We who hang out on HN don't have a very diverse group of acquaintances. If we find someone to be an idiot, we probably don't waste too much time with him. So, we end up with a very biased view of the world. Given this, when we see a smarmy-looking site for an expensive parrot book, we laugh and think, "Who the hell would buy that?" The guy who's running the site was able to see how dumb most Americans (or at least English readers) are and picked a business accordingly.
Also, many of us would be embarrassed to admit that we were making our money this way, so we avoid even considering such activities.
So, what other information niches exist that would satisfy the needs of some small fraction of other 90-some percent? Yes, this question is arrogant, crass, and probably repugnant to many. However, it's the kind of question that Parrot Guy probably asked himself when he got started.
I'm an amateur photographer, and I read strobist.com, a blog dedicated to inexpensive lighting techniques. To profit from the popularity of his blog, the author produced an eight DVD series on lighting techniques which sells for $150. I bought it. It's well-produced and worth the money. Perhaps I shouldn't think of this "selling info" business quite so negatively as I'm actually a customer!
>> ...we laugh and think, "Who the hell would buy that?"
I'd speculate that this arrogance is more a consequence of the content being sold than the format it's being sold in.
If someone wrote a "real scaling with memcached" (or whatever) ebook, with actual setup, use cases, performance numbers, patterns, etc, I suspect the users here would be intrigued.
Sure, much of the information could be gleaned from blog postings and READMEs, but how much would it be worth for all the topics to be aggregated and treated with a consistent depth?
Yeah. It's a category that people certainly have an incentive to care about. I wonder if there are laws that prevent claims like, "Learn the true secrets of diabetes management." Also, you'd be competing with WebMD and other free and legit sources.
Yesterday on the TeeVee, I saw an ad for a DVD on how to make one's child behave himself. Given that we have a 3 1/2 year-old who is a terror, I paused to evaluate the claims made. Perhaps mental health-related stuff would get around the "playing doctor" problem? I mean light claims like "feel better" rather than "cure your depression."
Not that I actually want to do any business like this...I'm no better at it than the next guy. Also, isn't a bookstore the oldest form of this? The only thing new is the disintermediation and electronic distribution.
Comments
We who hang out on HN don't have a very diverse group of acquaintances. If we find someone to be an idiot, we probably don't waste too much time with him. So, we end up with a very biased view of the world. Given this, when we see a smarmy-looking site for an expensive parrot book, we laugh and think, "Who the hell would buy that?" The guy who's running the site was able to see how dumb most Americans (or at least English readers) are and picked a business accordingly.
Also, many of us would be embarrassed to admit that we were making our money this way, so we avoid even considering such activities.
So, what other information niches exist that would satisfy the needs of some small fraction of other 90-some percent? Yes, this question is arrogant, crass, and probably repugnant to many. However, it's the kind of question that Parrot Guy probably asked himself when he got started.
I'm an amateur photographer, and I read strobist.com, a blog dedicated to inexpensive lighting techniques. To profit from the popularity of his blog, the author produced an eight DVD series on lighting techniques which sells for $150. I bought it. It's well-produced and worth the money. Perhaps I shouldn't think of this "selling info" business quite so negatively as I'm actually a customer!
>> ...we laugh and think, "Who the hell would buy that?"
I'd speculate that this arrogance is more a consequence of the content being sold than the format it's being sold in.
If someone wrote a "real scaling with memcached" (or whatever) ebook, with actual setup, use cases, performance numbers, patterns, etc, I suspect the users here would be intrigued.
Sure, much of the information could be gleaned from blog postings and READMEs, but how much would it be worth for all the topics to be aggregated and treated with a consistent depth?
Diabetes, go with diabetes and you'll make ten times more.
Or anything health related.
Yeah. It's a category that people certainly have an incentive to care about. I wonder if there are laws that prevent claims like, "Learn the true secrets of diabetes management." Also, you'd be competing with WebMD and other free and legit sources.
Yesterday on the TeeVee, I saw an ad for a DVD on how to make one's child behave himself. Given that we have a 3 1/2 year-old who is a terror, I paused to evaluate the claims made. Perhaps mental health-related stuff would get around the "playing doctor" problem? I mean light claims like "feel better" rather than "cure your depression."
Not that I actually want to do any business like this...I'm no better at it than the next guy. Also, isn't a bookstore the oldest form of this? The only thing new is the disintermediation and electronic distribution.