The graveyard of good ideas
Solutions that were tried, and what stopped them.
Patents that were rejected or abandoned, products that shut down, projects that went quiet. Borrow the idea, avoid the dead end.
1,395 solutions
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Alternate Email hosting to G Suite
I have been using at Suite with custom domain for my email since 2010. Now google is shutting down g suite and forcing a paid Workspace subscription. I only need to keep my email and domain. By accident, I deleted my g suite but still have access to admin console and the domain registration. Is there a recommended email hosting I could simply transfer to?
Why it failed: I have been using at Suite with custom domain for my email since 2010. Now google is shutting down g suite and forcing a paid Workspace subscription. I only need to keep my email and domain. By accident, I deleted my g suite but still have access to admin console and the domain r
mrbonner
- startupShut down2022
Famous outages along with deep postmortems?
I just finished reading the Roblox outage postmortem (trending on HN: https://blog.roblox.com/2022/01/roblox-return-to-service-10-28-10-31-2021/). I learned a lot reading about it and found myself thinking "surely there's other well-written postmortems that are a doozy". Does anyone know a good resource where I can find a compilation of such outages? If they're classified/tagged then even better :)
Why it failed: I just finished reading the Roblox outage postmortem (trending on HN: https://blog.roblox.com/2022/01/roblox-return-to-service-10-28-10-31-2021/). I learned a lot reading about it and found myself thinking "surely there's other well-written
fizwhiz
- startupShut down2022
Stripe updates pricing on cross-border fees between UK and EU
I just got an email from Stripe: --- Hello, We’re writing to let you know that we’re making some changes to cross-border fees in Europe and the UK starting 1st July 2022. Based on your Stripe transaction history, this change won’t impact [Company], and all other pricing will remain the same. You can review the most up to date fees for international transactions on our pricing page. You can contact us, and find more details about this pricing update, managing or closing your account, or any other next steps, on our dedicated support page. - The Stripe team --- Of course they don't actually mention what the changes are, but looking at the pricing page [0], it seems like there is now an additional 1.1% (making it 2.5% in total) for EU companies taking UK payments and for UK companies taking EU payments. I imagine this is related to Visa and Mastercard price increases post-Brexit? [1] [
Why it failed: I just got an email from Stripe: --- Hello, We’re writing to let you know that we’re making some changes to cross-border fees in Europe and the UK starting 1st July 2022. Based on your Stripe transaction history, this change won’t impact [Company], and all other pricing will rema
aosaigh
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Why has the quality of discourse on HN gone downhill?
I know - this is probably the thousandth time you have heard this complaint, but please hear me out. I have been lurking and reading on HN since 2016 (I never actively commented til 2019), and the spirit of discussion was outstanding then (2016-2020). The amount of high quality posts and discussions about the technical and operational sides of technology and the tech industry was astounding! Yet, something seems to have changed with the culture on this site since 2020 - it feels as if the site has become a parody of itself, with “edgy” hot takes, cargo culting around supposedly conventional knowledge, and the insane amount of “stanning” of certain figures gossip and a handful of companies. The increase in political content as well has been a massive change on this site as well, and as this is a discussion board it is fair game for everyone to have a say assuming civility. Yet this civili
Why it failed: I know - this is probably the thousandth time you have heard this complaint, but please hear me out. I have been lurking and reading on HN since 2016 (I never actively commented til 2019), and the spirit of discussion was outstanding then (2016-2020). The amount of high quality p
alephnerd
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: How can I work less?
I leetcoded to get a big boy job and now I’m paying the price. My team runs lean and the work is complicated. As a result, I’ve been working long hours and supplementing my days with stimulants to maintain interest and focus to keep up. Not only do I end each day with extreme exhaustion, but I do this in a cyclic fashion each day leading to cycles of apathy, depression and excitement. Problematically, I now live like this habitually and sort of forgot how to be a human. I need to figure out how to feel comfortable working less in ways that don’t mentally feel like it’s impacting my work while also figuring out how to live my life outside of a screen. Additionally, this makes me very boring at parties.
