[patrickhogan1]

I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now.

1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it.

2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works.

3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.

Making money is a side effect of doing what you would do naturally because if you didn’t you would lose self respect.

[voiceblue]

> I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now.

I don’t think that’s hacker culture. It’s just the mainstream adoption of hacker culture, don’t let it replace the real thing in your mind. When lots and lots of people started playing candy crush on phones, it wasn’t gamer culture that changed, just the public perception of gaming.

There are still people out there who conform to the description you laid out. Are there lots and lots of them? No. It does seem to be a growing segment though.

[patrickhogan1]

Thank you for sharing that, it’s awesome to see so many of us still around!

(Not trying to gatekeep—anyone can be a hacker, no matter when they start. Just sharing some fun memories—I still remember upgrading from a 386 to a 486, then to a Pentium 133. Or the LAN parties. Or when IRC splits let you take over a popular channel for a while! Fun times! The new tools being built today, especially around AI, are just as exciting and remind me of the early days of the internet. There's so much more to create!)

[llm_trw]

>Not trying to gatekeep

You really should. Without gates everything of value is stolen and we're left with nothing but grifters.

[zaptrem]

There's another very large subgroup you're missing: the hackers that build things (even for $0) because they're fun/cool, not because they solve a specific annoying problem/inefficiency.

[smokel]

See for example: https://justforfunnoreally.dev/

Discussed on Hacker News here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33255920 and more recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41496725

[patrickhogan1]

Thank you for pointing that out. I updated my comment to include that group. Personally, my motivation comes from the part of me that feels compelled to fix things that are inefficient, but I love being a part of a community that builds useful/fun/cool things & each of us are driven by our own motivations.

[oceanplexian]

That’s not hacking, that’s called a hobby. Hacking is something that challenges social norms or might even get you in trouble.

[comprev]

“hacking” is the challenge of making something work in ways it was never intended - for example unlocking a car with wireless entry using a laptop and DIY electronics instead of the normal car key.

Doing it to your own car is obviously very different from stealing someone else’s, however it’s not illegal to “hack” your own car. The theft part is what gets you in trouble.

[Ma8ee]

> it’s not illegal to “hack” your own car

I'm certain some car company will sue you if they get to know that you did.

[senko]

Maybe it’s not really your car, then. (Same with some mobile phones, tractors, etc.)

[fortyseven]

Hacking, at it's very core, is the exploration and enjoyment of systems. Anything else beyond that raw definition is extra and varies.

[_heimdall]

Hacking seems to have taken on so many different meanings.

I've always known hacking as a term specifically related to bypassing security in digital systems. Think Matthew Broderick gaining access to government networks via a phone line. This was hacking that would always get you in trouble if caught.

I'm not quite sure when "hacking" was repurposed as a term for using something in a way it wasn't intended ("life hacks" or "kitchen hacks", etc).

Now hacking is about challenging social norms? I'm very lost at this point, in an "old man shakes fist at clouds" kind of way.

[antonvs]

What you’re describing are sometimes consequences of the hacker ethic, they’re not core features.

[ppqqrr]

It’s an ideal, and like any ideal we manage to capture in a six-letter word, 99% will get it completely backwards. For example, everyone knows and agrees with the value of the phrase “think outside the box,” but only a minority ever recognizes “the box” they should be thinking outside of, and even fewer bother to fully apply the wisdom by making a habit out of finding the box that’s currently holding them at any given moment.

[forgotacc240419]

I think it's less about money and more about the endless access to metrics and analytics which will impact how you feel about your project. A forum of maybe a few dozen people you somewhat know loving something 20 years ago would have sufficed but now it all tends towards vague bigger numbers of people you have minimal knowledge of to feel at all good about the effort put in. In lieu of 10,000 likes, which might ultimately feel hollow anyway, making a couple hundred dollars will probably suffice.

I made a super niche modding tool a few weeks ago; it's got one star on GitHub but the two nerds that have actually used it are delighted with it and I'm very happy about that. The notion another few in the future will find it is oddly nice to think about

[jamil7]

There’s a general feeling of pressure for a lot of people to monetise hobbies.

[jwells89]

Exactly, it's the opportunity cost.

