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14 Comments

Commenting vs Making

  1. 9

    There's nothing quite like empathy. One of the many differences between Indie Hackers and Hacker News is that everyone on IH empathizes with what it's like to make stuff. Or at least aspires to be a position where they can make stuff someday.

    The result, I think, is far more camaraderie from people who make things, and far less aimless complaining from people who simply comment.

    1. 2

      Hacker News is an abomination that became a weird and bewilderingly stomached addiction/habit.

      1. 2

        Paul Graham had an interesting comment about HN in his last post[0]:

        "HN was no doubt good for YC, but it was also by far the biggest source of stress for me."

        "When I was dealing with some urgent problem during YC, there was about a 60% chance it had to do with HN, and a 40% chance it had do with everything else combined."

        I would have never thought he spent so much time managing HN.

        0 - http://www.paulgraham.com/worked.html#f17n

        1. 1

          Oh wow, I felt his pain :)
          "..people post highly imaginative misinterpretations.."
          "..not responding to any sufficiently upvoted misinterpretation reads as a tacit admission that it's correct..."

          He beautifully explained what's wrong with it :))

        1. 2

          :)) lousy comic-con-of-everything nerd-fest acting as a link sharing site.
          but if you share anything you make or someone you know made, you're lame and downvoted (and perhaps deleted and banned).
          and also if you share anything not miraculously coincidental, you're lame and downvoted.

    2. 2

      That's true. Love the community you have built here. 👍

    3. 1

      i think there's a lot of truth to this.

  2. 3

    The irony is that the OP is doing the very kind of potificating and complaining that the piece argues against.

    I think the fact that people are willing to complain on places like Reddit and HN is much of what's kept them from becoming filled with the kinds of scamming and hustling most forums are. HN and many subreddits take it to far and are often overwhelmed with political content.

    Even so, I've probably learned more from either than any social media save YouTube. Reddit's management has been eroding many of its pluses, but I'm glad HN still exists.

  3. 3

    Makes me think of the now-infamous Hacker News comment hating on Dropbox when it first launched.

    I posted my own hypothesis about this commenting vs. making debate a while ago, and it echoes the author:

    Actually embarking on entrepreneurship forces us to get out of our comfort zones and confront our weaknesses, which is very humbling. … We're like a bunch of movie critics who've all had to start writing our own screenplays. Great way to convert criticizers to empathizers!

    1. 1

      I've been following the work of Takuya Matsuyama who is an indie app developer making the Inkdrop markdown editor. It appears he had this same dropbox experience:

      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11849127

      Meh, doesn't work with Linux so I'm staying with Emacs.

      The ratio of negative to positive comments is astounding.

      As always the proof is in the pudding. He's making $3k+ MRR now. Go Takuya!

      PS my favourite IH interviews are with people making sub-$10k MRR because it feels tangible - would love to hear one with Takuya @csallen!

  4. 2

    Valid point! Ownership, accountability and helping eachother in a genuine way. That's what resonates for me here at IH.

  5. 2

    I'm a loud mouth and highly opinionated. I feel like the article is calling me out. I'm a builder, I can build things. Sales & Marketing? Phew, no nothing about. But I'm trying to learn.

  6. 1

    Quite an interesting read indeed @csallen. I learnt for the first time about how drowning people try to climb over their rescuers. I guess this is the biggest issue in our society right now. Internet has made it easier for people to simply pass on comment rather than executing and solving the issue themselves.

    Thanks for sharing this post!

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