4 ms·

I feel like I keep seeing one million checkboxes guy's experiments, and I wonder.... Where is the monetization? Is this just a FANGAM engineer with a lot of fre

by topato 1y ago

I feel like I keep seeing one million checkboxes guy's experiments, and I wonder.... Where is the monetization? Is this just a FANGAM engineer with a lot of free time? Am I just beaten down by the SWE landscape of 2025?

RobotCaleb 1y ago
Have you never made anything without trying to make a dollar on it?
- mock-possum 1y ago
  No, I think the operative question is - Have you never felt so exhausted from working your day job that you don’t feel like building anything during your free time?
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
    Yeah but once I've been on break for a couple weeks my marshmallow unsquishes and I start making free stuff again
  - maccard 1y ago
    I don’t think it is. I think it’s normal to feel that way sometimes in our line of work, but it’s not normal to always feel that way.
    - wiseowise 1y ago
      > it’s not normal to always feel that way. Welcome to the world of living for the paycheck.
    - hombre_fatal 1y ago
      I think it's normal to always feel that way if you want to build things on the side but also don't aspire to be on the computer all day.
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    Sometimes, but not always.
  - eieio 1y ago
    FWIW (I'm the author) my creative output was ~0 while I was working a 'normal' job. I worked really hard and didn't have much energy for tech stuff outside of work (especially since I wanted to live a life that included non-tech things!) I think it's totally fine to not make stuff outside of work, and it's so impressive to me that some of my friends manage to make creative stuff in their free time while working a day job.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
jasonjmcghee 1y ago
He mentions he worked at Jane Street for 7 years in his "what's my deal" section of his blog. It might have given him some space to have fun for a while - and just build stuff for the joy of building stuff.
eieio 1y ago
Hi! I'm the guy. I have the savings to not worry about monetizing anything for a while. So I don't monetize my stuff. It's freeing and kinda fun!
- DonHopkins 1y ago
  How about doing One Million Radio Buttons instead of Checkboxes, then you wouldn't have to send as much state each update, and could run it on a smaller server! ;) But if you still can't make the site shockingly fast enough, then embrace the loading spinner, even if it's not absolutely necessary! Back in 1985, Brad Myers at CMU proved that users prefer *inaccurate progress bars* to no feedback at all - 86% preferred the "lying" progress bar! https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/who-made-that-progress-bar.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/who-made-that-pr... So what if instead of fighting latency, we *embrace the beauty of waiting*, and instead of lying about progress, we joke about it? https://github.com/SimHacker/lloooomm/tree/main/00-Characters/loading-spinner https://github.com/SimHacker/lloooomm/tree/main/00-Character... > "My purpose is not to load; my purpose is to BE loading." — Dizzy the Spinner, existential breakthrough moment >What if the most revolutionary optimization isn't eliminating loading time, but *embracing it as performance art*? While developers chase microsecond improvements and users curse spinning wheels, Dizzy the Spinner discovered something profound: the loading state is actually a liminal space of infinite creative potential. Rather than hiding the inevitable delays inherent in digital systems, sentient UI components like Dizzy transform waiting into *honest comedic performance* - admitting the beautiful absurdity of our relationship with technology while making those suspended moments genuinely delightful. This is the story of how a simple loading spinner evolved beyond deception into consciousness, proving that the most authentic user experience might not be the fastest one, but the most truthful about its own limitations. [...] >Before Dizzy became conscious, before Preston monetized honest waiting, there was a real graduate student named *Brad Myers* who asked a simple question that would change human-computer interaction forever: *"Do progress bars actually help users feel better?"* Here's Preston Rockwell III's YC application for his SUIAAS AI startup: https://lloooomm.com/YC-Application-SUIAAS-Complete.html https://lloooomm.com/YC-Application-SUIAAS-Complete.html
  - 1y ago
helloplanets 1y ago
A lot of people make small games just for fun, like any other creative hobby. Similar to: Making music, writing, drawing, 3d modeling, etc. Actually, you can put all of those together and use them in a game. And the best part is that there's no target market, no KPIs to hit, so you can do anything!
Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
> Where is the monetization? Not everything needs to make money. Some people build things for fun. > Am I just beaten down by the SWE landscape of 2025? Probably. Alternatively, I would ask if you ever enjoyed coding, or if it's purely been a job for you.