When I was a young adult and especially a teenager, I spent a lot of time making things out of pure desire to because I didn't have to think too much about my financial situation (present and future). That unfortunately gave way with age, and now ~15 years later whenever I engage with these activities there's a voice in the back of my head nagging, asking how doing those things instead of something that could potentially bring a financial return might negatively impact ability to achieve short term goals, tide over periods of economic uncertainty, have enough money for retirement, etc.

It's probably not the right way to think since personal projects that might seem unprofitable on their face can bring benefits in unexpected ways, but it's a problem nonetheless.

[qb1]

I am in this boat with you. How do we get out?

[jwells89]

Great question. The feeling clearly isn't based in logic; somehow watching a TV show or playing a game (neither of which is financially productive) instead of working on "just for fun" side projects doesn't elicit the same mental response unless I really couch potato out and do those things for hours on end. That makes it a bit more difficult to work with.

[Vegenoid]

Probably because of the feeling that you only have so much energy for each bucket. Watching TV isn’t taking energy from the dev bucket, but working on a fun but personal project does take energy from the dev bucket.

Of course, this isn’t how it actually seems to work - there is some truth to it for most people, but if you “overdraw” from one bucket and “neglect” another bucket, they will change sizes.

[komali2]

In order to experience the upper tiers of relaxation and life enjoyment capitalism offers (pure free time with no external pressures to sell your labor), you have to be successful by capitalistic metrics. You aren't going to be a billionaire so power under capitalism isn't available to you, so instead you'll need to sell your labor until you have enough money to exploit and sell someone else's labor at little cost to you. If the word "exploit" makes you feel icky, think of it more positively, like the way one might exploit a gold mine: by mining it.

At 4 million in the bank (and various assets) you should be good to "escape," if by escape you mean "not need to sell your labor to live" anymore. 4 million gives you more than enough residuals to live off until death. Less if some of that is in property so you don't have to pay rent. Less if you retire to southeast Asia and engage in geographic arbitrage. You spent years paying for carrier groups and precision missiles, why not reap the rewards?

So far as I can judge, this is the only way the system permits escape.

If you're interested in permitless escape, one of my favorite introductions to the subject is "Walkaway" by Cory Doctorow, a wonderful amalgamation of hacker culture, anarchism, sustainability, anti capitalism, and communism. Even if you think some of those are dirty words, if you're at all interested in EV tech, 3d printing, batteries, solar, zero trust ID, or transhumanism, you'll probably enjoy that book. He basically just answers every "but what if..." you could think of for a group of hackers living in an abandoned rust belt town.

Personally I'm right now very interested in food forests and tech projects researching local supply chain production of equipment, such as https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/ the global village construction set and https://simplifier.neocities.org whoever this person is that's been documenting their efforts building things like solar panels and circuit boards in their garage from raw materials for nearly the last decade.

[sokoloff]

If no one will pay for the solution, the problem might not be that important.

[chongli]

Lots of people won't pay for journalism anymore. You'd have a hard time convincing me (or most other people on here) that journalism is no longer important.

[givemeethekeys]

Lots of people won't pay for something they can otherwise get for free, even if the free option is mediocre.

This does not mean that journalism isn't valuable enough to some people. It just means that the market for journalism shrank.

[chongli]

It's the diamonds vs water paradox of value. Diamonds are highly valued yet practically useless to most people. Water is extremely low-valued, yet essential to all life on earth.

High-quality, investigative journalism is an essential institution for a functioning democracy, yet it's not valued by the people it is most important to: average citizens.

[hackable_sand]

Water is extremely high-valued.

[hollerith]

You're in luck! I have water to sell you. Get out that checkbook!

[jeffhwang]

This is the short-sightedness of market fundamentalism. To take this to a ridiculous extreme, if I decide that taking care of my children is no longer ROI-positive, should I just decide this market has shrunk and the prudent thing to do is invest in new markets?

[harshaxnim]

While this is true in broad strokes, I think money fails to capture non quantifiable quality of life improvements. Hacker culture being close to the users could solve them, but being driven by money would definitely hinder that development

[RevEng]

This is something that has come up many times for our company over the last 20 years. You can't sell the bean counters on quality of life. You need to show lower costs, higher quality results, or faster time to market - that's what gets you in the door.