Why it failed: I leetcoded to get a big boy job and now I’m paying the price. My team runs lean and the work is complicated. As a result, I’ve been working long hours and supplementing my days with stimulants to maintain interest and focus to keep up. Not only do I end each day with extreme exh
renaissance_tea
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Is living in NYC worth it?
I live in SF but location flexible and considering making a move to NYC. Biggest issue is obviously cost. I’m shocked even living in what is considered a high cost of living area by the rent prices I’m seeing in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. I’m seeing fairly basic 1 bedroom apartments being listed that are $5k+ not including utilities or brokers fees which can be as high as 15% of the annual rent, and most likely not rent stabilized meaning they can raise the rent however much they want after the lease ends. Outside of rent the cost of entertainment and eating out is not surprisingly on the higher side relative to other cities though I would not say it’s as wildly expensive as the rent is. The upside is that there’s an energy to the city that is lacking here, and you don’t need a car to get to most places within the city (though to be fair I don’t have a car in SF either). For people
Why it failed: I live in SF but location flexible and considering making a move to NYC. Biggest issue is obviously cost. I’m shocked even living in what is considered a high cost of living area by the rent prices I’m seeing in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. I’m seeing fairly basic 1 bedroom a
tempsy
- startupShut down2022
Warning – Google suspended GCP services for 'verification', lost my business
I operate multiple apps which were providing my entire livelihood, and I wake up one day to realize it's all gone. Long story short, Google froze my Google Pay account which is used to pay for anything related to Google services, including GCP. This was done as they need to temporarily suspend me to 'verify' me. The GCP team couldn't help me since it was an issue with Google Pay. Not to mention their chat support is useless and doesn't have any power to look into cases. Now I login to find out my Google Pay account is 'temporarily suspended' since I need to verify my account. I go ahead and add my drivers license and fill out their form, but while they verify details they suspend your ability to pay for any Google services. So now I can't pay for GCP usage (firebase) and all my authentication, database, cloud functions, are all not usable since the
Why it failed: I operate multiple apps which were providing my entire livelihood, and I wake up one day to realize it's all gone. Long story short, Google froze my Google Pay account which is used to pay for anything related to Google services, including GCP. This was done as they need to
alirsgp
- startupShut down2022
Thank HN: Five months ago, I was feeling like a loser, now I am opposite
I posted this a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29709273 I thought I hated programming and was ready to quit or even divorce my wife. I was not able to have a normal conversation with anyone. I was burned out but I thought I was having midlife crisis. My wife wanted to buy a big house and I kept blaming her for the stress. My job was easy and I had a lot of control over my time, work location, etc. I didn't think it could be the job that was causing me feel depressed. What I didn't realize while my work gave me freedom on work schedule, it didn't give me any real freedom to make important decisions. We were checkmark driven company. I was forced to do a lot of compliance and security related tasks which added zero benefit to our service. After my post, I decided that I either move into management at my last company or get a new job. I wo
Why it failed: I posted this a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29709273 I thought I hated programming and was ready to quit or even divorce my wife. I was not able to have a normal conversation with anyone. I was burned out but I thought I was having midlife
ac2022
- startupShut down2022
Show HN: Sqwok – A social chat alternative to Twitter and Reddit
I previously did a Show HN late Dec 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25470672 That was a great experience and in the past year I continued to develop the site to bring it to a level of stability and maturity that I felt necessary for it to have a chance to succeed. Sqwok is all about answering the question: Can we have better open conversations on the internet? I wasn’t satisfied with the existing means of discussing topics such as culture, history, politics, and technology through threaded comments, and was simultaneously impressed with Slack bringing the IRC experience to the browser for a more general but enterprise focused audience. I wondered why not create an open Slack-like chat app for general discussion? Not gamers or enterprise but rather for people to have open, kitchen-table discussion on the matters of the day (or just for fun!). I set out to build t
Why it failed: I previously did a Show HN late Dec 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25470672 That was a great experience and in the past year I continued to develop the site to bring it to a level of stability and maturity that I felt necessary for it to have a chance t
holler
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
I realize this is somewhat of a taboo topic but I feel like if there is anywhere we can have a real discussion on mental health it's going to be HN. I have been struggling with depression for as long as I can remember. Life has taken me on ups and downs but as far as I can can tell I'm fairly lucky, well-off and have every reason to be happy. Unfortunately I'm not. I wake up with a pit in my stomach that I carry around all day and no matter how hard I try I just can't shake it. It also gets really bad in waves to the point where I nearly can't function but most of all it makes me procrastinate on almost everything. I usually end up using all my effort just to be a functional member of my team at work. The sad part is that I know that if I didn't have this condition and I was able to sleep when I wanted to I could be many times more productive, not only at wo
Why it failed: I realize this is somewhat of a taboo topic but I feel like if there is anywhere we can have a real discussion on mental health it's going to be HN. I have been struggling with depression for as long as I can remember. Life has taken me on ups and downs but as far as I can c
jpgvm
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Are you a “lifer”? If so why?
