I have a heuristic for this. When something sounds stupidly simple, then try it if the upside might be huge (and you have free time on your hands, there's alway

I have a heuristic for this. When something sounds stupidly simple, then try it if the upside might be huge (and you have free time on your hands, there's always an opportunity cost). The chance is higher that you're right, but in my personal experience, less high than I think. Empiricism > rationalism/intuition [1] But rationalism/intuition takes less time, so there's always a trade-off :) [1] Unless you're an expert at the topic (see the research of Kahneman, Tversky and KLein), then there are many cases where your intuition might fit the model of reality better than many empiric experiments, especially with business/social things like this HN submission.