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.
796 solutions
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: Scheduling stateful nodes when MMAP makes memory accounting a lie
We’re hitting a classic distributed systems wall and I’m looking for war stories or "least worst" practices. The Context: We maintain a distributed stateful engine (think search/analytics). The architecture is standard: a Control Plane (Coordinator) assigns data segments to Worker Nodes. The workload involves heavy use of mmap and lazy loading for large datasets. The Incident: We had a cascading failure where the Coordinator got stuck in a loop, DDOS-ing a specific node. The Signal: Coordinator sees Node A has significantly fewer rows (logical count) than the cluster average. It flags Node A as "underutilized." The Action: Coordinator attempts to rebalance/load new segments onto Node A. The Reality: Node A is actually sitting at 197GB RAM usage (near OOM). The data on it happens to be extremely wide (fat rows, huge blobs), so its logical row count is low, bu
Why it failed: We’re hitting a classic distributed systems wall and I’m looking for war stories or "least worst" practices. The Context: We maintain a distributed stateful engine (think search/analytics). The architecture is standard: a Control Plane (Coordinator) assigns data se
leo_e
- startupShut down2025
Notion's Lies Sunsetting Skiff Mail
With the announcement of "Notion Mail", here's a reminder that after Notion acquired Skiff Mail in early 2024, their entire product line was sunset and, despite promising[1][2] email forwarding and support would remain functional until 2025 for trapped users that couldn't immediately access their accounts, both turned out to be complete lies. Their support through support@skiff.org was shut off[3] not long after the fake promise, responding only with automated acknowledgements to even refund requests. Forwarding was also effectively shut off around the same time thanks to Notion's willful negligence maintaining Skiff's certificates[4], pulling the rug out from under users needing mails forwarded from inaccessible Skiff email accounts. To add insult to injury, Notion's support through team@makenotion.com for months responded with incoherent, AI-generated
Why it failed: With the announcement of "Notion Mail", here's a reminder that after Notion acquired Skiff Mail in early 2024, their entire product line was sunset and, despite promising[1][2] email forwarding and support would remain functional until 2025 for trapped users that c
notioned
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Rust GUI Library via Flutter
Hi, I made a bridge ( https://github.com/fzyzcjy/flutter_rust_bridge v2.0.0) between Flutter and Rust, which auto translates syntaxes like arbitrary types, &mut, async, traits, results, closure (callback), lifetimes, etc. The goal is to make a bridge between the two, seamlessly as if working in one single language. Then, as an example, I showed how to write Rust applications with GUI by utilizing Flutter. That is discussed in the link in details. To play with it, please visit the GitHub repo, or refer to the end of the article for detailed folders and commands. When I first released 1.0.0 years ago, it only contained few features compared to today. It is the result of the hard work of contributors and me, and many thanks to all the contributors!
Why it failed: Hi, I made a bridge ( https://github.com/fzyzcjy/flutter_rust_bridge v2.0.0) between Flutter and Rust, which auto translates syntaxes like arbitrary types, &mut, async, traits, results, closure (callback), lifetimes, etc. The goal is to make a bridge betwe
fzyzcjy
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: I built the most over-engineered Deal With It emoji generator
Hi, all! Author here. What started as a small tool I built for a job interview, became "The Most Over-engineered Deal With It Emoji Generator": - All operations done fully client-side - no backend, no private data leaves your browser. - Uses machine learning models (MediaPipe Face Detector task) to automatically scale and position glasses on the detected faces. - Extensive customization options for glasses: - Placement of glasses anywhere on the input image (including slightly going outside it). - Change the size of glasses. - No limit on the number of glasses. - Flip the glasses vertically or horizontally. - Customize the direction from which the glasses appear on the image. - Different types of glasses. - GIF output options: - Looping mode. - Number of frames. - Frame delay. - Separate delay setting for last frame. - Output size. - Celebration confetti - Easter eggs. I'v
Why it failed: Hi, all! Author here. What started as a small tool I built for a job interview, became "The Most Over-engineered Deal With It Emoji Generator": - All operations done fully client-side - no backend, no private data leaves your browser. - Uses machine learning models (Med
klimeryk
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Fix – An open source cloud asset inventory for cloud security engineers
Hi, we’re Lukas, Lars and Matthias, and we're building “Fix” ( https://fix.security ). Fix is an open source cloud asset inventory for developers to track their infrastructure’s security posture aka “cloud security posture management” (CSPM). How Fix works: Fix takes a snapshot of your inventory on an hourly basis by calling the cloud APIs, runs policy and compliance checks such as the CIS benchmark against that inventory, and provides the findings in a dashboard, via .csv export or API so that developers can use the raw data and build workflows. We’re also working on data sync to S3 and RDBMS like Postgres, MySQL and Snowflake. One of Fix’s unique feature is our graph-based inventory, highlighting the connections between resources. Unlike traditional cloud security tools that just list assets, Fix also displays their interconnections. We maintain a large graph, where node
