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> Allow me to put it more succinctly: selling derived data as a subscription product does. not. work. I don’t care what it is. The juice is never worth the sque

> Allow me to put it more succinctly: selling derived data as a subscription product does. not. work. I don’t care what it is. The juice is never worth the squeeze.¹ Count cars. Count airplanes. Count ships. Segment land cover. Track oil inventories. Estimate biofuels. Measure water levels. Etc. Etc. Etc. I see that he outlined a few exceptions at the footnote… I'll also add Plaid. I think this guy is making some huge generalizations that don't hold up beyond his industry. But that said, I recently downgraded two potential startups based on data feeds to personal projects because I realized that nobody really pays for data, and if there is any value then the providers will figure that out inevitably… Another recent example: I've been using Deliveries for Mac and iOS for over fifteen years, a very simple, perfectly-designed, laser focused app. Both Amazon (not surprising) and Fed Ex (quite surprising) have decided that freely providing delivery dates to consumers is too valuable to leave to third parties, so the beloved app is shuttering sometime this year. https://junecloud.com/journal/iphone/the-future-of-deliveries.html https://junecloud.com/journal/iphone/the-future-of-deliverie...

inglor 5y ago
I agree - some more exceptions: Hedge funds and VCs as well as brokers and other investors definitely _do_ pay for insights on top of public data feeds. TipRanks (worked there 2012-2017) is a big'ish (profitable) company doing (mostly) exactly that.
dmitriid 5y ago
I found his own Twitter mini-feed he linked more valuable than the article: https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison/status/1515327507079348231 https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison/status/15153275070793482...
altdataseller 5y ago
“recently downgraded two potential startups based on data feeds to personal projects” Do you mean as an investment or place to work? And what type of data feeds were they, broadly?
- theobeers 5y ago
  I think they were referring to their own startup ideas. (I was also momentarily confused because "downgrade" tends to be used in the context of investments.)
  - delusional 5y ago
    I think this might be a case of the "grind" mindset, where ones own time is also seen as an investment. Hence the investment lingo.
    - Eric_WVGG 5y ago
      lol. Was I using investment lingo? How humiliating. I managed to put together an MVP of a service that would push notifications for stuff like "tell me when my favorite musicians/novelists/artists have new consumable," all the while thinking "if any of these people were smart they would have done this a decade ago." Of course Amazon started pushing out the book stuff, and Apple Music with music, just a few months after I got the back-end APIs working. uh, so yes… grind, I guess
    - 0des 5y ago
      its not the grind minset, thats reality. time has a cost.
mikestew 5y ago
Fed Ex (quite surprising) have decided that freely providing delivery dates to consumers is too value to leave to third parties... ...or to leave to the shipping endpoint customer, either. I can't tell you how many clicks it takes to determine when a particular shipment will arrive at my door. Off the top of my head: 0. Email from vendor: "your package has shipped!" 1. Log in to the Fedex account. 2. One would think that post-login that it would take your straight away to the "Manage Your Deliveries" page, because what is the most common action taken by a residential customer post-login? (My guess is, they want to find out when their stuff is going t show up.) But alas, no. It just takes you to the main page, but now you're logged in. 3. Search for that deliveries page...what is it called? Oh, wait, here's a Track button. Nope, that's not the one you want. Go click some more. 4. Finally find the Manage Your Deliveries option in some buried menu. Click it. It won't take your directly to the shipment that you originally were looking for, but it's in the neighborhood. 5. Ah, the Manage Your Deliveries page, where I can find out when the package will arrive. 6. "A label has been created, but the shipment hasn't been dropped off yet, so we haven't the first fucking clue when your package will arrive. But be sure to come back tomorrow to do this whole exercise again!" I'm almost to the point of preferring vendors that use DHL instead of FedEx. It's that bad.
- InCityDreams 5y ago
  I've no skin in the game but having dealt with tracking a single fedex today, i found it to be a remarkably ok experience. No login, though. Their 'notifications by email' section was pretty messed up.
- kccqzy 5y ago
  You don't need to log in or even create an account at FedEx just to track deliveries. You just need the tracking number. It's the first thing you see when you go to the homepage of fedex.com
  - NavinF 5y ago
    No, the tracking number only shows the delivery date for most carriers. You gotta login to see the delivery time.
campchase 5y ago
I agree-most of my observations here do not apply broadly beyond the satellite imagery. One of my favorite resources for learning how "data as a service" businesses work (when they work) is the "World of DaaS" podcast that Auren Hoffman hosts: https://www.safegraph.com/podcasts https://www.safegraph.com/podcasts