The thing that keeps you in the door and makes usage grow is the quality of life. Especially in the business world, most software is terrible. If people like using your software, they will tell others about it and they will be more accepting when things inevitably go wrong. The ease of use of our software and the immediate service we provide when customers ask for help are time and again the things they say keep them using our tools. With good support, even a frustrated bug report can turn into a happy experience.

[bruce511]

In broad strokes, yes you are right in some cases.

But in most cases you don't see quality of life improvements unless you also get users.

In other words building it is not enough. Lives need to use it to be improved.

Monetizing an app forces you to concentrate on articulating that value. It frees up resources (ie money) to spend on spreading the word. It offers you feedback on whether this is a meaningful use of your time or not.

Dont get me wrong. An app can add value to a single person. You can give it away for free. There's nothing wrong with that.

[patrickhogan1]

Totally agree. Things that you work on often start off as intellectual curiosity of “why does the world work this way?”

Money often comes as a side effect but not the motivation that drives you to build in the first place.

[patrickhogan1]

100%

Meaning that if you solve valuable problems you will [probably] make money. So spend all your time solving valuable problems not posting about $$

[RevEng]

"If you make it they will come" has been shown to be false time and time again. Just because your product is useful doesn't mean anybody knows about it or that they recognize the value it has. Lots of things we take for necessity today were once seen as a pointless waste of time. You still need to spend a significant amount of time marketing to get other people to want your product.

But posting about all the money you are making is just silly unless you want a pat on the back. If you really are making bank and you want to get someone to buy you out, then start talking directly to the big players in your market. Then again, you won't have to, because they won't want to talk to you until you are a real threat to their business, at which point they'll be coming to you. Bragging to your early adopter community about your success just keeps them hyped for a bit.

[bruce511]

>> So spend all your time solving valuable problems

Just make sure that you understand the the valuable problems are marketing and sales, not code.

Writing code is not hard. (Even an AI can do that.) Building a product is harder, but that's the easy part.

The harder part is reaching people who would benefit from consuming your value. Facebook and Google offer value to you in this space, and because this space is hard they make the big bucks.

Once you've reached the market convincing them to part with money is the next hard problem.

So yes, by all means solve a problem. Build the app, write the code. That is necessary but not sufficient.

>> not posting about $$

Honestly it doesn't really matter what you're posting about. Posting is marketing. Building an audience. It's one way, and yes feel free to do what works for you. Try and be different, don't just follow the herd.

Coding is easy. Marketing is hard.

[Brian_K_White]

You are making the same mistake as youtubers chasing their numbers rather than having a personality and a point and an interest and something to say of their own.

The ONLY reason I have any interest in someone's output is if it is something they themselves actually care about, what they actually think, etc. I want to know what they have to say. There is absolutely no value in them trying to say what they think I want to hear, worse, what they think most people want to hear.

The second someone says "tell me what you want" I'm out. If I have to tell them that I'm interested in x, and then they go investigate x, what value is that to anyone? What insight can they bring to me about the topic of x? Why should I care what they have to say about x when 2 seconds ago they had no knowledge of it? No one's mere personality is so awesome that just having them do the same exact google search I can do and read the same exact intro material I can read and blatting out their initial reactions based on just that, results in something worthwhile.

Whether your numbers (or your sales) are good or bad, it is a factor to consider, but it can't be the fundamental point of your existence. You have to have some legitimate point that stands on it's own, and only then, maybe, you can live off of it somehow.

If you only care that you somehow get money, and don't care how, what value is that to me? Why would I as a customer give you money for anything? Even if you were trying to pander to exactly what I said I wanted, if I don't perceive that you are deeply knowldgeable and insightful and experienced in that topic, or at least maybe new but genuinely interested in working in that field or on that problem, but just trying to say yes to anything, no way in the world am I choosing you to supply that need.

[chongli]

The ONLY reason I have any interest in someone's output is if it is something they themselves actually care about, what they actually think, etc. I want to know what they have to say. There is absolutely no value in them trying to say what they think I want to hear, worse, what they think most people want to hear.

MrBeast's leaked production document is pretty much exactly this: trying to anticipate what people will click on, what will go viral, and throwing all their weight behind it.