Why it failed: Hi, we’re Lukas, Lars and Matthias, and we're building “Fix” ( https://fix.security ). Fix is an open source cloud asset inventory for developers to track their infrastructure’s security posture aka “cloud security posture management” (CSPM). How Fix works: Fix tak
scapecast
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Fireproof – local-first database with Git-like encrypted sync
Hi, HN! As a cofounder of Couchbase, I pioneered mobile sync, and I’ve always wanted to bring the speed and reliability of local-first data to the web, incubating PouchDB among other efforts. I learned the constraints of real world financial applications at McKinsey & Company FinLab, and Merkle integrity research at Protocol Labs taught me smart contract data structures. As part of the JavaScript community (and early hosting provider for NPM) I’ve been waiting, and now with the availability of APIs like Passkeys and Origin Private Filesystem, I’m happy to say the browser is ready to support embedded databases. Front-ends are a lot easier to write when your database handles live sync for you, but the existing solutions rely on heavyweight cloud APIs instead of putting the smarts at the edge, where it belongs. I started from a different set of constraints, and arrived at a lightweight
Why it failed: Hi, HN! As a cofounder of Couchbase, I pioneered mobile sync, and I’ve always wanted to bring the speed and reliability of local-first data to the web, incubating PouchDB among other efforts. I learned the constraints of real world financial applications at McKinsey & Company
jchanimal
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Greenmask 0.2 – Database anonymization tool
Hi! My name is Vadim, and I’m the developer of Greenmask ( https://github.com/GreenmaskIO/greenmask ). Today Greenmask is almost 1 year and recently we published one of the most significant release with new features: https://github.com/GreenmaskIO/greenmask/releases/tag/v0.2.0 , as well as a new website at https://greenmask.io . Before I describe Greenmask’s features, I want to share the story of how and why I started implementing it. Everyone strives to have their staging environment resemble production as closely as possible because it plays a critical role in ensuring quality and improving metrics like time to delivery. To achieve this, many teams have started migrating databases and data from production to staging environments. Obviously this requires anonymizing the data, and for this people use either custom scripts o
Why it failed: Hi! My name is Vadim, and I’m the developer of Greenmask ( https://github.com/GreenmaskIO/greenmask ). Today Greenmask is almost 1 year and recently we published one of the most significant release with new features: https://github.com/Greenmask
woyten
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: Alternatives to Gumroad for "software licenses"?
I am looking for alternatives to Gumroad to sell “software licenses” / “activation codes” / “serial numbers” online. I have seen several similar platforms that focus on selling digital assets (files) but not activation codes. I could either upload a list of pregenerated codes to the platform, or have the platform generate the codes with an API to validate them. Both would be fine. I need that the platform acts as a merchant of record (to handle VAT in different countries). This basically means that the platform would be invoicing users, and I would be invoicing the platform. I would also need to be able to translate the product description to different languages (this is something that Gumroad cannot do — they force you to create different products) and also support EUR as a currency. What solutions have you worked with?
Why it failed: I am looking for alternatives to Gumroad to sell “software licenses” / “activation codes” / “serial numbers” online. I have seen several similar platforms that focus on selling digital assets (files) but not activation codes. I could either upload a list of pregenerated
grodriguez100
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: How to deal with the AI-pocalypse as a regular guy?
I feel like there is a huge elephant in the room, and I'm sure I can't be the only one thinking about this currently. However, in the web dev community, which I likely follow a bit too closely for my own good, there is a lot of business as usual. People argue about all kinds of things like AI had never happened. Sure, everyone is regularly confronted with the rapid advances made by Copilot and the likes, but influencers on YouTube and X, as well as the very companies developing all these novel solutions, keep telling us: "there will always be a need for good (whatever that means) developers," "the rising tide lifts all the boats," or "the ones who adapt will be the ones who survive." And it seems obvious why each of those are making these claims. I'm just increasingly having a hard time believing any of that. I think pretty much everyone who h
Why it failed: I feel like there is a huge elephant in the room, and I'm sure I can't be the only one thinking about this currently. However, in the web dev community, which I likely follow a bit too closely for my own good, there is a lot of business as usual. People argue about all
elschneider
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Free e-book about WebGPU Programming
I am excited to announce the launch of my e-book on Graphics/WebGPU programming! This project has consumed much of my spare time, during which I developed various tools to facilitate the publishing process, including a code playground and a static site generator that can reference sample codes. However, I'm feeling burnt out and ready to call it finished, even though it may not feel completely done. Avoiding another abandoned side project has been my primary motivation in reaching this point.
