skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: How to monetize the one-off service?
I have built and launched an automated broken links service in January (https://bernard.app). The goal was to scratch my own itch: I do not want any broken links on my website, now or ever. A quixotic fight against digital entropy you can call it.

I had a lot of free and enthusiastic users during the beta that I have been completely unable to convert to paying a monthly fee. I have made a lot of strategic mistakes along the way, sure, but now I find myself with a good piece of tech that I don't know how to sell to people that might actually need it.

The problem is that most people see link checking as a one-off problem. They want to scan their website once, and be done with it. They might later be convinced that they should stay on top of the problem with an automated service, but until then, people come, scan, and move on.

The other issue is that it is clear now that free tiers kill one-off services. There is a limited demo scan accessible from the home page, and a lot of users don't go past this stage. There is a 7-day trial, which takes care of the few that sign up. After the trial is over, basically 0% needs nor wants to pay.

So, how do you monetize the one-off service?

I see two potential avenues:

1. Focus on the "free scan" demo, make it even more limited, and ask people to pay $X to see the full-report. i.e. the WP-Scan approach. Feels slimy, but it's probably the most profitable.

2. Try to expand the scope of the project to entice people to keep paying month after month. Basically "create a problem, then sell the solution". Requires a ton of time and effort with unknown potential.

I originally wanted Bernard to be a one-stop shop for website owners, that takes care of uptime monitoring, broken links, vulnerability scanning, etc. But it's a big ask of me to spend a lot more time on something that might be a financial dead-end.

What do you suggest?
Poor phrasing on my part; 'good' should have been 'worth talking about'.
Hard to take this advice seriously from someone on HN.

Vast majority of people here owe their wealth to “going digital” and then seem to love telling other people to do the opposite.

Computers are pretty great. The only people who really (think they) want to go back to 1980 are the people who were 16 in 1980.
That may be true, but for apples provided in offices, "baking a cake" is not the most frequent use case...
It looks like the xkcd theme for matplotlib[1]. But I agree the waves are too extreme.

[1]: https://matplotlib.org/stable/gallery/showcase/xkcd.html#sph...
My theory is - Telegram gained some extra traction after Carlson's interview
I find that terrifying -- when I do this, I feel I am willingly giving up hard-earned abilities, atrophying my ability to reason.
I don't think NVIDIA's reign will last long. The recent AI resurgence is not even a decade old. We can't expect the entire industry to shift overnight, but we are seeing rapid improvements in the capability of non-GPU hardware to run AI workloads. The architecture change has been instrumental for this, and Apple is well positioned to move the field forward, even if their current gen hardware is lacking compared to traditional GPUs. Their silicon is not even 5 years old, yet it's unbeatable for traditional workloads and power efficiency, and competitive for AI ones. What do you think it will be capable of in 5 years from now? Same for Groq, and other NPU manufacturers. Betting on NVIDIA doesn't seem like a good long-term strategy, unless they also shift their architecture.
Depends what the alternative is. If on average people would lose that fleeting thought and never dig into it or research it more it can be a huge net positive to write them down, even disorganized and having a history of what you thought about. And actually debate the thought with the AI and get an outside perspective.

On the other hand if on average people would in fact dig into them, you might lose the ability to organize your thoughts yourself over time, but I always think that sort of fear is overblown.
not really. you answered for them.
I always thought I could do this but hadn't admitted it to anyone because of its preposterousness. Huh.
> specifically, will AI be a bicycle that we control, or an unstoppable train to destinations unknown?

I am more worried about AI becoming a tank - an instrument only the approved agents of the state are allowed to possess and which is used to flatten dissent.

Look at the push for regulations in the name of “safety”. It is more about control than safety.
> I joined the internet myself on IRC and NEWS

And email, right? You do have email, don't you? Which is not implemented over the WWW, and is pre-WWW by the best part of a decade. (RFC 821/822 are dated August 1982, and the first publicly documented version of HTTP 0.9 is, I think, 1991?)

