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arnon

2,004 karma · joined December 13, 2016

https://arnon.dk

Marketing in the new AI world, billing, pricing, monetization, AI agents, and more.

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arnon··on Show HN: I made a discrete logic network card
In Communication Systems Engineering studies we implemented ethernet signalling, then the TCP/IP stack including ARP and switching in Motorola 68k QUIC assembly.

Longest 18 months of my life.

arnon··on How Would You Turn This Dial to Make the Freezer Colder?
The arrow shows direction of turning the knob, so turning it that way should make it colder.
arnon··on Why is it so hard to build an airport?
The US has no alternative forms of transport. Taking an airplane is the most convenient way.

In Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, and the UK taking a train is faster and more convenient (even if more expensive often)

arnon··on Pains of building your own billing system
1. You assume monthly_rate exists. It's usually not defined that way...

2. Imagine some things are billed on a recurring basis (e.g., every 30 days), and some are every 1st of the month...

3. Assume, for example, that you charge per-user. What if there are 300 users added and 20 removed in one day. Do you refund the remaining time in the month? Is this a credit on their next invoice, a negative item on the current invoice, etc...

There are many more situations that can mess this up even further.

arnon··on Pains of building your own billing system
Not in all EU countries, but there's a new law in Spain that aims to address this

https://www.fonoa.com/blog/spain-publishes-draft-ordinance-r...

arnon··on Pains of building your own billing system
Cashflow and Revenue are two separate concepts.

You can cash a check today for revenue you accounted for 90 days ago.

You need to reconcile it but it doesn't have to happen at the same time. It's very normal to reconcile months later.

arnon··on Pains of building your own billing system
Don't say I didn't warn you
arnon··on Pains of building your own billing system
Don't do it
arnon··on Pains of building your own billing system
There are in reality lots more things that are hard, and your own experiences could feel different depending on where you are in the journey.

I often see dates mentioned as hard. And they are, but they pale in comparison to RevRec.

arnon··on [dead]
DEI started as a positive thing but has become weaponised to get positive press coverage, and was completely emptied of meaning very quickly by the companies who ran these initiatives themselves.
arnon··on Streaming service prices have more than doubled since coming onto market
Content costs money to produce.

The artists and staff who worked on the content want to be paid fairly.

It's great that consumers want cheap stuff, but we can't have it both ways.

If we go down this route, either the content will be crap (and AI-generated), or people won't be paid fairly.

arnon··on [dead]
And that's how you sow disinformation.

Wiping countries off maps.

Israel is getting the Taiwan approach.

arnon··on iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus
I love Dex. All workplaces have a USB-C hub that powers everything, and it just means I can skip the laptop.

Slack, Chrome/Firefox, Miro, Zoom - it's all there.

arnon··on Practical parsing with Flex and Bison (2021)
I learned a lot from the first few pages but it really escalated very quickly at some point
arnon··on Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf
Because people here like suggesting alternatives that _they_ like.
arnon··on McKinsey's New GenAI Product Spells Trouble for B2B AI Startups
Well, if McKinsey says....
arnon··on PyPI Requires 2FA for New User Registrations
The work account was my secondary. They used the password reset to sign in through my work e-mail and then removed my primary personal e-mail
arnon··on PyPI Requires 2FA for New User Registrations
They reset my password and then changed the e-mail. The username remains the same and it is "arnon".

I tried re-registering now to check your claim but it says the username is under use and I can't restore the password for it since they changed the e-mail to one of theirs.

The last communication I got from PyPi was from Ee Durbin in 2022 saying:

> Given this, it appears that someone from <redacted> utilized the @<redacted>.com email address associated with the account to take it over and obtain access to the <redacted> libraries that the arnon User owned.

> We are discussing next steps internally.

> -Ee Durbin

> Director of Infrastructure

> Python Software Foundation

I've asked a couple of times for status updates as recently as this July and haven't heard back.

arnon··on Android 14 introduces cellular connectivity security features
Some people just need to say they hate a company whenever they appear in a topic - it's a form of reverse fanboy-ism
arnon··on PyPI Requires 2FA for New User Registrations
PyPi let an old employer take over my account and hasn't been responding for nearly two years.

They told me they'd investigate but have been ghosting me since. I sent several requests to have my account restored but they just won't answer.

arnon··on Meta developer tools: Working at scale
Surprised to see them use Phabricator (I know it came out of there, but I basically already forgot it existed)

I used it briefly but couldn't get most people to adopt it widely enough.

arnon··on I won't pay on your website
Germany, Italy, and Israel love Paypal.

Countries with low consumer trust.

arnon··on Say a Final Goodbye to Sprint – T-Mobile Is Reportedly Shutting It Down
Makes sense as the cost of running two operators' networks is insane overhead
arnon··on Nvidia chief says with AI everyone now can be a programmer
With Excel, everyone already is a programmer.
arnon··on AMD has a one-liner to help speed up Linux system resume time
I'm not sure what news value this has - what is there to talk about?
arnon··on Meta plans to lay off 10k employees
Revenue in 2021: 33,671 M USD

Revenue in 2022: 32,165 M USD

FTEs in 2021: 71,970

FTEs in 2022: 86,482

Revenue-per-FTE in 2021: $467,847

Revenue-per-FTE in 2022: $371,927

That's 21% less revenue per FTE.

[1] 2022 results https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...

[2] 2021 results https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...

arnon··on Meta plans to lay off 10k employees
Revenue is nice but revenue-per-full-time-employee is a more meaningful metric.
arnon··on HP outrages printer users with firmware update suddenly bricking third-party ink
I think he's being facetious
arnon··on Tableau has been killed by Salesforce
Excel (incumbent), and Looker (for anyone on Google)
arnon··on Launch HN: Lago (YC S21) – Open-source usage-based billing
Congrats Anh-Tho and Raffi! I think this will be big
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