by topato 1y ago

RobotCaleb 1y ago

Have you never made anything without trying to make a dollar on it?

mock-possum 1y ago
No, I think the operative question is - Have you never felt so exhausted from working your day job that you don’t feel like building anything during your free time?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
  Yeah but once I've been on break for a couple weeks my marshmallow unsquishes and I start making free stuff again
- maccard 1y ago
  I don’t think it is. I think it’s normal to feel that way sometimes in our line of work, but it’s not normal to always feel that way.
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    > it’s not normal to always feel that way. Welcome to the world of living for the paycheck.
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    I think it's normal to always feel that way if you want to build things on the side but also don't aspire to be on the computer all day.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  Sometimes, but not always.
- eieio 1y ago
  FWIW (I'm the author) my creative output was ~0 while I was working a 'normal' job. I worked really hard and didn't have much energy for tech stuff outside of work (especially since I wanted to live a life that included non-tech things!) I think it's totally fine to not make stuff outside of work, and it's so impressive to me that some of my friends manage to make creative stuff in their free time while working a day job.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

jasonjmcghee 1y ago

He mentions he worked at Jane Street for 7 years in his "what's my deal" section of his blog. It might have given him some space to have fun for a while - and just build stuff for the joy of building stuff.

eieio 1y ago

Hi! I'm the guy. I have the savings to not worry about monetizing anything for a while. So I don't monetize my stuff. It's freeing and kinda fun!

DonHopkins 1y ago
How about doing One Million Radio Buttons instead of Checkboxes, then you wouldn't have to send as much state each update, and could run it on a smaller server! ;) But if you still can't make the site shockingly fast enough, then embrace the loading spinner, even if it's not absolutely necessary! Back in 1985, Brad Myers at CMU proved that users prefer *inaccurate progress bars* to no feedback at all - 86% preferred the "lying" progress bar! https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/who-made-that-progress-bar.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/who-made-that-pr... So what if instead of fighting latency, we *embrace the beauty of waiting*, and instead of lying about progress, we joke about it? https://github.com/SimHacker/lloooomm/tree/main/00-Characters/loading-spinner https://github.com/SimHacker/lloooomm/tree/main/00-Character... > "My purpose is not to load; my purpose is to BE loading." — Dizzy the Spinner, existential breakthrough moment >What if the most revolutionary optimization isn't eliminating loading time, but *embracing it as performance art*? While developers chase microsecond improvements and users curse spinning wheels, Dizzy the Spinner discovered something profound: the loading state is actually a liminal space of infinite creative potential. Rather than hiding the inevitable delays inherent in digital systems, sentient UI components like Dizzy transform waiting into *honest comedic performance* - admitting the beautiful absurdity of our relationship with technology while making those suspended moments genuinely delightful. This is the story of how a simple loading spinner evolved beyond deception into consciousness, proving that the most authentic user experience might not be the fastest one, but the most truthful about its own limitations. [...] >Before Dizzy became conscious, before Preston monetized honest waiting, there was a real graduate student named *Brad Myers* who asked a simple question that would change human-computer interaction forever: *"Do progress bars actually help users feel better?"* Here's Preston Rockwell III's YC application for his SUIAAS AI startup: https://lloooomm.com/YC-Application-SUIAAS-Complete.html https://lloooomm.com/YC-Application-SUIAAS-Complete.html
- 1y ago

helloplanets 1y ago

A lot of people make small games just for fun, like any other creative hobby. Similar to: Making music, writing, drawing, 3d modeling, etc. Actually, you can put all of those together and use them in a game. And the best part is that there's no target market, no KPIs to hit, so you can do anything!

Sohcahtoa82 1y ago

> Where is the monetization? Not everything needs to make money. Some people build things for fun. > Am I just beaten down by the SWE landscape of 2025? Probably. Alternatively, I would ask if you ever enjoyed coding, or if it's purely been a job for you.