Why it failed: I am excited to announce the launch of my e-book on Graphics/WebGPU programming! This project has consumed much of my spare time, during which I developed various tools to facilitate the publishing process, including a code playground and a static site generator that can ref
billconan
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: I made a Flutter app for loneliness. 14000 min of voice messages later:
I hope you are doing better today than yesterday. (TLDR in the comments; or enjoy my story :) ) Why: About 11 months ago, I launched my app for the first time on Reddit's r/lonely because I had previously experienced loneliness myself during grad school. I wanted to reach out to people going through similar experiences by providing them with what would’ve helped me in the past. I felt this was an important mission for me and a much more rewarding one than my day job that I quit my job to work on the app full-time. It was necessary because I did not come from a programming background. I knew how to program in the sense of running scientific simulations on MATLAB, but creating the front-end and back-end for a consumer app was totally new to me, so I had to learn from scratch. I enjoyed everyday going to a cafe to learn from programming crash courses on YouTube, developing the app
Why it failed: I hope you are doing better today than yesterday. (TLDR in the comments; or enjoy my story :) ) Why: About 11 months ago, I launched my app for the first time on Reddit's r/lonely because I had previously experienced loneliness myself during grad school. I wanted to rea
jaybhum
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: Where are the part-time remote coding jobs?
I really love writing, and over the years I've cultivated a respectable audience of readers. But the money in writing is abysmal, far too little to make a living. In years past, I supported my writing habit by taking on remote coding jobs, either as a part-time employee, or putting in part-time-like hours as a contractor. For almost a decade I coded in the mornings, and wrote in the afternoons. I tend to live inexpensively, so this approach was satisfactory. My last such part-time position wrapped up in mid-2021, and since then I've not seen a single part-time opportunity that matches my skill set (LAMP back-end, everything front-end). After months of looking, I had to break down and take a full-time coding job just to keep the bills paid. As a consequence I have very little time and energy left for writing--weekends are mainly spent caring for my kindergarten-age kid. The depr
Why it failed: I really love writing, and over the years I've cultivated a respectable audience of readers. But the money in writing is abysmal, far too little to make a living. In years past, I supported my writing habit by taking on remote coding jobs, either as a part-time employee, or
DamnInteresting
- startupShut down2024
I Hate VC's
I have started a number of companies. All self-funded. Some were successful and others were "experiences". My last company was almost acquired for tens of millions of dollars when the economy imploded in 2008 and the world froze. A few years ago I decided I could take some of the technologies developed for that business and apply them to a new domain: Energy Optimization. The idea was to support wide deployment of EV's. Today this has shifted to power-hungry AI data centers. I self-funded this hardware/software startup and got on with developing the products. The pandemic forced us to pivot in 2020. We developed an aircraft disinfection robot. We had a lot of interest from major airlines and a $50MM sales pipeline. When the vaccine was announced, interest evaporated. How you deal with the tough moments in life and business is important. You have to be resilient. In 20
Why it failed: I have started a number of companies. All self-funded. Some were successful and others were "experiences". My last company was almost acquired for tens of millions of dollars when the economy imploded in 2008 and the world froze. A few years ago I decided I could take s
robomartin
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?
I got recently laid off (the first time in my life ), and I have worked for around 11 years without being more than 2 days unemployed; I'm currently doing rounds of interviews and for the first time in my life, I have an extreme amount of free time. I can imagine people would recommend me to use this free time to follow my passions, get some rest, play videogames or do anything that is not working; but I'm not the kind of person that likes any of those things, I like to do something constructive, and I would like if this something can help me now or in future with my job search. I saw many job posts asking for a Github account to see what contributions I have done to open source, and unfortunately, my contributions amount to none, the companies I have worked for do not publish open source code, and with 2 hours of commute + 9 hours being in the office when I'm home I don&#
Why it failed: I got recently laid off (the first time in my life ), and I have worked for around 11 years without being more than 2 days unemployed; I'm currently doing rounds of interviews and for the first time in my life, I have an extreme amount of free time. I can imagine people woul
maury91
- startupShut down2024
AMA: I'm Dave Greene, an accidental expert on Conway's Game of Life
I drifted into the Conway's Life research community in 2001 when I won a small cash prize for a lucky discovery of something called a "boojum reflector". My involvement has gradually snowballed since then. Off and on I've helped maintain various Life-related mailing lists and blogs, the Life Lexicon, and more recently the conwaylife.com forums and LifeWiki. Another thing I stumbled into was helping Nathaniel Johnson complete an improbably thorough 480-page Conway's Life textbook, with end-of-chapter exercises and everything. The book could be used to teach a college-level class on the subject. https://conwaylife.com/book/ has a free PDF download for the book. So... I'm not the cleverest Lifenthusiast by a long shot, but for a random question about the Game of Life, I'm more likely to know something about it than at least 99.9999% of
Why it failed: I drifted into the Conway's Life research community in 2001 when I won a small cash prize for a lucky discovery of something called a "boojum reflector". My involvement has gradually snowballed since then. Off and on I've helped maintain various Life-related m
dvgrn
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: My brain is telling me to quit everything. What should I do?
