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Jacob , It's great that you're working on this.

But isn't the biggest problem with security/privacy is that people don't care about it and don't use privacy enhancing products?

Because if that's the case, the starting point should be a viable marketing strategy - which will define the product.

Snapchat is is a good example of this. They wrap a viable user need with a privacy preserving idea with great marketing. Have a look at their site.

You're right.

But google also has part of the blame: it reassured people with "do no evil" and it's fights with government, instead of telling from the start that this would happen , as they would probably have known , and offering better technical protections against such things.

But in reality , it's a complex subject. Maybe they really thought that in world with global terrorism and crime , internet surveillance is the lesser of two evils.

The thing is, people never bought newspapers because they cared about democracy. They wanted to be entertained, and have something to talk about with colleagues.

At least with regards to written content, most people have access to much more interesting content. Heck, hn is more interesting than my newspaper. And we manage to find stuff to talk about.

Investigative journalism is just a case of the tragedy of the commons, that now run out the huge luck it got n the past. And we as a society need to start looking at it as such, and not fantasize that it is a standard business.

Yes, new advertising innovations have power. Partially positive, partially negative.

But most new startups don't invent new advertising techniques. They don't grow the amount of attention. They just fight for the piece of the current attention pie.

And In similar fashion to reality TV relative to game of thrones, they offer crappy but addictive products.

1. convenient to buy - online will probably win , i think. From my personal perspective it's more convenient now for many products.

2. don't get to physically interact - most products don't need physical interaction , just visual one. And there's haptic feedback tech if needed.

3. slow to arrive - online is improving(1 day shipping, maybe better for a fee) and will be good enough for most cases.

And remember:store depend on volumes to pay the rent and keep the lights on. Once online takes enough market share from them, they'll might collapse under their own weight. Some even start to see this happening in financial statements of big retailers.

Is it realistic that google will be the only self driving car company or even better by a large margin than others ? There are quite a few competitors today. And i think the u.s. government will highly oppose such situation, Since such situation is a clear and extreme concentration of power, seen from miles away.

It's hard for me to see it unfold this way.

If amazon's big plan is to gain a monopoly like status , which many investors think it is, this competition and price erosion is a big threat both to future amazon and it's current investors.

And hurting the stock is a good way as any to hurt a company.

Mail order catalogs never offered the opportunity to transcend the experience at a store.

Digital experiences do theoretically offer that possibility. One example is using virtual augmented reality to see how that shoe rack will look in you're home, how does it combines with your wall and floor colors, etc.

And this "digital better than real" has already started todat. Some high quality furniture retailers or hotels(forgot which) ,use computer generated models for their catalogs, not carpentry and photography.

Maybe willing to invest small percentage of one's pension in companies that try this kind of innovations. For example investing in disruptive healthcare companies, with an understanding that it help you when you grow old. Maybe even tie this with some sort of voting power to us, and less to fund managers.

And of course encourage changes towards long term investment, maybe using the tax code.

Amazon bought kiva robotics last year. That's a company that builds robots for e-commerce warehouses. They increase worker productivity by 4x, reduce error to zero and decrease space needed.

Using such robots for groceries might increase amazon's margins in retail to a reasonable level(for amazon), and will definetly be a competitive advantage over others.

But small urban retailers have some disadvantages: Higher prices, small selection and lousy experience.

E-commerce might improve the total value.

Online fashion retail has 10-20% market share today, and is growing. There are plenty of start-ups working on virtual methods of fitting clothes. That , with generous return policies, good brands , and cheaper prices because of online savings holds a lot of potential, not to speak of interesting online experiences.

There are some companies that do online furniture. First they use the price advantage ,and stuff like group buying. They also try showroom models like: showing a few couches in some coffee store, or showing miniature models of furniture , to save space. I bet there is also some work on 3D and virtual reality that we might see when the occulus rift becomes popular.

