rick888

It seems like most startups aren't even thinking about running a long-term business...their main goal is to get bought out by bigger companies.

I saw a show about startups on msnbc the other day. They were all trying to get funding at some sort of demo day. When none of them got funding, many talked as if that was it it..they lost.

Yeah, like we should be listening to Amazon.

They won't allow non-pro merchants to collect sales tax and they charge 3% to collect taxes on pro-merchants.

"I dislike the whole anti-counterfeit programs because companies want you to spend $2000 for a leather bag with their name on it, but the bag is only really worth $20. They're not even complaining that you're not willing to pay for it (like pirating a movie), they're complaining because you're unwilling to spend a massively unreasonable amount on it."

This just isn't true. Many times, the $20 bag uses inferior materials and doesn't go through the quality checks of the bigger companies. It's also about brand name. Some brands are worth more than others.

"There's no reason to target the counterfeitters as they're not hurting your business model. They're selling to people who know they're getting ripped off, but Gucci and what not are selling it to rich idiots who don't know they're getting ripped off."

It does hurt their business model. There are many people selling counterfeits as the original. If the company does nothing about it, people will not only expect to get it at the cheaper price in the future, but will complain if the quality sucks or it falls apart after a few weeks of use, which will hurt the companies image.

You are only telling one side of the story...just like all of the OWS propaganda.

You can make money with amazon affiliates, but it's such a small percentage of the sale. It's much better to come up with your own product or dropship something.

You take on more responsibility but you can also make more money.

hmm, something happened to my post and there's a funny number next to it.

I suppose you would rather have bullets?

I suppose you would rather have bullets?

Can people please stop posting this?

Yes, I see the passive-aggressive reviews from OWS supporters. Rather than trying to make a difference, we have people taking the lazy way out and writing this garbage.

I wouldn't want to find out.

If customs seizes your stuff, you could get in trouble with the law or lose money.

well, it's not my fault.

It's the fault of the person that named a ruby development tool "Dojo" when it's clear there was already a javascript framework with the same name.

so..maybe they should be downvoting themselves? (like I have your responses)

How does this invalidate my point?

The link title includes "Dojo" and I was stating my opinion. I see the Dojo fanbois have downvoted me.

Dojo has already lost the battle.

I used it for awhile and it is a cool framework. However, Jquery has it beat in terms of documentation (code and usage) and community support (I can find pretty much any component I need with Jquery).

"Because FLOSS enables much of this software as a service (SaaS), then it becomes the root cause of the reduction in jobs."

Rather than hiring more developers to create the SaaS, a business now is able to just get free OSS and hire less developers (and less experienced developers).

How is this not putting developers out of a job?

"There are plenty of good 8 hour/day engineering jobs that pay well and have interesting problems to solve."

If I can't take vacations whenever I want or have the freedom to come and go as I please, I consider it slaving away. No job will allow you to do this.

"I wasn't assuming consulting/freelancing at all. If you're going to run a business you're going to have customers. These customers need support and can be much worse than anyone you deal with in office politics."

Possibly. However, you can always fire customers. I know I have. Also, when you are consulting, it's just like having another boss. They tell you exactly what needs to be done. I ran a consulting company a couple of years ago..and I won't do it again.

When you are running a product/service, you may take customer input, but you make the final decisions. That's the difference.

"If 'might make [you] rich' is why you want to do a startup you're probably going to be disappointed."

I'm already making more than I was making at a job. I've only been running my company for a year. The reason many startups don't succeed is because many of them don't think about how to monetize it. Making money is almost always my first priority. If I know it's going to be difficult to monetize an idea, I usually move on. Another problem is that many people think the answer to success is getting bought by a larger company or getting VC.

"The odds are stacked against you and the risks are high. If you're really good at tech, most of the top companies pay well and give job stability which is what many people want."

High risk = High reward. Most companies aren't as stable as you might think. At least with my own company, I make the choices that directly lead to my success or failure. I've worked for too many companies that made ridiculous decisions that led to major profit loss or huge layoffs..and there was nothing I could do about it.

"Because the item is a copy, and (digital) copies actually do cost nothing. That is just the physical fact, and people will always have some underlying sense of it -- as they should."

So why don't people have the same mindset about currency?

It's just ink and paper that represents a perceived value...very similar to the way digital items work.

How about art? It's just paint and paper.

Digital copies may cost nothing, but the original usually costs thousands of man-hours and or lots of money.

"The idea that you should not be allowed to make copies, but must pay for them, is very unnatural"

In the programming community, it seems only unnatural when it involves proprietary software. If a company uses GNU software without giving back to the community (the currency involved with OSS), people here want heads to roll. Just look at any discussion here in HN that involved the thesis theme. Many, many people called him a "thief" and that he "stole" code from Wordpress. In reality, nothing was "stolen" (using your logic).

Your mindset will eventually cause the following:

1) Developer wages will decrease over time 2) Most companies will just have a web service as opposed to an app. It means you will be paying a monthly fee for software and it will cost more to the end-user in the long-run.