I think it's pretty safe to say "The Internet", without any other qualification, came into being with the publication of the IPv4 RFC 791 in September 1981, by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn.

Now, California might not be entirely accurate, as while a fair amount of the work on the Internet Protocols was done at UCLA and UC Berkley, MIT was also heavily involved along with co-ordination from DARPA's IPTO in Virginia (specifically, The Pentagon). But I think "California" is a much more accurate birthplace for The Internet than CERN.

Edit: I'm guessing you also use the not-built-on-WWW DNS system from RFCs 882/883 published in 1983?
Irs super complicated to use.
And you need an existing Telegram account to actually handle that cryptocurrency to buy these pseudo-numbers outside of the telephone namespace.
Guess what you need to register those. An actual working phone number.
AMD GPU architecture programming documentation
Or an isolated success that makes you double down on what was essentially a fluke.
The most interesting OpenAI/Apple deal would be running GPT on Apple Silicon
A "ChatGPT app designed by Apple" scenario would be the safest, simplest, and lowest-risk partnership for both companies.

It would also be the least imaginative.

The wilder, more interesting scenarios:

- "SiriGPT"
- GPT in Apple data centers, running on Apple Silicon
- Why not both?

In all three, Apple partners with OpenAI to iterate Apple Silicon towards performance parity with NVIDIA...but with much better performance-per-watt.
Is it really execution be design? The docs don't suggest that:

>Description

>Reload datasets written with the function save.
Your account phone number, yes. But, most importantly, Signal doesn't store your social network in its servers in a way that it could give authorities the phone numbers of all the people you communicate with. Or, worse, the times and dates of those conversations.

So all it can tell authorities is that a person with x phone number uses Signal and still uses it.
That's just buying a fake phone number, I don't see what would prevent you from using it with Signal the same way.
> > jotting down some random ideas and asking it to make it coherent

Isn't this is more or less the same thing as spending a bunch of time going to a bunch of webpages from Google search, except it takes way less time, arguably leaving _more_ time for the critical thinking and subsequent research you espouse?

> ...and then accepting that outcoming as sufficient, and moving on, right?

Much like you can either immediately trust what you read on the Internet, or apply some critical thinking and dig into it more, you can do the same with whatever an AI returns to you.

AI can be an accelerator for mundane tasks and help you get to the high-value work quicker, or it can be a lazy shortcut that lets you do less.

The same can be said for almost any tool.
It’s going to be impossible to get the majority of r users to update r to remove this vulnerability. Not the fault of r but because so many unsophisticated users have r installed from 4 years ago, this exploit (which is not much of an exploit really) will stick around forever.
“All of them” in what sense?

I use WhatsApp dozens of times a day, and interact with business accounts every couple months at most.
I don’t know. R promises are extremely powerful. Not only can they run arbitrary code (e.g. shell commands), but they have arbitrary access over the caller environment (e.g. you can pass a lazy argument to a function that can list all variable names/values of variables in the function’s body and mutate some of them).

I also don’t know if deserializing is 100% secure even now, because it only detects whether the root value is lazy, and I’m not sure if certain value’s children can be lazy as well.

I think the larger issue is that most languages are insecure unless you go out of your way to be careful. Many package managers (including cargo) let dependencies run arbitrary build scripts. AFAIK reading a Python picklefile can invoke arbitrary code, which is arguably worse than deserializing an RDS file because in R you at least have to read the malicious deserialized value. The problem of reading untrusted data isn’t new, see log4j and SQL injections.

All input should be either a) trusted or b) handled carefully. Then it doesn’t matter the language. The problem is that’s not easy. Like in R, if `readRDS` really can still return promises, then “handling it carefully” means inspecting every nested value without reading it (this is possible in R with reflection); or more likely (as with Python’s pickling), read the data in a more constrained format.
While metadata can leak a lot about conversations, it doesn't leak nearly as much as plain-text data of conversations. I've argued for years that companies have an incentive to do E2EE on private messages so they don't have to be held liable or have to get involved in a lot of investigations if they don't have any access to the info. Telegram has access to the plain-text data of the conversations, as far as I know. Signal, WhatsApp, and Messenger (more and more), seem to not have much, if any, access to the plain-text data of conversations.