I come from a household of strict parents, where if a non-optimal grade was brought home, you got punished, mostly emotionally but sometimes also physically. This pushed me to get good grades at all costs and it lead me to creative ways of doing that. I was on the 3rd grade while reading a lesson about the Earth and Nature and it took me a whole Sunday to just read one page. I didn't know it then, but I do know now, I had ADHD (inattentive type). Needless to say, it took me way longer to get anything done in comparison with my peers. Though, all the way up to the end of high school, I earned a 4.0. All of this I accomplished through relentless dedication to school work. It was at the time when I got a scholarship to study in the States. The first two years, I did ok, cause the classes weren't that bad. But in the subsequent two years when things got hectic, I broke down. I star
Why it failed: I come from a household of strict parents, where if a non-optimal grade was brought home, you got punished, mostly emotionally but sometimes also physically. This pushed me to get good grades at all costs and it lead me to creative ways of doing that. I was on the 3rd grade while
zer0sand0nes
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Edna, note taking app for developers
I took a small break from coding SumatraPDF and wrote a note taking application that is perfect for me: https://edna.arslexis.io/ Edna is a note taking app for developers and power users. A cross between Obsidian and Notational Velocity. Markdown, plain text, code, works in browser so no installation required, private (notes are stored in your browser or disk) and secure (can encrypt notes with a password). The story so far. I was always attracted to editors with minimalistic UI, like https://mak.ink/ , simplenote, Notational Velocity. I like having most of the screen estate for writing because writing and editing is what note taking apps are for. But: most of them are very thin on features and UI. I saw Heynote and it was one of those minimalistic writing UIs with not many features. I liked their concept of dividing notes into blocks so I forked Heynote and
Why it failed: I took a small break from coding SumatraPDF and wrote a note taking application that is perfect for me: https://edna.arslexis.io/ Edna is a note taking app for developers and power users. A cross between Obsidian and Notational Velocity. Markdown, plain text, code,
kjksf
- startupShut down2024
I Worked Hard all my Life. I Regret it
I Worked Hard all my Life I Regret it. Harder than anyone I had ever known. Did it bring success? -No. I really wanna say "yes" to justify my hard work and push down those who didn't work hard, but can't lie to myself. These 3 things changed everything for me: 1. Kill me EGO. Back in the day, I worked hard, but in most cases, I was simply fighting with my own "intentional" mistakes. Most of the things I did came out of my ego. For example, I'd design things based on my personal taste rather than looking for this year's trend and adopting it. Why did I go for my own taste vs the current thing? because of my EGO. 99% of founders in my network make this mistake as we speak, I see it every day now, but I didn't see it in myself back then. Killing my ego led to becoming 2-5x more productive, which means I don't need to work as "hard"
Why it failed: I Worked Hard all my Life I Regret it. Harder than anyone I had ever known. Did it bring success? -No. I really wanna say "yes" to justify my hard work and push down those who didn't work hard, but can't lie to myself. These 3 things changed everything for me:
johnrushx
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: Lenovo encouraging Chromebook users to install Linux?