Now it's fair to say that you, personally, place no value in viral content such as that. On the other hand, it's clearly not the case that this content is of no value to anyone. Very broad-based entertainment like this is about providing a small amount of value to a very large number of people.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I don't think it's so clear. I watch Mr. Beast from time to time, and it seems to me that it's basically video junk food. Is it really more entertaining, or more thought provoking, or more valuable in any way than how I would have spent that 20 minutes otherwise?

[chongli]

I fully agree with you, it is video junk food. People spend a lot of money on junk food as well. They value it.

Whether this is good or bad for society is a different question. Markets have never been able to solve that problem.

[ekianjo]

volunteers do un paid work all the time that is actually important. not everything needs a price tag to matter.

[jcgrillo]

True, but important software doesn't (by and large) benefit very many people. Instead it makes a very few people extremely wealthy, and makes a somewhat larger number of comfortably upper middle class engineers' lives a little easier. Often those engineers are building products which actually harm most of their users.

I labor in this industry because I enjoy the work and it pays better than anything else I could do, and I try to work for companies doing good things, but I have some misgivings about seeing unpaid open source work in the same light as volunteering. To be clear, as an engineer who benefits I'm grateful, but I'd rather developers were compensated fairly.

EDIT: given the down votes, let me pose it as a question--Is software obviously a public good? Are we actually making things better on balance?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Well, that pretty much rules out email, maps/navigation, messaging, and quite a bit more.

Somehow, this suggests that perhaps your rubric needs amending.

[blululu]

Paid services for all of these things existed before some global monopoly with insane profits launched competing versions for free.

[eirikbakke]

I'd amend it to: "If no one will pay for the solution, the problem might not be that important, or the solution is already commoditized."

[at_a_remove]

"If no one will pay for the solution, it may be because of a base factor of reality itself has collided a near universal facet of human nature," wherein the first might take the value of although information might require the expenditure of resources to create, replication of the created information is often difficult to stymie and lacks even the approach to similar levels of consumed resources and the second value of most humans are, unsurprisingly common as a trait of great objective value in any species with a history of billions of years evolving in environments wherein at least some resources are painfully limited, often unwilling to expend resources if they do not have to.

The former is the nature of data itself, the latter having come into the existence the first time a creature with more than a handful of neurons was capable of making the choice to take what was right in front of it as opposed to venturing far afield for something similar. Both predate humans by millions of years at the least, and do not require the abstractions of market and money, or even the homo sapiens which first coined these concepts.

While these two give rise to the freeloading scamp who attempts to read entire magazine at the news stand if they can get away with it, the printing press or coinage are not specifically required, and, if we were to ever meet other aliens with some kind of civilization, they would likely have situations parallel enough to end up in our eventual xenoanthropology textbooks. Assuming they're not so busy coming up with their own copies of To Serve Man that we haven't the time for us to write said texts.

[givemeethekeys]

People happily pay for every one of those things.

Fastmail, Garmin, Slack etc. WhatsApp had a paid model until Facebook bought it.

[switchbak]

Or: you've built 67% of a solution, and it only really crosses into financial sense for most buyers once you pass 89%.

[szundi]

But you cannot measure these stuff, only argue about them with co-founders haha

[kelnos]

Sure, but that's not relevant to hacking. Hackers often hack for the sake of it, not because doing so will solve an important problem.

[Kinrany]

If someone will pay for the solution, the problem may still be utterly unimportant. So this tells us nothing.

[jt2190]

> Would you still build that app, because it solves an annoying real world problem even if you got paid $0?

Assuming you’re talking about building an app for other people, I personally would not, no. The market is sending a clear signal that it values the app at zero dollars. In other words, they don’t want it.

> If not then the problem you are solving is probably not important and a waste of your time anyway.

This is exactly the question that charging money answers: Do people just say they want your app or are they willing to “put their money where their mouth is” and actually buy it?

(Also note that not all things are paid for with money. Some are paid for with time or attention, so adjust for that if necessary.)

[patcon]

By that logic, isn't building a family something one should never do? There is no market to sell your family, so that must be a clear signal that your attention and energy should go elsewhere...?

I'm sure this analogy is a bit absurd (and I'd love to see it torn apart), but I hope it opens readers to the premise that some highly desirable and important emotional, intellectual and social objects should exist even when there is no market for some of their forms

[jt2190]

I don’t build my family for other people either.

