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Comment by oli5679 | Hacker News Reader

Huge amounts of analysis and data-recording happen with people juggling spreadsheets, because they are easier for 'business/finance' people to learn how to use them vs. coding and databases.

I think there is huge potential for improved spreadsheets, either with generic things such as greater scalability/ability to schedule reports or with inbuilt capability for common tasks for specific industries.

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I would say that 75% of applications companies build for themselves could be replaced with a spreadsheet.

They probably could, but it would be worse. I worked for a few years with the opposite, replacing spreadsheets with systems with custom interfaces, backed with databases, access control, real backups etc. The savings (in form of reduced need of manpower), quality and reliability increases have often been enormous for these customers.

Sure, but the question is one of stability and consistency.

Take data input: You want your front line workers to record every time they do thing X. They could go into a spreadsheet and increment the count by 1 (or add a new entry in the row each time) or they could pull out their phone and open an app and press +1X, with the option of -1X if they make a mistake.

Which one is going to be better quality data?

I would say 75% are replacing a spreadsheet.

airtable is a thing, thing is as these tools get more powerful they also become more complicated to use. It gets to the point you need one (or several) specialists in the tool to do the work and then you might as well build a custom system

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