I started at a mid-cap household name company at the start of the pandemic and don't see myself leaving of my own accord until I retire for a few reasons: 1. Work is fully remote 2. We have excellent work / life balance 3. Company's stock has weathered this years storm 4. Interviewing is a horror show best avoided, besides... 5. Job market is weakening with no recovery in sight 6. I'm in my early 40s 7. Startup success (which I've had previously as an early employee) is going to be rare in the coming years
Why it failed: I started at a mid-cap household name company at the start of the pandemic and don't see myself leaving of my own accord until I retire for a few reasons: 1. Work is fully remote 2. We have excellent work / life balance 3. Company's stock has weathered this years s
leet_thow
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Is there any “PBS Kids” alternatives these days?
I think that was the only channel that had the perfect mix of education and being attractive for children, that got discontinued. Any other alternative’s?
Why it failed: I think that was the only channel that had the perfect mix of education and being attractive for children, that got discontinued. Any other alternative’s?
DaniDaniel5005
- startupShut down2022
Tell HN: A disabled 40-year-old person founded a startup and makes a living
I am Michael Cao. I am from Viet Nam. I suffered the polio disease and became disabled when i was one year old. When covid 19 pandemic hit the world. All people has suffered a lot. I and my friend, Canadian guy, decided to cofound 2HAC Studio because we thought that we need to do something to help people. We don't want to hire any employees to keep the cost at minimum (only spend 9.99$ per year for domain). I keep my job at American company in Viet Nam and my cofounder also still worked at a Bank of Canada. We spent our free time to implement and marketing our products We have been developing the Google workspace addons. Out technology stack are App Script, VueJS for addons. Hugo for our website. We hosted our website in Google Cloud. Paypal is our payment system. Tawk for customer support. All of them are free. At 2020, we had a pain point in Viet Nam because health official requir
Why it failed: I am Michael Cao. I am from Viet Nam. I suffered the polio disease and became disabled when i was one year old. When covid 19 pandemic hit the world. All people has suffered a lot. I and my friend, Canadian guy, decided to cofound 2HAC Studio because we thought that we need to do
michaelcao
- startupShut down2022
Tell HN: Current WFH trend (part 2)
I wanted to follow up on my previous post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27696235 My latest observation at my current company which is "fully-remote": 75% of the new headcount is out of US. Total compensation offered in foreign countries is much cheaper (35-60% lower depending on Canada vs EU vs LatAm vs Asia) than even the lowest pay-tier US regions. Bulk of the gains are flowing to the company's revenue bottomline, and thus to the biggest shareholders (Capital class). A small fraction of those gains is coming to the rank-and-file's pocket via the increased value of their meagre RSUs. To address a big point raised in the previous thread about outsourcing, when we have been trying that since 2000's and why is it a big deal now - with previous rounds of outsourcing, entire project was shipped to a different country. There were neither any &q
Why it failed: I wanted to follow up on my previous post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27696235 My latest observation at my current company which is "fully-remote": 75% of the new headcount is out of US. Total compensation offered in foreign countries is much c
RestlessMind
- startupShut down2022
Show HN: Have fun betting virtual (not real) money on predictions from HN users
I wanted to see how difficult it would be to build a web app using a sub-$300 android smartphone. Decided to build a fun predictions website where you could bet virtual (not real) money on predictions made by others, and also make predictions of your own. Building it turned out to be considerably easier and more fun than I anticipated. Primary tools used were: # QuickEdit as the mobile code editor (Note: the free version of the QuickEdit app is riddled with ads, it shows an advert each time you close a tab, but it unfortunately had the best UI of the 3 or so Android code editors I tested. Ended up using NetGuard to block it from retrieving & displaying ads), # PHP for the Backend ( custom PHP microframework I've used and built on over the past few years ). # jQuery for the frontend js ( cringing ) - it appears I'm simply too lazy to learn React/Vue/et al. Every on
Why it failed: I wanted to see how difficult it would be to build a web app using a sub-$300 android smartphone. Decided to build a fun predictions website where you could bet virtual (not real) money on predictions made by others, and also make predictions of your own. Building it turned out t
rose_ann_
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Why XMPP failed and SMTP didn't?
