valueprop

Hi HN,

We are 2 engineers working full-time on a hotel booking solution with no commission, instead of 18% practiced by sites such as Booking.com / Expedia. Hotels hate this commission, but they keep paying since Booking / Expedia bring customers.

Tourists know about these brands and go there to book hotels, even though there are hundreds of other booking & meta-search solutions. Note that they won't find better prices, since hotels aren't allowed by Booking/Expedia to post better prices online. So a site with a smaller commission can't post cheaper prices. Booking/Expedia also 'price match', just in case a tourist manages to find a better price. There's an exception with https://bidroom.com/ , which shows better prices after registration, so not 'publicly'.

Tourists also prefer Booking / Expedia since their booking is guaranteed and payment is safe with these known brands.

Would you have any out-of-the-box ideas on how one could disrupt these booking sites? Obviously, if there would be any straightforward steps, you'd do it yourself. However, if you don't have the time to work on it, but have interesting suggestions, would you please share for others to consider?

Thanks!

Quoting from https://www.paypal.com/business/fees

If the funds you are receiving are coming from a PayPal account: then you pay: In the U.S. a fee of 3.7% of the transaction amount plus $0.30 USD. Outside Canada and the U.S. a fee of 3.9 % of the transaction amount plus a fixed fee based on the currency

I was expecting fees lower than Stripe when customers pay with their PayPal balance, and same as Stripe when paying with cards through PayPal.

How come PayPal is more expensive? Do they rely on customers preferring PayPal instead of sharing their card details with sites (even through it's in a Stripe popup, customers don't know about Stripe)

Healthy male, 38, financially secure. Being depressed about not having a relationship/wife/family, doing counseling for 3 months already. Rather than focusing on what's missing, I'm working on focusing what I could do on my own.

What activities which don't depend on having a SO bring you joy?

Thanks for sharing.

Most of the comparisons I've found between Backbone and Vue.js are high-level, without insights from practical long-term usage on both, eg https://www.slant.co/versus/32/11378/~backbone_vs_vue-js

We're happily using Backbone, but considering Vue in order not to be left behind with maintained frameworks/tooling.

What insights could you share from switching (attempts) ?

What do you use instead of models/collections?

Considering productivity on your project, which framework between the two do you prefer, and why?

Thanks!

There was a recent post on HN about marriage. An insightful hacker commented:

What ends up happening is sooner or later one ends up pulling dating partners from eccentric and probably unhealthy places. And the ones most willing to engage have their own reasons for seeking out a lonely programmer.

Generically, bad places to pull a spouse from: online dating sites/apps, bars, concerts, large parties, etc. Just about anywhere that attracts people from a variety of social strata and offers zero curation for common values, education or habits of mind, and/or doesn't sort people in any way based on useful proxies for those things. The trouble is that those sources are tempting if you are socially isolated (from the opposite gender) and perceive yourself to have few options, and/or because you're lazy or fatigued from the ever-frustrating chase.

Always bad? No. But the median outcome is going to be worse than with other, more enlightened dating strategies.

When asked what are some enlightened dating strategies, he replied: If I had a good answer for you, my own life might have gone differently.

I find myself in the same situation, and probably I'm not the only one. 37 years old, been 8 years at dancing classes & parties (mostly salsa), which resulted in various short-term relationships.

What dating advice/strategies do you have for software engineers aiming to establish a family? I'm even considering Facebook ads, with the risk of getting my face known by all single women in the city.

Much appreciated.

What places do you know about that are ideal to live in? Meaning

* close to nature (minimum pollution, be able to do mountain hiking, swimming, biking)

* high tech (work from home on software projects)

* English speaking countries

* community of like-minded people

For example: https://bashny.net/t/en/207307

For USA citizens, the choice is clear: index funds

For those living in Europe, what is the best low-risk, passive way to invest 150,000 euros?

Option A: conservative funds offered by local banks (90% bonds, 10% stocks for EU companies) Any specific banks or EU index funds that you recommend? Should EURO be avoided altogether, due to some EU members wanting to leave?

Option B: buy 1-2 apartments and rent (too much hassle)

See also https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-invest-150-000-euros

I developed this as a solution to my own pain: contact potential customers to ask questions.

1. How could it be improved? 2. Would this be useful to you? 3. What target customers should I go for? 4. Any other thoughts?

For any useful comments, I'll gladly give 1k emails credit. Just email hello@talk2customers.com requesting it. Thanks!