But the Meta companies are lying about E2EE, I don't know? Signal has seemed to me to be the company (org actually, nonprofit) that cares the most about privacy in terms of intentions and implementation.
Is there another way to load a saved dataset in R though, so that it can't execute anything?
sounds like much healthier option then, putting 'healthy' into fruits again
Do you really think any of the professionals actually using the tools being destroyed in the add actually are dropping their tool and using an iPad instead?

May I propose to give Damon Albarn's aka Gorillaz "The Fall" record a listen? This was indeed only produced on iPads, from a world-known musician, so it's the perfect test case for this, and I quote you here: shocking truth!
Okay, and your concussion in relation to the topic is...?
The length of a day, at least, is unrelated. There was a big splash in the news not long ago because it was determined that the length of Earth's day was changing and we might need to change it by a second.

Venus has a much, much slower rotation on its axis, but Mars is almost the same.
It’s true that it’s always been that way, but there are other common but unsafe ways of doing things that people eventually stopped using. Some pressure to deprecate and migrate away from unsafe API’s seems good.
True, they aren't. Whether they're friends with Russia is another thing though.
Now I wish that was real. Just imagine the guitar shredding while Gandalf battles the Balrog
> aren't you downloading a file from the Internet and executing it?

Downloading, yes, executing, no, or at least not to 99% of R users’ knowledge prior to this recent occurrence.

If a malicious user tries to smuggle something into a csv or json file that isn’t possible. But when reading in an RDS it’s trivial.

I feel very uncomfortable about asking anyone to trust my code that much, even colleagues or friends, and I defnn in it ly don’t feel comfortable trusting theirs.

Their data files on the other hand are fine, I’ll gladly read their csv or json file. (would also be glad for their RDS if there’s a way to read it without also allowing for remote code execution)
gotta pop in bucket of blood or man with the x-ray eyes or hell even the trip!

QUITE depressing.
I heard. Your point?
Labor's Declining Share Is Worrisome and Mysterious
> AFAIK, Just doesn't have any way to mark "this task is complete, so don't re-run it". It also doesn't have file-based dependendicies, which are pretty common for any kind of programming.

That's fair but also not what I'm looking for in a task runner, that's why I explicitly said "not a build tool", which to me this falls under (although I realize everybody has a different definition of these terms and where they draw the line if at all).
Thoroughly depressing that, faced with anthropogenic climate change, humanity proceeds to find ever more inventive ways of wasting precious energy.

There is a strong case for banning/taxing out of existence things like LLMs and proof of work blockchain validation.
So.. what's the problem again?
Neuralink's First Human Patient Can Play Slay the Spire After 100 Days
If you just purchase some USD on the open market when you need them, and then immediately spend them, you don't really care about what happens to the long running price level of the USD.
They have a long reach and like to be brutal for effect.
I have found that writing everything down eroded my ability to remember a couple of important tasks for the day, so I started to exercise that part of the brain to get the ability back.

Any capability of the brain not exercised will certainly wither. While brain consumes the most energy, it tries to minimize it at the same time. Using AI extensively to accomplish mundane tasks will rob you of the ability in the long run.

This is the law of the body. Use it or lose it.
>>> Every interview I've watched with members from one of the major AI labs (Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, Deepmind, etc) seem to believe that we are only getting started.

