Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48406239

Points: 7

# Comments: 14

Microsoft laying off 10% of their workforce, 15%, 20%, 30%? Google laying off 10%, 15%, 20%, or more?

HN readers like to use the cope of "it's just pandemic over-hiring" — when do you think that explanation will no longer hold?

When will you say: "Now it has nothing to do with Covid-era over-hiring; the industry has fundamentally changed."

If this happens and a significant number of white-collar jobs are eliminated, who would buy things to keep the economy funded?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48143615

Points: 10

# Comments: 5

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48042947

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

Assuming software development becomes a commodity and the job becomes something like a fast food job where practically any adult who wants it can do it, what is your next move?

Anthropic and OpenAI are working hard to redirect the salary you earn to themselves in the form of API costs, so let's assume that in the year 2030, the average yearly wage for a programmer is around the same as a McDonald's worker, because companies have the option of paying Anthropic or OpenAI for API access as an alternative. What is your move?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48030736

Points: 19

# Comments: 31

So is this type of person rare in the wild? Fast food's dominance over home cooking suggests people naturally tend to outsource work and just consume the result — which would mean the type I'm describing is indeed rare. But I feel like engineering is a much more filtered space; someone who wants to be an engineer is fundamentally different from a guy who just wants a household chore fixed.

If this type is rare, what caused it?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47605345

Points: 3

# Comments: 5

A new web browser built on a new HTTP protocol that accepts a human identity glove using cryptography. Instead of using your fingers directly on a mouse or trackpad, you wear a hardware glove that continuously records your pulse and your fingerprint, your machine information, and the average movement map that is unique to you as you interact with your device. The glove encrypts all of this information in real time. The browser then constantly verifies the glove hardware is present and active. No physical glove with a valid identity? No page loads.

What if someone tries to emulate the glove?

This is where the new browser becomes the second line of defense. It continuously checks the hardware signature and serial number of the glove. You can attempt to emulate it all you want, but the probability of simultaneously spoofing the correct fingerprint, a continuous and believable human pulse, a personalized movement map, and the exact hardware serial number is as close to impossible as any security system can get.

What do you all think of this as a preliminary idea?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47377046

Points: 4

# Comments: 12

Suppose you woke up in the year 2035 and every HTTP request required a valid government ID to accompany it. Without it, you could not view the web document. In that world, who would benefit? What kinds of businesses would be in demand in a government ID gated internet? Who would be the main beneficiaries?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47217100

Points: 5

# Comments: 2

Even if you don’t care about the copyrights of authors, this company is constantly advertising to your boss how they can save money by firing you and giving the salary they would have paid you to them. And you’re on their side?

Anthropic is scum. Regardless of how many dipshit “marketers” they deploy here and elsewhere, never support them—because the only reward you get as a developer if they win is your job being eliminated.

I know some software developers have deluded themselves into thinking they’re different from the working class. You’re not. Anthropic and others like them would gladly be fine with former developers scavenging in city dumpsters if it meant their shitty, stolen product achieved product–market fit.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197579

Points: 9

# Comments: 4

What do they mean exactly?

I think this advice is one of those things people repeat because at the surface level it makes sense. You have a solution for a problem, so find those who have the problem. But when you think about it, it does not make any sense. It is more like it sounds like "I got a small loan of one million dollars from my father." Technically correct, but what is left out is actually what defeats any merit the statement might ever have.

In my life, I have never said "I wish there was a place I could go, or someone I could talk to so that I am sold to." The adblock industry is a testament to my experience. People hate ads so much that advertisers were forced to create programming useful enough that ads would merely be a side effect.

So what exactly do people mean by "talk to people"? At bare minimum, the statement must be qualified first. Talk to your network. If you do not have one, do something else.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47118330

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

That is exactly why vultures like LLM hustlers find their opening. There is a reason you do not see fly-by-night LLM hucksters selling medical insurance or devices, not because they cannot do the job of building the thing itself, but because the surrounding moat is too high for them to clear.

It is hard, it is expensive, and there is a lot of work, but anything worth $10M in yearly profit is. You want to avoid any product that a Chinese manufacturer can pump and dump on Amazon almost immediately, if Amazon itself doesn't, or a product an Indian teenager can create in a few hours thanks to LLMs and compete with. You want those paths to be impossible for them to clear.

There are two enemies. Chinese manufacturers who will dump a cheaper alternative the second you find success. With FDA and trials gates, they are out. The second is LLM guys who sit in the middle vulture state. They are ok with violating every law, every established norm except industries that are more powerful than them: healthcare and banking.

By forcing them to invest at minimum $200k-250k per product, they will be a lot more hesitant. It is easier to violate some poor author's copyright, but in this case each time they try to compete with you they have to jump this high gate.

I am not saying this is easy money. There are established corps already looking to expand their business, but $10M-15M won't move the needle for them, and for those it does, you can compete.

1. Natural Moat

Since human body hardware is more or less immutable in its most essential parts, you don't have to worry about some LLM hype cycle replacing you. Once you build the product and clear FDA or local certifications, you're set. Unlike Uber destroying the taxi medallion business, healthcare is a beast — no tech startup dares to bypass all the regulations and gatekeeping.

2. Regulatory Moat

The medical devices I'm talking about require around $50K–$200K for FDA clearance — low enough that any small business can manage it, but high enough to discourage bottom-feeders and Chinese product dumpers. It also lets you avoid the big established healthcare corporations, because this market segment is too small for them to care about, yet large enough for you to pull in $10M–$15M a year in revenue.

Medical device manufacturing sidesteps the two fatal flaws of software development: the lack of a moat and static, almost never-changing hardware margins. LLM companies don't care about copyright, IP, or the health of the broader economy — but they can't go head-to-head with the healthcare industry, so you don't have to worry about them at all.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47101545

Points: 8

# Comments: 21

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46801311

Points: 9

# Comments: 3

If my theory is correct—if kids nowadays rely on these third-party "coding assistants" and older, legacy programmers retire—could we face a COBOL-like problem again, only worse, now that fewer people know how to write code without assistance?

Are the Luddites right, after all?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46224511

Points: 3

# Comments: 3

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46200610

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45956674

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

The rule would be simple: as long as you are not violating a federal law, USPS payment processors would handle your transactions. Do you know how many legitimate businesses currently struggle or cannot operate because of these parasitic middlemen? USPS could operate similarly to the Bank of North Dakota, legally unable to deny banking services to someone without strong legal grounds. This move could save the agency, eliminate parasitic middlemen who siphon money and favor certain clients, and provide a viable path for many businesses to remain operational. I know that in the 1990s, USPS wanted to offer email services, but the DOJ blocked it. So, my idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds—people smarter than me in the agency were already thinking about expanding USPS’s services thirty years ago.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45868943

Points: 11

# Comments: 8

Is the issue perception alone? Brand? What the industry advertises itself as? And the totality of their work doesn't matter?