I was surprised to see that Lenovo has a guide to installing the Linux distro of your choosing on a Lenovo Chromebook device. I guess the cynic in me expects that companies want you to use whatever OS is bundled with the hardware rather than encouraging users to use the hardware the way they'd like -- or at least that they wouldn't want to make it easy to overwrite the ChromeOS install by providing a helpful how-to! Can anyone think of why Lenovo would do this? I would expect that this would potentially draw the ire of Google, but surely Lenovo has thought this through and maybe knows Google doesn't care enough? Just curious if anyone can speak to Lenovo's incentive calculus here https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/faqs/operating-systems/install-linux-chromebook/ (Ps: the guide is somewhat out of date -- for those curious, this seems t
Why it failed: I was surprised to see that Lenovo has a guide to installing the Linux distro of your choosing on a Lenovo Chromebook device. I guess the cynic in me expects that companies want you to use whatever OS is bundled with the hardware rather than encouraging users to use the hardware
vector_spaces
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: YouTube shutdown my account with private channel of my kids memories
I had memories of my kids stored for 6 years as private yt videos. I uploaded yesterday a video of my son elongating his eyes and mouth with funny face. I think that caused my YouTube account to be shutdown. I lost the appeal too.Please advise if there is any hope to recover
Why it failed: I had memories of my kids stored for 6 years as private yt videos. I uploaded yesterday a video of my son elongating his eyes and mouth with funny face. I think that caused my YouTube account to be shutdown. I lost the appeal too.Please advise if there is any hope to recover
yhujkiop
- startupShut down2024
Ask HN: How do you develop and maintain a good note-taking habit?
I see a lot of people here talking about the importance of their respective note-taking systems for their life and productivity. I would like to gain the benefits of such a system but I run into a couple issues. The first is that when I do take notes, I over-write them. I’ll find myself nearly word-for-word copying the information I need. This is a habit from my years in education where I would basically transcribe lectures as a way to maintain attention as a strategy for ADHD. Therefore, my notes end up a muddled version of the source material and I’ll just use the source material for reference, making the initial note take a big waste of time from the standpoint of having an easy reference available. Another problem I run into is that when I’m very attentive to a task or piece of information and want to take some note on it or reference notes from elsewhere, switching contexts to my no
Why it failed: I see a lot of people here talking about the importance of their respective note-taking systems for their life and productivity. I would like to gain the benefits of such a system but I run into a couple issues. The first is that when I do take notes, I over-write them. I’ll find
gfourfour
- startupShut down2024
Amazon offering $5 credit for old Cloud Cams
I recently purchased new security cameras on Amazon. I used to have Amazon Cloud Cams, but Amazon discontinued supporting them and essentially made them useless. I’m a tech hoarder so I kept them in my box of future projects I will never work on. I wasn’t too angry because they sent me free Blink cameras to replace them. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31531783 Anyway, I just wanted to highlight that Amazon offered me $5 to ship my old Cloud Cams back to them. Not sure what they are going to do with them, hopefully recycle them somehow. But I think it’s worth highlighting that companies SHOULD be doing this and collecting old tech to reduce waste. So kudos.
Why it failed: I recently purchased new security cameras on Amazon. I used to have Amazon Cloud Cams, but Amazon discontinued supporting them and essentially made them useless. I’m a tech hoarder so I kept them in my box of future projects I will never work on. I wasn’t too angry because they s
cyberlurker
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Making GNU Make a better Task Runner
I know this could be considered blasphemous, but I constantly find myself using Make as a task runner. I have written my own task runner in the past, but somehow I always end up using make. I went, and I put together 3 quality of life snippets I use all the time and put it in a single makext.mk file that can be included in other Makefiles and wrote a basic readme for it. This is not meant to be a replacement for other task runners, but I do think it can be useful to some of you. https://github.com/mitjafelicijan/makext Check it out and see if it makes sense to you. Thanks for any feedback or comments. Cheers
Why it failed: I know this could be considered blasphemous, but I constantly find myself using Make as a task runner. I have written my own task runner in the past, but somehow I always end up using make. I went, and I put together 3 quality of life snippets I use all the time and put it in a s
mitjafelicijan
- startupShut down2024
Show HN: Clace – Application Server with support for scaling down to zero
I have been building the open source project https://github.com/claceio/clace . Clace is an application server that builds and deploys containers, allowing it to manage webapps in any language/framework. Compared to application servers like Nginx Unit, Clace has the advantage of being able to work with any application, without requiring any dependency or packaging changes. Clace provides a blue-green staged deployment model for apps. Not just code changes, even configuration changes are staged and can be verified before being made live. Clace is not a PaaS solution, it does not support deploying databases and other auxiliary services. It does share the fact that it manages containers with PaaS solutions. Clace is different in that it builds its own reverse proxy, instead of depending on Traefik/Nginx. This allows Clace to implement features like shutting dow
Why it failed: I have been building the open source project https://github.com/claceio/clace . Clace is an application server that builds and deploys containers, allowing it to manage webapps in any language/framework. Compared to application servers like Nginx Unit, Cl
ajayvk