inglor 5y ago

I agree - some more exceptions: Hedge funds and VCs as well as brokers and other investors definitely _do_ pay for insights on top of public data feeds. TipRanks (worked there 2012-2017) is a big'ish (profitable) company doing (mostly) exactly that.

dmitriid 5y ago

I found his own Twitter mini-feed he linked more valuable than the article: https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison/status/1515327507079348231 https://twitter.com/mouthofmorrison/status/15153275070793482...

altdataseller 5y ago

“recently downgraded two potential startups based on data feeds to personal projects” Do you mean as an investment or place to work? And what type of data feeds were they, broadly?

theobeers 5y ago
I think they were referring to their own startup ideas. (I was also momentarily confused because "downgrade" tends to be used in the context of investments.)
- delusional 5y ago
  I think this might be a case of the "grind" mindset, where ones own time is also seen as an investment. Hence the investment lingo.
  - Eric_WVGG 5y ago
    lol. Was I using investment lingo? How humiliating. I managed to put together an MVP of a service that would push notifications for stuff like "tell me when my favorite musicians/novelists/artists have new consumable," all the while thinking "if any of these people were smart they would have done this a decade ago." Of course Amazon started pushing out the book stuff, and Apple Music with music, just a few months after I got the back-end APIs working. uh, so yes… grind, I guess
  - 0des 5y ago
    its not the grind minset, thats reality. time has a cost.

mikestew 5y ago

Fed Ex (quite surprising) have decided that freely providing delivery dates to consumers is too value to leave to third parties... ...or to leave to the shipping endpoint customer, either. I can't tell you how many clicks it takes to determine when a particular shipment will arrive at my door. Off the top of my head: 0. Email from vendor: "your package has shipped!" 1. Log in to the Fedex account. 2. One would think that post-login that it would take your straight away to the "Manage Your Deliveries" page, because what is the most common action taken by a residential customer post-login? (My guess is, they want to find out when their stuff is going t show up.) But alas, no. It just takes you to the main page, but now you're logged in. 3. Search for that deliveries page...what is it called? Oh, wait, here's a Track button. Nope, that's not the one you want. Go click some more. 4. Finally find the Manage Your Deliveries option in some buried menu. Click it. It won't take your directly to the shipment that you originally were looking for, but it's in the neighborhood. 5. Ah, the Manage Your Deliveries page, where I can find out when the package will arrive. 6. "A label has been created, but the shipment hasn't been dropped off yet, so we haven't the first fucking clue when your package will arrive. But be sure to come back tomorrow to do this whole exercise again!" I'm almost to the point of preferring vendors that use DHL instead of FedEx. It's that bad.

InCityDreams 5y ago
I've no skin in the game but having dealt with tracking a single fedex today, i found it to be a remarkably ok experience. No login, though. Their 'notifications by email' section was pretty messed up.
kccqzy 5y ago
You don't need to log in or even create an account at FedEx just to track deliveries. You just need the tracking number. It's the first thing you see when you go to the homepage of fedex.com
- NavinF 5y ago
  No, the tracking number only shows the delivery date for most carriers. You gotta login to see the delivery time.

campchase 5y ago

I agree-most of my observations here do not apply broadly beyond the satellite imagery. One of my favorite resources for learning how "data as a service" businesses work (when they work) is the "World of DaaS" podcast that Auren Hoffman hosts: https://www.safegraph.com/podcasts https://www.safegraph.com/podcasts