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Startups needs to stop trying to solve boredom

10 points by tsunamifury 15y ago

rglover 15y ago
Great article. It does seem like the majority of popular startups do lack some sort of philanthropic effort. But at the same time (as sad as it may be), people don't care. It's difficult to imagine a world where an education app is #1 in the app store. In the U.S. at least, nobody cares about problems on a large scale unless it makes them look good. If there's little to no social traction in terms of solving a problem, then anyone willing to is facing a mighty uphill battle. It's easier to make distractions than it is to really change something. Hopefully that changes one day.
- tsunamifury 15y ago
  I think boredom-killing will hit a threshold when we begin to neglect the very real productivity and critical thinking which is needed for our society to continue to fuction. Pain is a powerful stimuli, and I believe it will motivate the startup world to become more 'productive'.
  - ulisesroche 15y ago
    I hope, for my own good, you're right. I gotta pay student loans on the 15th, and can't find anyone doing anything other than social networking games to take people's money, "sexy" data-mining to take people's money, or mobile fads to take people's money.
qq66 15y ago
When Twitter started one could say it was to relieve boredom. Who needs a stream of user-generated content about what some stranger in San Francisco ate for breakfast? 5 years later, Twitter has been instrumental in organizing protests that have brought down governments. YouTube was used to expose a senatorial candidate making a racist remark and cost him the election. Facebook was instrumental in the Obama election campaign, without which we might have had President Sarah Palin. Anything can become anything else.
- tsunamifury 15y ago
  Certainly true, I am not arguing that communications platforms are not able to find productive uses. It's more than for every twitter, there are hundreds of failed or carbon-copy twitters which do not focus on any sort of productive solution. They simply copy eachother with the idea that more noise is better.
  - qq66 15y ago
    But how to distinguish these? Of 100 stupid sounding ideas, how do you know that Twitter will be the one to change the world? You don't. You have to start all 100 to find out.
    - tsunamifury 15y ago
      You can tell when the pitch boils down to, this is twitter but for XXXX.

10 points by tsunamifury 15y ago

Great article. It does seem like the majority of popular startups do lack some sort of philanthropic effort. But at the same time (as sad as it may be), people don't care. It's difficult to imagine a world where an education app is #1 in the app store. In the U.S. at least, nobody cares about problems on a large scale unless it makes them look good. If there's little to no social traction in terms of solving a problem, then anyone willing to is facing a mighty uphill battle. It's easier to make distractions than it is to really change something. Hopefully that changes one day.

tsunamifury 15y ago
I think boredom-killing will hit a threshold when we begin to neglect the very real productivity and critical thinking which is needed for our society to continue to fuction. Pain is a powerful stimuli, and I believe it will motivate the startup world to become more 'productive'.
- ulisesroche 15y ago
  I hope, for my own good, you're right. I gotta pay student loans on the 15th, and can't find anyone doing anything other than social networking games to take people's money, "sexy" data-mining to take people's money, or mobile fads to take people's money.

qq66 15y ago

When Twitter started one could say it was to relieve boredom. Who needs a stream of user-generated content about what some stranger in San Francisco ate for breakfast? 5 years later, Twitter has been instrumental in organizing protests that have brought down governments. YouTube was used to expose a senatorial candidate making a racist remark and cost him the election. Facebook was instrumental in the Obama election campaign, without which we might have had President Sarah Palin. Anything can become anything else.

tsunamifury 15y ago
Certainly true, I am not arguing that communications platforms are not able to find productive uses. It's more than for every twitter, there are hundreds of failed or carbon-copy twitters which do not focus on any sort of productive solution. They simply copy eachother with the idea that more noise is better.
- qq66 15y ago
  But how to distinguish these? Of 100 stupid sounding ideas, how do you know that Twitter will be the one to change the world? You don't. You have to start all 100 to find out.
  - tsunamifury 15y ago
    You can tell when the pitch boils down to, this is twitter but for XXXX.