[cannuk]

Let me preface this by saying that I am not trying to troll, I genuinely want to know if I am missing something. How does the pivot remove them from the affiliate model? Granted, I applaud them for rewriting it and "doing it the right way", but does it change the way they could make money?

[patio11]

"Thin affiliate" is a term of art, roughly meaning "a site which adds no user value, just taking one or more clicks to delay your task success." They've made a lot of people $$$ but Google hates them and they're competitively weak relative to other affiliate plays where there is a value add. (Mint is most obvious example that springs to mind at 5:30 AM.)

Don't worry, I almost always assume good faith on HN.

[mrkurt]

They basically have original knowledge they can sell, now, versus "just" scraped data. They can license their price prediction engine to anyone who doesn't want to go through the agony of doing what they just did.

[webjprgm]

And this does have real value. Myself and 2 other friends were this close to doing exactly what Leaky is doing, but I (the programmer) did not want to spend a lot of time implementing that price prediction model off of hard-to-read (and constantly changing!) legal documents.

From the previous HN post a few days ago, multiple people raised the concern that Leaky quotes them at twice what they are actually paying. Someone else said that without looking up a credit score the rates are basically worthless. So I still have my doubts as to the accuracy of Leaky's data, even though they say it's within 1%. Maybe that's 1% given some default middle-ground credit score?

I was told that the rates insurers file change frequently. So I'm also interested to see how quickly Leaky can stay on top of up-to-date results. That's my second accuracy-related concern.

If these concerns did not exist, I'd already be in this business. I'm sure the same can be said of other people. In fact, I assumed that with such an obvious need for a business like Leaky the absence of such suggested a higher barrier to entry than is visible at first blush. I think what happened in Leaky's case is that they were too naive to know they were being naive, and then kept pushing on it anyway. Isn't that a Steve Jobs quote or something?

[gruseom]

Isn't that a Steve Jobs quote or something?

I believe it's Emerson. But Steve Jobs might well have adopted it, like the fake Leonardo quote ("simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" - actually William Gaddis) and the fake Picasso one ("great artists steal" - actually T.S. Eliot).

[FreakLegion]

> actually T.S. Eliot

Almost! With context: "One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."

I'm also a fan of the way Gilles Deleuze framed it: "Proust says: 'Great literature is written in a sort of foreign language. To each sentence we attach a meaning, or at any rate a mental image, which is often a mistranslation. But in great literature all our mistranslations result in beauty.' This is the good way to read: all mistranslations are good -- always provided that they do not consist in interpretations, but relate to the use of the book, that they multiply its use, that they create yet another language inside its language. 'Great literature is written in a sort of foreign language...' That is the definition of style."

[gruseom]

Not almost; unequivocally. That the wording got polished over time is just what happens in popular discourse.

I don't see the connection to Deleuze. Eliot isn't talking about mistranslation or about how audiences receive art. He's talking about Dylan lifting the melody to "Don't think twice" from some other song.

[FreakLegion]

Yes, almost. Eliot almost said that -- said something superficially similar to that -- but didn't say that. People use "great artists steal" as incorrectly as they use "information wants to be free." The line hasn't been polished; it's been co-opted and transformed. Which is exactly what he and Deleuze were interested in, and why they so often circle the same drain.

Of course how audiences receive art and how artists create it aren't disjoint processes, but I understand you getting hung up on Deleuze's use of the word "mistranslation" there. It helps to know that he's working out of a tradition that treats the idea of translating as a figure for "owning" (in the Heideggerian sense, also translated "enowning").

[zach]

I am just wrapping up a test on canned homeowners' insurance quotes on our local real estate site, LA Life. Have a look at an example:

http://lalife.com/address/15436_Mayall_St_Los_Angeles_CA_913...

We got involved with a broker who actually ran these quotes, property by property(!) So far it's been pretty dismal, just due to our typical users' interest in the product. But if anyone has some ideas, I'm all ears, email my username at lalife.com.

[jasontraff]

I'd respond, but you look like a competitor! :)