If your competitor was going around saying "Soon we will build the greatest AI ever and it will run the world economy!!!" would you do an interview where you say "Soon we will build nothing and make no money!!!!"
> because the FSB was demanding info from them

But they gave the FSB info they asked for -- the vk.com website (facebook clone, at that time it had way more massive amounts of user data than telegram). They could have deleted the data, but no, they handed it over to FSB.
It cannot. Even if you use JavaScript to try to limit what the browser allows the user to do, anyone can send an HTTP request to your server with absolutely arbitrary content. Only your server can determine if the input is reasonable and legal.

However, sticking some extra protection on client-side can help users avoid accidentally sending bad data, or can help save a round trip to the server to find out if some data is going to be accepted or not.

I am not normally the kind of person who would criticise someone's hard work, but the vast majority of these 'recipes' contain significant flaws, or do essentially nothing, and are misleading at best.
If you ask DeepSeek chat, your question literally disappears from the UI a second after you hit the return key.
> A few years back I have heard from a lot of people working in ML communities that they are surprised that `numpy.load` is able to execute arbitrary code.

This is correct, before version 1.16.3 (April 2019) `numpy.load` was unsafe by default, unless explicitly specifying `allow_pickle=False`. However, to be clear, that unsafe default was then fortunately changed. Loading numpy arrays with `numpy.load` should now be safe (unless there are yet-to-be-found bugs in that code).
The amount of abstraction available in Go is just about right. It gives you higher level constructs, while still being reasonably straightforward to predict memory and CPU performance and behavior.
That does seem to be the prevalent thinking in corporate America. Busting unions and using the government to persecute labor leaders seems to have worked.

“Companies are not charities” shouldn’t be an excuse to let them destroy the workforce.
I'm in two minds about it - in the strictest literal sense, it's true - but it also rhymes with Plato complaining about writing degrading the ability of scholars to memorize things.
The creator of Pepe the frog might disagree. It's a fine line.
Barkour Robot: Agile Quadruped Robots by Google DeepMind
No, it does not.

Let's enumerate the purported problems:

- "Elon Musk said so", which does not matter.
- Signal attachments can be viewed by an attacker with local access to the client. This is not Signal's job to protect against.
- Signal offers an optional `--no-sandbox` flag which only has security options if enabled on Linux.
- Weaknesses in sealed sender. This is the only one that might be an actual problem (two theoretical and one empirical attack, but the latter comes from an 18 page paper that I have not read). But this does not compromise the integrity of the chats, and is not something Telegram improves on.

Given how the posted described the optional `--no-sandbox` flag as "no sandbox on Linux", it's clear that they don't understand anything they're sharing, and they just want to spread FUD.

---

edit: Per discussion below, I was wrong about the `--no-sandbox` flag. It's enabled by default. The risk is that an attacker could figure out how to use Signal to run arbitrary JavaScript. I take back my insult- it was I who did not understand the linked issue.

I still stand by Signal > Telegram. The risk here is that an attacker could figure out how to abuse Signal to run arbitrary Javascript, e.g. through a specially crafted message.
Is Nadella doing anything else apart from outsourcing?

I would argue that Microsoft is the same ship as it was with Ballmer, but the times changed a bit, both the software and market matured. But essentially Microsoft still sells the same software mostly to businesses as it was in 2000. Maybe with some sprinkle on top.

Did they manage to get any new product in last 10 years? Windows phone was a failure. Xbox is older? Copilot is licensed from OpenAI?

Google allready went the "jack welch" way - there was a hit piece about it some time ago here on HN. Microsoft still tries to provide backwards compitability, since that's where they get money. But how long? Their last iterarions of products are a net loss of efficiency in the office (new dekstop layout, sharepoint - terrible losses of productivity), so they try very hard to get disrupted.
You can close down the business even without a bankruptcy. And you can have a bankruptcy, without closing down.

