6 ms·

i think the branding "open source Amazon" is just way too ambitious/big. invites a lot of confusion/criticism if Amazon is different things to different people.

by swyx 4y ago

pushedx 4y ago
I think it’s good marketing. Amazon’s primary source of revenue is as a market-maker/logisticics provider, so why not position yourself as a competitor if it gets contributors interested?
- AndyPa32 4y ago
  I had thought until now that Amazon primary revenue stream is running a good chunk of the internet. Quick research tells me, you are right.
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    Revenue for Amazon is in the retail business. The margin however is a lot better in the AWS side. Warehouses and logistics cost real money to operate.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dudeinjapan 4y ago
should start small, like an open source Google, then work your way up to an open source Amazon.
- cush 4y ago
  Harsh, but true
- ReedJessen 4y ago
  literal LOL
- zxcvbn4038 4y ago
  Nobody ever wants to open source Pornhub. Wide consumer interest, no physical products to worry about, lots of advertising potential - and your not competing with Amazon, Wal-Mart, Google, Apple, or Target. Sounds like a better deal to me.
  - egypturnash 4y ago
    Constant hassle with payment processors deciding to ban smut once you get too big, though.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > Constant hassle with payment processors deciding to ban smut once you get too big, though. Not doing something because you might get too big is not sound reasoning. When you get too big, that's the time to worry about it.
      - ItsTooMuch 4y ago
        The payment processors will shut you down even for your first payment if it's for porn. More likely - you'll never get to a first payment anyways, they won't sign the contract.
        lelanthran 4y ago
        > The payment processors will shut you down even for your first payment if it's for porn. More likely - you'll never get to a first payment anyways, they won't sign the contract. If that was even occasionally true, the tons of paid porn sites wouldn't exist. The fact that they both exist and take popular cards tells me that that cannot possibly be true.
        ItsTooMuch 4y ago
        There are special payment processors catering to porn/etc, but the problem is that they require extremely large collateral and have other unusual requirements that are untenable to new businesses. Most probably they won't even talk to a startup (I tried, didn't get a reply). There's a reason why startups like OnlyFans used normal payment processors and tried to convince them they're not porn instead of beginning with these specialized ones. Edit: BTW, a large portion of seemingly independent porn sites are actually run by only few companies. Especially the Xvideos corporation.
- oefnak 4y ago
  Maybe practice creating an open source Microsoft before quitting your day job?
- kornhole 4y ago
  Many have already done open source Google and MS. We have those solutions already, and they are great though not yet pervasive. We need open source market place and logistics, and that is where they should stay focused.
stonemetal12 4y ago
Probably for this crowd anyway. My first thought at seeing the title was AWS, not the store front.
sigg3 4y ago
For some blissful seconds I thought this post would be related to reforestation efforts.
johannes1234321 4y ago
Amazon to most is primarily a website where you get everything mostly reliable and mostly with a consumer focussed service (I for one never had any issues when returning things, any problem was like "yeah ok, send it back, we send you a new one or do you want a refund?" ... For sellers they play a different game with their market power, discounts or they won't offer your things or rank competitors higher)
jannes 4y ago
They previously submitted the same link with a different title and got... 3 upvotes. The Amazon comparison clearly helped to get on the HN front page. > Show HN: I'm building an open-source order management system and marketplace API https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=openship.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=openship.org
- Thorentis 4y ago
  Just goes to show that for all of HN's hyper ad awareness, we still fall for basic click bait in our own territory.
  - cfiggers 4y ago
    Another way to frame it (from the opposite direction) is a collective failure on "our" part (if there is such a thing as "us") to explore and promote genuinely interesting things just because they lack the sparkle of click bait on the outer surface. Maybe it isn't that we "fall for" click bait, it's that we very loudly ignore stuff that isn't.
    - smaudet 4y ago
      Either that we actively (doubtful) ignore non-click-bait, more that we are programmed (in some sense) to only pay attention to click-bait. It is genuinely difficult to ignore things which sound alarming but usually either nonsense or much less alarming, than it is to actively investigate everything, whether it seems alarming or not. The later is much more difficult but also a lot more fruitful - it is why Google News was so good, a simple collation of all news instead of only click-bait-y news, and why it is genuinely terrible now (mostly dominated by click-bait-y news again). And again, an illustration of active versus passive - actively filtering google news feeds was fruitful, passively filtering led to algorithmic optimizations which ultimately favored high click counts and therefore more click-bait-y news...and ultimately at this point to being "click-bait highlights of the day", akin to some nonsense like yahoo or msn news.
    - eternityforest 4y ago
lowwave 4y ago
I would be down for an open source AWS services. Shouldn't be to hard to make web front end to the fire cracker instance, but make everything in the backend open source, so any one can run the community edition. Any thoughts on that?
- drKarl 4y ago
  Yeah, and then you run your "open source AWS" on AWS xD. I believe what you mean it's called Open shift, kind of.
chinchilla2020 4y ago
Also very difficult to compete with Amazon. Amazon makes their operating profits from cloud computing and subsidizes their retail market with it. That is how they keep prices so low.
- amelius 4y ago
  The result is a form of predatory pricing which should be illegal.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Instead a company should subsidize their product with VC funding like every single company on YC does..

i think the branding "open source Amazon" is just way too ambitious/big. invites a lot of confusion/criticism if Amazon is different things to different people.

by swyx 4y ago

i think the branding "open source Amazon" is just way too ambitious/big. invites a lot of confusion/criticism if Amazon is different things to different people.

pushedx 4y ago

I think it’s good marketing. Amazon’s primary source of revenue is as a market-maker/logisticics provider, so why not position yourself as a competitor if it gets contributors interested?

