Hacker News: benwerd

Shopify says AI search is driving more traffic and sales, not replacing Google

benwerd — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:48:14 +0000

Article URL: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/05/shopify-says-ai-search-is-driving-more-traffic-and-sales-not-replacing-google/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49197489

Points: 23

# Comments: 15

Sam Altman is ready to decelerate

benwerd — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 13:32:48 +0000

Article URL: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/28/sam-altman-is-ready-to-decelerate/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49097300

Points: 4

# Comments: 2

Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

benwerd — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:49:28 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/private-healthcare-makes-industries-less-innovative-its-time-for-change/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021571

Points: 143

# Comments: 163

People are transcribing your conversations without asking. That puts you at risk

benwerd — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 02:41:53 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/people-are-transcribing-your-conversations-without-asking-that-puts-you-at-risk/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48987435

Points: 7

# Comments: 1

China’s open-weights AI strategy is winning

benwerd — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:21:47 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/american-ai-is-locked-down-and-proprietary-its-losing/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48979269

Points: 1243

# Comments: 932

New comment by benwerd in "I joined the IndieWeb, here's what I learned"

benwerd — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:44:36 +0000

Hi! I started a startup, Known, that did exactly this in 2014, explicitly as part of the indieweb movement. The open source code is still around.

The trick is the economics here. A one-click solution is great, but right now the indieweb solves an ideological but not a hard _user_ problem. There isn't enough "there" there to either justify investment or get enough customers to cover the costs of a service.

The closest is micro.blog, which is a genuinely great service that bakes in this tech under the hood. But the tradeoff is that you can't run it on your own infra; it's a centralized service that is compatible with the protocols but isn't quite a genuinely indieweb tool.

I've wondered if there might be something around providing better tools for logging an agent's activities, or for publishing from a sensor / server / etc, but that's all speculation. Without a genuine hard user need, it's hard to imagine how this would work as a turnkey service.

We need a PIT Crew for news

benwerd — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:35:36 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/we-need-a-pit-crew-for-news/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48905850

Points: 7

# Comments: 0

Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

benwerd — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:57:55 +0000

Article URL: https://19thnews.org/2026/07/noaa-climate-data-website/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897945

Points: 553

# Comments: 217

Communities will build trust for public media. Chicago is taking a leap forward

benwerd — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:39:36 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/communities-will-build-trust-and-loyalty-for-local-public-media-chicago-public-media-is-taking-a-big-leap-forward/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48859778

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Governance can prevent AI from undermining democracy. But only if it has teeth

benwerd — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 13:39:42 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/governance-can-prevent-ai-from-being-used-to-undermine-democracy-but-only-if-it-has-teeth/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48804432

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Happy 250th Birthday, America

benwerd — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:13:09 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/happy-250th-birthday-america/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48785558

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

OpenAI wants to give us 5% of its success. It's a bad bargain

benwerd — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:35:31 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/openai-wants-to-give-us-5-of-its-success-its-a-bad-bargain/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48761392

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

I have a theory about AI fake news site The Editorial

benwerd — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:34:08 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/i-have-a-theory-about-ai-fake-news-site-the-editorial/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48754929

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

They tell us surveillance makes us safer. It undermines our democratic rights

benwerd — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:52:54 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/they-tell-us-surveillance-makes-us-safer-it-undermines-our-democratic-rights/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745905

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

A right-wing media chain tried to replace 47 newspapers with AI. They all died

benwerd — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:58:11 +0000

Article URL: https://werd.io/a-right-wing-media-chain-tried-to-replace-47-newspapers-with-ai-they-all-died/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48718695

Points: 5

# Comments: 1

New comment by benwerd in "Reading the news is the new smoking"

benwerd — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 13:23:45 +0000

Oof, this was a tough read for me.

For example, he mentions reading about genocide and not doing anything about it. In a democratic state the thing you do about it - aside from giving money to NGOs and other groups who are actually helping on the ground, protesting, sending letters to politicians and editors, boycotting businesses that align themselves with it - is to vote against the people who enable it. If you do nothing about genocide, you don't care about genocide. You always have levers to pull. Our role in a democracy is not to be a passive consumer; we have to use our votes, our voices, and apply pressure about the things we care about.

The idea that the news doesn't tell you about the historical context of a particular event is also an important tell. That's a pretty good indication that you're reading the wrong news, not that news as a whole is bad. There is plenty of really good, smart, long-form, deeply reported, contextually revealing journalism out there. I agree that there's a lot of news that doesn't fit that description. But it's out there.

But most importantly, this is a barometer of how people are actually feeling. The news industry is doing a terrible job of meeting people where they're actually at.

Part of the problem is that we are genuinely in a tough spot in history: rising authoritarianism, climate change, oligarchy, and many other factors are joining together to squeeze the most vulnerable communities. I don't know that looking away is the right thing to do, but the fire alarm analogy is almost good: it's true that if you're subjected to continuous peril you'll stop paying attention, but the peril is real and not akin to a broken alarm.

Perhaps what we need is a newsroom that only takes a step back and reports on the underlying trends, removing a dependence on the individual stories of today. For example, we should be worrying a lot more about the integrity of midterm elections here in the US, but the individual stories get lost in the mix.