I was born too late to witness popularity of XMPP as a decentralized instant messaging protocol. When I started to be a "conscious" user of the Internet, such services already became centralized, so I don't really remember those times. As I follow the development of projects like Matrix, I wonder what has made SMTP such a stable protocol that has stood the test of time and what is the real reason we don't use XMPP (I mean, we do using Whatsapp, but as a part of closed ecosystem). Is it only that XMPP was overcomplicated and if managed better it would survive? Or is it something else?
Why it failed: I was born too late to witness popularity of XMPP as a decentralized instant messaging protocol. When I started to be a "conscious" user of the Internet, such services already became centralized, so I don't really remember those times. As I follow the development o
kertoip_1
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: HNers with multiple sclerosis, can we get in touch?
I was diagnosed with MS 15 years ago, and was doing pretty well for a long time, but with the pandemic experienced a tremendous amount of stress that has left me with my first major flare-up since diagnosis and, more importantly, developing over the past 3 years, a feeling in my brain that feels like having been lobotomized, and symptoms like "mild" dementia. Difficulty multitasking, make silly mistakes, mentally tired easily, emotional issues, etc. The MS was so far outside my concerns for all these years that I didn't know about the cognitive effects of MS (though I retrospect I realize I had some milder form of these symptoms all along), but I now understand MS causes brain atrophy and damage irrespective of flare-ups and lesions. I've tried many things to make it better over this past year especially, but it's getting worse. It's quite evidently differen
Why it failed: I was diagnosed with MS 15 years ago, and was doing pretty well for a long time, but with the pandemic experienced a tremendous amount of stress that has left me with my first major flare-up since diagnosis and, more importantly, developing over the past 3 years, a feeling in my
mush_room
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Has anyone here worked on the Windows kernel?
Or any other kernel, professionally? I've been offered a position at Microsoft to do kernel development work. This would be a big transition to me, coming from a services background (backend only). The job's main draw to me is doing low-level work. I did some in my very first job, but for the past 10+ years, due to a number of circumstances, I've been in the services world. I really liked being a C programmer and I've kept an eye on things over the years, and did some hobby projects (on x86 and some embedded stuff as well). There's a lot about my current job that I treasure, despite the work itself not being interesting to me about 99% of the time. It's a remote job, the work-life balance is stellar, and I get 25 days of vacation a year (this is in the US), which allows me to spend a lot of quality time with my wife. However, I'm considering leaving bec
Why it failed: Or any other kernel, professionally? I've been offered a position at Microsoft to do kernel development work. This would be a big transition to me, coming from a services background (backend only). The job's main draw to me is doing low-level work. I did some in my very
maybekerneldev
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: What happened with Zas Editor?
Just a few months back this was on frontpage of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952084. It looked like a promising new text editor but the website https://www.zeditor.app doesn't exist anymore. Did anyone purchase it? I am curious if the project got abandoned because it did not get much traction or if it was some sort of scam.
Why it failed: Just a few months back this was on frontpage of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952084. It looked like a promising new text editor but the website https://www.zeditor.app doesn't exist anymore. Did anyone purchase it? I am curious if the p
jatins
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: How do you avoid video game addiction?
