I had tried to sign up for affiliate sales a while back, but:

It is complicated to sign up for it – depending on the vendor you have to fill in a number of forms, or sign up via a different affiliate network to even use them.

Wait times for a response are long – I remember some networks or individual sellers got back to me months later.

There's a high bar to entry – I had a tiny website, so I didn't get approved, but I had a good CTR. I eventually had to shut down the website since I realized there was no viable option to monetization and was just burning money on name registration + hosting.

My website was also not in the blog-space, i.e. I didn't do reviews, but I did offer good info, and Amazon for example specifically denied me affiliate permissions because of this.

I might revive the website and see if it'll work again with you guys. This is a path to monetization that could make it sustainable. Thanks and good luck!

Rails has a high learning curve. Perhaps people working with it for years don't notice it. Node + Express seems faster to learn and ship, but my experience with Rails is limited.

  Location: Paris, France
  Remote: ok
  Willing to relocate: no
  Technologies: product design, UI, UX, graphic design, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite
  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-luebke/
  Email: saraeluebke@gmail.com

Product Designer & Graphic / Visual Designer | American, based in Paris, France | Remote OK

Hi. I have 5 years Graphic Design experience, working in Silicon Valley. I have recently finished a Product Design Bootcamp (https://www.thedesigncrew.co/en) and I am looking to apply those skills in a UI/UX/Product Design role.

Fluent in English, working proficiency in French.

Graphic Design Portfolio: https://www.saraluebke.com/

Product Design Portfolio: https://tinyurl.com/bd52yk4y

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-luebke/

Maybe closer to the intended end goal here – is a country allowed to deny a visa to a person entering that country, if the level of criticism is on the extreme end?

If the answer is no, then you might be missing a lot of people that have nefarious intent, where you could have prevented that by looking at their social media posts. If the answer is yes, then you have to delegate to something / someone. Maybe an AI might be better than a human at spotting warning signs.

Isn't it a good idea to vet people before you let them enter your country? Why would you let in someone that is hostile to your country? Especially these days with so many individuals being driven by nefarious ideologies?

Big opener, controversial take, put a thing down, just to build your own product up by comparison, lack of nuance... from the get-go you can tell it's a marketing piece.

The premise imo is wrong.

> Silicon Valley is a non-ergodic industry

How do you define this? Obviously Daniel's take is on the founders that failed, that were stressed out by investors etc. but he doesn't talk about the thousands of people with the highest paying, most comfortable job they've ever had. People that switched from manual labor to customer support or programming. Or the thousands of minted (multi-)millionaires that got there by just working a comfortable 9-5 for 5-10 years? (in fact, he may be one of the beneficiaries of a SV style system, through his AWS career that sounded like it landed him enough money to start on his entrepreneurial journey – not so non-ergodic now...)

And of course, he loses credibility because he is selling his course. The whole point of the blog post is to sour YC and siphon off a few readers to his course. Kudos to him too, I mean, that's marketing, and it seems like that course is great too! But, imo, he is not taking the high road here.

YC has a great track record at helping people succeed. And if they didn't succeed, it opened doors. YC foots the bill for you to explore an idea. Sure, you can be smart enough to get into YC, but still naive enough to believe a religion-version of YC, about changing the world and something-something vision; then again, maybe you are smart enough to know what you're getting yourself into. Or you should.

Because on the other hand, there are plenty of people peddling get-rich-quick schemes out there, and how you can make it on your own, "just do this thing". Life's tough out there, and going solo is a difficult journey (something not mentioned often). You work for a company, or you work with investors, you are protected / sheltered. Choose your own path, for sure, but also recognize the pros and cons and how nuanced this situation is.

What's the problem in France?