If think amazon's strategy is to let other companies solve problem and the rapidly copy them/buy them and use their resources to scale the business. They just recently started doing so in fashion.

The author forget the value that programming in the small holds.

With few hundreds of lines of code, you can write a useful extension for firefox, or a usefull plugin for some content management system , or connect few API's data in a way that offers great value[1], or just massage some excel table and save tons of work, or build a simple but very valuable arduino project[2].

And the situation is just getting better with more powerful libraries.

[1]There's an application that just takes real-time data on when trees shed out leafs and shows it on a map. Really helpfull for people with allergies/asthma to certain kinds of trees , to plan their route.

[2]A group of girls in palestine(one of their relatives is blind) built a walking cane for the blind that detects obstacles using ultrasound and vibrates in response. This is an improvement to current walking canes.

Kim dotcom is working on a secure, easy to use email[1].And until then , if you're interested in security , it's probably best to use a secure messaging app like textSecure.

[1]http://www.itnews.com.au/News/342446,kim-dotcoms-mega-workin...

One solution to avoid the need to coordinate between countries is tax access to markets, meaning just use VAT. Of course there will be a need to collaborate on equal taxes between states.

But as people said here the loopholes are probably deliberate.

What I don't get is: it is theoretically possible to build at least some technologies that offer anonymity together with personalization. Google don't seem to do it.

Is it because they tend to support the government position that we need this data to fight terrorism? Or because they think that I'd they'll use such technology, the government will change the rules forcing them to use the less private tech? Or just plain profit maximizing - do the easiest thing that will bring the most money?

It's pretty easy to physically separate people but still let them communicate with others. It looks like revenge.

Does this work for telepresence and if so how?

I liked this comment , but instead of funding local talent ,wouldn't it make more sense to fund the best solutions for important problems ? Yes the direct financial gain might be a bit less(specially with today's thin startups), but better products and services might offer a lot more value.

That sounds like laziness. What about deeply researching the subject , connecting with people who know about such stuff, or partnering with some domain expert ?

First, people do talk about healthcare costs and education costs and housing costs as grand problems.

And startups can do something about those. For example:

1. Co-Abode.com which connects single moms to share houses , while getting cheaper prices and better support from each other.

2. A recent YC startup , which helps people who are getting a divorce, settle without lawyers in a relatively peacefull and much cheaper process.

3. All those new education startups who make college more affordable.

And there are plenty more , and plenty more that's could be done. One such example:

Making dental crowns is costly. There are some few large companies who built a small cnc machine who automates this, which can reduce the costs of the whole process by a lot. But they are expensive to acquire.

Find a way to make this available for cheap for every dentist in u.s./world.

Now the question is how does get into those opportunities ?

Well, i don't think it's hard. just focus on the right area , and try to join the communities which try to think about those things. I'm pretty sure they are willing to share problem and ideas in order to see solutions being made.

I think that Ms lightswitch is designed to make it easy for developers to add features and extend the software later on.

is there a difference in routes between the grocery shipping and UPS ?

How would that enable same day shipping ? People usually do groceries once a week, but buy other stuff any day of the week.

Interesting, got any links?

Good luck!

Summation looks like a great idea.

I think the main reason better place failed wasn't due to ecosystem risk. The product was just too expensive hence with little value to price and came with a pretty high risk.

All those were caused by limits of current technology, and by the need to sell in small countries(limited high end market) where charging networks could be built.

Like you say, there would be quite few opportunities in this area. Few I can think of:

1. Teaching students how to teach well. In a shared learning environment, those who could teach will be rewarded in some way.

2. There are a million of niche subjects that need to be taught, how do you teach them using the best tools of mooc?

3. Accelerated learning: how do you find the students who can benefit from it and what value can you offer them?

4. How do you create and monetize value through shared group projects?

How is the end of the article different from wearing makeup and nice clothes and trying to live in nice neighborhoods?

A good starting point is rhok.org/problems.