I'm a mid 30s male, software developer, married without children. I started playing a video game at the end of 2019, and played every time I could when my wife was not home. Then came 2020, covid lockdowns, also I started getting better at the game (the ladder systems are so addictive) and played more. In 2021 I just didn't care anymore whether my wife was home or not or even if I was supposed to be working and started playing all the time. I'd wake up early to play and would go to bed late to catch up with work I had not done during the day. According to Steam I played over 2.000 hours during 2020 and 2021. Finally I decided I was seriously addicted and uninstalled the game, unsubscribed from everyone related to the game in youtube, quit all discord communities, and it worked. I have been now "clean" for 4 months. But sometimes I crave to go back and play. I wat
Why it failed: I'm a mid 30s male, software developer, married without children. I started playing a video game at the end of 2019, and played every time I could when my wife was not home. Then came 2020, covid lockdowns, also I started getting better at the game (the ladder systems are so
Volrath89
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Why are there no easy-to-use highly-available open source databases?
I'm a single engineer who wants to run a database by myself, no cloud vendors involved. I don't really care about scalability to a point, I don't really care about the API to interact with the database. I just want something that I can set up on multiple machines with minimal effort and have the loss of one of those nodes not cause catastrophic failures. I want the experience of something like etcd without being limited to a few gigabytes of data in the cluster (a Terabyte or maybe a couple hundred Gigabytes as a limit would probably be fine). I've spent a lot of time looking through the various options and wrote up my thoughts on why each of them wasn't a good fit. Postgres: A great database but HA options either have far too many moving parts, require manual intervention, are proprietary, or are Fake Open Source. Seems like there's lack of interest in addr
Why it failed: I'm a single engineer who wants to run a database by myself, no cloud vendors involved. I don't really care about scalability to a point, I don't really care about the API to interact with the database. I just want something that I can set up on multiple machines w
database_guy
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Should I move to California or Germany as a SWE with 2 small kids?
I'm at a crossroads in my life. My wife and I are trying to figure out if we should move back to California or move to Germany to be closer to her parents. A bit of background: We're in our mid-30s. Both in tech. I'm a software engineer. She's a product manager. I'm American and she's German. We met in SF in 2014 and left together in 2017. We traveled for a while, then moved to Amsterdam where we live now. We have a 1 year old daughter with another on the way in October. We don't plan on having more kids after that. We'd like to leave the Netherlands soon, but haven't decided yet if we should move back to California or move close to her parents in Germany. There's tons of variables to consider, but the 2 main ones I'm focused on right now is the tradeoff between family support vs career prospects. In short: if we move to Bavaria, my
Why it failed: I'm at a crossroads in my life. My wife and I are trying to figure out if we should move back to California or move to Germany to be closer to her parents. A bit of background: We're in our mid-30s. Both in tech. I'm a software engineer. She's a product manage
de_or_ca
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: What is your failed/cancelled project story?
I'm curious to hear about instances of ambitious projects that failed for technical reasons or were cancelled because development was taking too long. We get a lot of insight into the internal dynamics of companies like Theranos where the failure of the core technology wasn't accepted by the leadership. I haven't heard much from the inside about examples of failed startups that went down quietly (ex: TransAtomic power[0]). [0]https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/09/25/240126/nuclear-startup-to-fold-after-failing-to-deliver-reactor-that-ran-on-spent-fuel/
Why it failed: I'm curious to hear about instances of ambitious projects that failed for technical reasons or were cancelled because development was taking too long. We get a lot of insight into the internal dynamics of companies like Theranos where the failure of the core technology wasn&
lambdatronics
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: As someone living in Russia, how can I prepare for Internet shutdowns?
I'm currently living in Moscow. It looks like the government will soon very heavily crack down on any uncontrolled ways to get information. This might include blocking of websites, shutdowns of VPNs and outright Internet shutdown. What can I do to prepare for this and still have access to the Internet? If you have any relevant experience from similar situations, please share!
Why it failed: I'm currently living in Moscow. It looks like the government will soon very heavily crack down on any uncontrolled ways to get information. This might include blocking of websites, shutdowns of VPNs and outright Internet shutdown. What can I do to prepare for this and still
exizt88