Edit: I can’t tell if you’re willfully misreading what I wrote or just trying to be cute. At no point did I assert that nothing should be created without a market. But if you’re creating something for other people then those other people are, by definition, your market, and you should pay close attention to signs that they actually want what you’ve created (like a willingness to trade dollars or time or attention).

[philipwhiuk]

The issue is that you responded to stuff around reasons for being a hacker with a requirement that isn't a requirement for hacking.

Hacking doesn't require something to be built for other people.

[jt2190]

Ah, I see that the post I responded to (and quoted) has been completely rewritten.

[raverbashing]

> The market is sending a clear signal that it values the app at zero dollars

Oh but those are very different things

An app that people would pay $0 is still more valuable (and might I say, a lot more valuable) than an app that people wouldn't install for free

[johnnyanmac]

>Making money is a side effect of doing what you would do naturally because if you didn’t you would lose self respect.

Most hackers some 20 years ago weren't worried about money, so they could naturally explore their curiosities in their free time. Hustle culture in general seems to rise and fall inversely to the economic situtation, so I'm not too surprised that we're shifting to $$ over curiosity at the moment.

[winwang]

I definitely resonate with #1 and #3, but I got bills to pay. And some of the things I want to see in the world, well, they would require a lot of money.

[joshdavham]

Agreed. Hackers build software because it's fun, not because it will make them money.

[null0pointer]

This resonates with me. Maybe I’m just nostalgic because I started my career during the hacking scene of the early 2010’s, but it really feels like we’ve lost our way as an industry since then.

[svnt]

It’s weird to say but the whole startup culture has shifted, from founder to hacker and everywhere in between. It’s a victim of its own success because no one is writing feature pieces in media on quants or finance bros with the same gusto as they did in the 2010s for tech founders.

So the attention combined with the desire to escape the grind which is only offered in combination by tech founder, has nearly fully been consumed in the broader machine of capitalism.

When we ran out of stored resources to consume, we unsustainably consumed our own attention, and then when that was gone, we turned our attention to the money machine that made it possible, and started eating that.

[fwip]

Honestly, if you're money-focused, you're not a part of hacker culture.

Edit: Deleted a claim that was probably stronger than I meant.

[senko]

In the good ol times, being a hacker meant you love tinkering with tech and are good at it.

Then media started using it to mean "computer criminal", which was annoying.

Then "I don't code I solve problems" tech bros coopted it, which is worse. Looks like now you're a hacker if you identify a need and monetize it.

I am fully cognizant I am writing this on a VC-backed founder oriented site called Hacker News, but I like to think there's still some good ol hacker spirit here, YC being named after an extremely nerdy thing and not "SaaS Launchpad" or somesuch.

(yes yes old man yelling at cloud, get off my lawn, etc)

[danenania]

I think building a business can encompass the hacker spirit as well if it’s approached in that way. Financial sustainability is a necessary component to solving problems on a large scale in a durable way. Why should a hacker draw the line at purely technical challenges?

[namanyayg]

this is a great comment, you took the words out of my mouth and described what I think is wrong with Twitter culture

[laike9m]

+1, well said

[sureIy]

You’re saying they’re no true Scotsmen.

They’re entrepreneurs who don’t really care what you call them. Of course people will try to make money, not everyone can afford to (or is willing to) maintain whole side projects for fun. Some people have side projects unrelated to their main line of work.

[patrickhogan1]

You misunderstand me.

If you solve valuable problems you will make money.

If you have a side project then spend all your time solving valuable problems not posting about $$

[oceanplexian]

Making money doesn’t necessarily imply value is being created. For example casinos create the illusion of value and generate a lot of money.

Unfortunately, like a casino a lot of tech is an illusion, e.g. social media- you walk in and it’s flashy and exciting, but you walk out having lost hours of your time and possibly a few brain cells.

[stonethrowaway]

Sir, this is a hacker news not VC news.

[bongodongobob]

That's why I think parent's comment is kind of funny. This site is VC news. If you're looking for actual hacker culture, this ain't it. This website is mostly VC devs, not hackers.

[danenania]

I think it’s actually a pretty healthy mix. That’s what makes HN so cool imo.

[philosopher1234]

What an awful way to live, with the sense that everyone else is a fraud and you’re the only one that’s real. It sounds terribly lonely, and equally unattractive. Who would want to work with, or be around someone, with such a terrible opinion of others?