information more accessible to the outside world (like to search engines), why else would they publish that? is there any reason to think any site wouldn't want their recipe showing up in a search result? the 2 sites I talked to were overjoyed to have their recipes shown in my search results.
    - Trundle 9y ago
      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.

hal9000xp 9y ago

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.

nathan_f77 9y ago

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/

nickpsecurity 9y ago

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

abalone 9y ago

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.

reza_n 9y ago
> 3. New news. NY Times topped $1 billion in subscription revenue last year. Quite a feat and definitely an indication that money is to be made in digital news. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times-company-earnings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times-c...
- ethbro 9y ago
  The question is whether that's zero-sum consolidation (as competitors close) or sustainable.
  - jacobr1 9y ago
    It can be both. Indy bookstores seemed to have reached an equilibrium point after the onslaught of both the big boxes and Amazon. There are many fewer stores, but those that remain are often profitable with loyal followings. They had to innovate to branch into things like becoming half-coffee/half-bookstores, or become better big-boxes themselves, or focus on community events and authors. Perhaps we'll see a collapse of local news (which really has already happened) and the resurgence of quality national news on a smaller, less competitive, but sustainable basis?

nugi 9y ago

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

BerislavLopac 9y ago

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.

Zak 9y ago

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.

jamestimmins 9y ago

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.

g5095 9y ago

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.

symbolepro 9y ago

Read this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704

itronitron 9y ago

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

itronitron 9y ago

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

eliblock 9y ago

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.

thirdreplicator 9y ago

Weak ass list for YC management to come up with. No mention of blockchain, self driving cars, quantum comptuers or AI..... Seriously, pepes.... It's your job to see in the future. That was only 9 years ago!

vinchuco 9y ago

A 10-year followup to this could be interesting.