Closing down the business doesn't necessarily mean very much: all the machines, and workers and real estate and building still exist, whether the business closes or not.
Seems like a choice to me, one that you can choose not to make. The first choice is choosing to see AI as a doomsday device
Oh.. thanks for the heads up, so I can't use the same URL for HN? Just wonder how does the policy works, thanks.
You're not giving up your ability to reason, you're just reasoning at a higher level. Think of AI like an employee, CEOs don't lose their reasoning ability because they have employees to make their directives into reality.
Frank Ramsey: A genius by all tests for genius (2020)
With a clear definition of success, halfway working is, by definition, failing.
Well, the page is correct. That's the safest way.

I don't know how to verify the SHA fingerprint without Googling (I know how it works, just don't do it often to know the exact openssl or equivalent command).

If I'm downloading the APK directly on the phone, there's a lot that's not under Signal's control that could happen.

What if I'm directly under attack, and I'm trying to move to Signal? The attacker could MITM the connection and intercept the download.

I think that's a fair warning to show a user, because indeed most users will likely want to install apps through Play Store, that'll reduce/remove supply chain risks. Users who know enough about APKs would be able to verify the hash, or build it themselves.

Even if I download the APK, I still have to accept a similar warning when installing it on my phone.
Did someone watch Tucker Carlson's interview with the Telegram creator Pavel Durov?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ut6RouSs0w
If spontaneity is overrated then why participate in a simulacrum of spontaneity?

This app doesn't suggest that you do longer term things to support your partner and make their life easier. It proposes that you fake being in a honeymoon stage by eg leaving cute little notes.
A Story About Software Innovation: Value, Cost, and Toasters
You compare apples with oranges.
Because if you'd compare the apples , you'd notice one of them has no usable E2E.

Yes oranges umm phone numbers is a problem. They have that both.
Only one can additionally read the contents.

Thats for now the price for a normie interface.

First goalposts first.
At this point im convinced Apple is commissioning these prices to get people to watch their ad.
>Why are we living in an age of anger – is it because of the 50-year rage cycle?

The cycle is 75-100 years. Pretty well documented, and happily increasing.

We are in that post-great depression, pre-world war spot. Or if looking at the previous cycle it's the american civil war or if looking at the previous cycle it's the age of revolution.

>And from CNN in 2022, “American happiness hits record lows.” Or from Gallup in 2024, “The percentage of Americans ‘very’ satisfied with lives near record low”:

Nobody will deny that we live in the age of rage.

>Viral videos on X/Twitter of societal breakdown are algorithmically promoted to millions, such as looting and physical violence, creating the perception by the public that lawlessness reigns and consequently having the effect of making people less trusting of each other.

Overstating the amount of damage to trust that any of these are causing. At best you're pointing at the trend.

>a more atomistic and less trusting society may also mean a less violent one, save for the occasional mass shooting

I own a 22lr cooey that's old enough that it has been to a high school gun range MANY times. Why did we go from a society which could bring guns to school to 'mass shooting' is a key one in understanding what shifted. This has been ongoing since Columbine.

>?Or the post-2010s rise in teen anxiety as documented by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, which he blames on social media.

You literally quote that the problem was identified in the 1990s with bowling alone, thus this blame on social media is just wrong.

>All of this breeds well-earned resentment by the public against policy and business-elites.

People know they are angry, but the reason behind the rage is being censored. You're not allowed to talk about what is causing the rage. But incidentally because you cant talk about it, you cant fix the rage and political polarization.
There aren't in C#. Neither Newtonsoft.JSON (by default) nor System.Text.Json (at all) allow uncontrolled deserialization. Pretty much no code ever defaulted to Newtonsoft's TypeNameHandling.Auto and community has always been aware of its dangers, espcially in light of the incidents like Log4J.

And BinaryFormatter has been long ago deprecated (and now it got completely removed, in the form of a breaking change, something that pretty much never happens otherwise), and even when it was in use (more than a decade ago, popularity-wise), the use of type binding was heavily encouraged.
I should have checked before I posted something from memory. These are the reasons they list:

https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-android-app-on-f-...

F-Droid with reproducible builds signed by both parties seems the best of both worlds to me, now I don't understand why Signal is so stubborn about this.