AndyPa32 4y ago
I had thought until now that Amazon primary revenue stream is running a good chunk of the internet. Quick research tells me, you are right.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  Revenue for Amazon is in the retail business. The margin however is a lot better in the AWS side. Warehouses and logistics cost real money to operate.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dudeinjapan 4y ago

should start small, like an open source Google, then work your way up to an open source Amazon.

cush 4y ago
Harsh, but true
ReedJessen 4y ago
literal LOL
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
Nobody ever wants to open source Pornhub. Wide consumer interest, no physical products to worry about, lots of advertising potential - and your not competing with Amazon, Wal-Mart, Google, Apple, or Target. Sounds like a better deal to me.
- egypturnash 4y ago
  Constant hassle with payment processors deciding to ban smut once you get too big, though.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > Constant hassle with payment processors deciding to ban smut once you get too big, though. Not doing something because you might get too big is not sound reasoning. When you get too big, that's the time to worry about it.
    - ItsTooMuch 4y ago
      The payment processors will shut you down even for your first payment if it's for porn. More likely - you'll never get to a first payment anyways, they won't sign the contract.
      - lelanthran 4y ago
        > The payment processors will shut you down even for your first payment if it's for porn. More likely - you'll never get to a first payment anyways, they won't sign the contract. If that was even occasionally true, the tons of paid porn sites wouldn't exist. The fact that they both exist and take popular cards tells me that that cannot possibly be true.
        ItsTooMuch 4y ago
        There are special payment processors catering to porn/etc, but the problem is that they require extremely large collateral and have other unusual requirements that are untenable to new businesses. Most probably they won't even talk to a startup (I tried, didn't get a reply). There's a reason why startups like OnlyFans used normal payment processors and tried to convince them they're not porn instead of beginning with these specialized ones. Edit: BTW, a large portion of seemingly independent porn sites are actually run by only few companies. Especially the Xvideos corporation.
oefnak 4y ago
Maybe practice creating an open source Microsoft before quitting your day job?
kornhole 4y ago
Many have already done open source Google and MS. We have those solutions already, and they are great though not yet pervasive. We need open source market place and logistics, and that is where they should stay focused.

stonemetal12 4y ago

Probably for this crowd anyway. My first thought at seeing the title was AWS, not the store front.

sigg3 4y ago

For some blissful seconds I thought this post would be related to reforestation efforts.

johannes1234321 4y ago

Amazon to most is primarily a website where you get everything mostly reliable and mostly with a consumer focussed service (I for one never had any issues when returning things, any problem was like "yeah ok, send it back, we send you a new one or do you want a refund?" ... For sellers they play a different game with their market power, discounts or they won't offer your things or rank competitors higher)

jannes 4y ago

They previously submitted the same link with a different title and got... 3 upvotes. The Amazon comparison clearly helped to get on the HN front page. > Show HN: I'm building an open-source order management system and marketplace API https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=openship.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=openship.org

Thorentis 4y ago
Just goes to show that for all of HN's hyper ad awareness, we still fall for basic click bait in our own territory.
- cfiggers 4y ago
  Another way to frame it (from the opposite direction) is a collective failure on "our" part (if there is such a thing as "us") to explore and promote genuinely interesting things just because they lack the sparkle of click bait on the outer surface. Maybe it isn't that we "fall for" click bait, it's that we very loudly ignore stuff that isn't.
  - smaudet 4y ago
    Either that we actively (doubtful) ignore non-click-bait, more that we are programmed (in some sense) to only pay attention to click-bait. It is genuinely difficult to ignore things which sound alarming but usually either nonsense or much less alarming, than it is to actively investigate everything, whether it seems alarming or not. The later is much more difficult but also a lot more fruitful - it is why Google News was so good, a simple collation of all news instead of only click-bait-y news, and why it is genuinely terrible now (mostly dominated by click-bait-y news again). And again, an illustration of active versus passive - actively filtering google news feeds was fruitful, passively filtering led to algorithmic optimizations which ultimately favored high click counts and therefore more click-bait-y news...and ultimately at this point to being "click-bait highlights of the day", akin to some nonsense like yahoo or msn news.
  - eternityforest 4y ago

lowwave 4y ago

I would be down for an open source AWS services. Shouldn't be to hard to make web front end to the fire cracker instance, but make everything in the backend open source, so any one can run the community edition. Any thoughts on that?

drKarl 4y ago
Yeah, and then you run your "open source AWS" on AWS xD. I believe what you mean it's called Open shift, kind of.

chinchilla2020 4y ago

Also very difficult to compete with Amazon. Amazon makes their operating profits from cloud computing and subsidizes their retail market with it. That is how they keep prices so low.

amelius 4y ago
The result is a form of predatory pricing which should be illegal.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Instead a company should subsidize their product with VC funding like every single company on YC does..