3 ms·

It would be nice to make a list of such niches. Things that wouldn’t take more than a couple of hundred hours to make (at max) and are tremendously useful, espe

by akudha 5y ago

It would be nice to make a list of such niches. Things that wouldn’t take more than a couple of hundred hours to make (at max) and are tremendously useful, especially to vulnerable populations like old people, people with limited internet connection, physically challenged people etc. These need not be super polished, optimized etc. They just need to work correctly and solve a problem quickly and easily

agumonkey 5y ago
old people are a special demographics (I encounter a few of them regularly, for IT reasons or not) the obvious fields in the list: - education - healthcare - justice someone on HN showed an app for people to find good workers for home rework, this kind of stuff could be tremendously useful, and more generally the organization layer of society is very lacking. This also match the issues at the courthouse, basically making people well informed, and communicating issues/info smoothly (instead of waiting days to get a fake answer by someone shady)
- akudha 5y ago
  Physically challenged people are another group that could use a lot of help. One of my friends has cerebral palsy, until I met her, I had zero idea about the problems they face. These groups of people aren’t served because there is not much money in it :(
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I'd gladly help people with those issues. I'm gonna seek them (no idea why I never thought about that). The reason I put elders aside is that their motivations and emotions are very different from younger people. There are lot of fear, loneliness driving their need for help, and often they don't really want to own the knowledge, it's more a little bit of emotional support; which is cool, but not as motivating as, say, a younger handicapped person, who has more skin in the game.
    - akudha 5y ago
      There was a language website that connected old people with youngsters who want to learn languages. They practice their language skills and help the old people with loneliness. This is a very good idea.
      - agumonkey 5y ago
        indeed, those bridges are great
- alien_ 5y ago
  There's a lot to be done to address digital divide especially for the elderly. The other week I witnessed first hand how multiple 50-something folks who own smartphones struggled with something as easy as filling a form on a website for making an appointment (in this case for getting a passport) and confirming the appointment by clicking an email. Or think about the thousands of vulnerable/old people who will die of COVID-19 because they failed to schedule their vaccinations even though they could otherwise access it. A friend who works in Berlin on radiotherapy for cancer patients said lots of them aren't vaccinated because they just can't sign up for it and their doctor doesn't do it for them. Anything that requires using technology, even as simple as using a browser and getting a confirmation email should be probably be also made available by more familiar/accessible tools such as SMS/whatsapp/facebook or a call center.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    biggest problem in digital anything is the amount of bs and randomness non tech saavy people rely on rote learning at surface layers, and every year comes a new way, new look, new lingo .. they feel it's yet another big knowledge gap to learn when in fact there's almost nothing new under the sun (algorithms are as old as civilisation, logic doesn't change much)
- Asymmetryk 5y ago
  I'm prematurely dreaming of a browser plug in that can more intelligentl arrange page elements when I am heavily zooming in on text. The ability to select page trft6 enlarge would be great. I miss Opera browsers whole page zoom possible because they wrote their own display layer. Windows has lost so many years spawning graphics subsystems, I can't believe that a distro hasn't emerged for us olds. We'll give you green dollars for it on silver round things even ..

by akudha 5y ago

agumonkey 5y ago

old people are a special demographics (I encounter a few of them regularly, for IT reasons or not) the obvious fields in the list: - education - healthcare - justice someone on HN showed an app for people to find good workers for home rework, this kind of stuff could be tremendously useful, and more generally the organization layer of society is very lacking. This also match the issues at the courthouse, basically making people well informed, and communicating issues/info smoothly (instead of waiting days to get a fake answer by someone shady)

akudha 5y ago
Physically challenged people are another group that could use a lot of help. One of my friends has cerebral palsy, until I met her, I had zero idea about the problems they face. These groups of people aren’t served because there is not much money in it :(
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I'd gladly help people with those issues. I'm gonna seek them (no idea why I never thought about that). The reason I put elders aside is that their motivations and emotions are very different from younger people. There are lot of fear, loneliness driving their need for help, and often they don't really want to own the knowledge, it's more a little bit of emotional support; which is cool, but not as motivating as, say, a younger handicapped person, who has more skin in the game.
  - akudha 5y ago
    There was a language website that connected old people with youngsters who want to learn languages. They practice their language skills and help the old people with loneliness. This is a very good idea.
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      indeed, those bridges are great
alien_ 5y ago
There's a lot to be done to address digital divide especially for the elderly. The other week I witnessed first hand how multiple 50-something folks who own smartphones struggled with something as easy as filling a form on a website for making an appointment (in this case for getting a passport) and confirming the appointment by clicking an email. Or think about the thousands of vulnerable/old people who will die of COVID-19 because they failed to schedule their vaccinations even though they could otherwise access it. A friend who works in Berlin on radiotherapy for cancer patients said lots of them aren't vaccinated because they just can't sign up for it and their doctor doesn't do it for them. Anything that requires using technology, even as simple as using a browser and getting a confirmation email should be probably be also made available by more familiar/accessible tools such as SMS/whatsapp/facebook or a call center.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  biggest problem in digital anything is the amount of bs and randomness non tech saavy people rely on rote learning at surface layers, and every year comes a new way, new look, new lingo .. they feel it's yet another big knowledge gap to learn when in fact there's almost nothing new under the sun (algorithms are as old as civilisation, logic doesn't change much)
Asymmetryk 5y ago
I'm prematurely dreaming of a browser plug in that can more intelligentl arrange page elements when I am heavily zooming in on text. The ability to select page trft6 enlarge would be great. I miss Opera browsers whole page zoom possible because they wrote their own display layer. Windows has lost so many years spawning graphics subsystems, I can't believe that a distro hasn't emerged for us olds. We'll give you green dollars for it on silver round things even ..