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Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available?

39 points by ryanwaggoner ↗ HN
Ok, this may go nowhere, but I was inspired by this recent submission on what programming books HN wishes existed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=551339

So in the same spirit, what product or service have you found yourself wishing existed? It could be an info product, tangible product, service, subscription, etc. It could be related to the web, programming, startups, or just life in general. The only rule should be that you would actually take out your credit card right now and pay for it if someone offered it.

Please don't upvote people's comments unless you would also pay for it.

197 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 236 ms ] thread
davidw
Decent Mexican food in Europe:-) (BTW, "if it were available")

Edit: if I ever 'made it big', and decided to stay in Italy, I'd invest a portion of my money in a good Mexican restaurant here. It would probably lose money, but what the hell.

bilbo0s
I'd add, a halfway decent pizza in Havana.

When Cuba opens up, the first decent pizza place to go down there is going to make a killing!

Seriously, there the pizza is terrible, doesn't matter if you are in Havana, Santiago, or Gerona.

alaithea
> Seriously, there the pizza is terrible, doesn't matter if you are in Havana, Santiago, or Gerona.

But do the Cubans know that?

lpgauth
Unless you like ham and cheese pizza, then it's paradise.
ahoyhere
Oh my god, hear hear.

Went to a "Mexican" place in Vienna (I'm an American expat) a few months back and it was horrible, terrible, frightening.

Somebody ordered the spare ribs (!) and they crackled as you pulled them apart.

jmtame
I'm pretty sure ribs aren't Mexican though
davidw
I think that's what the ! is for. You'd be surprised at some of the stuff that gets passed off as Mexican food in Europe.
alpha_ori
What, people in Mexico don't eat the ribs on pigs? Perhaps they take the shoulder to make carnitas and leave the rest of the carcass to rot under the hot, Mexican sun?
cjbos
And New Zealand too.. there are zero quality Mexican restaurants there.

Its not Mexican, but the best Peruvian food I've had outside of Lima is in Amsterdam http://www.casaperu.nl/html/casaperu.html can't recommend it enough!

(My wife was born in Lima and we eat alot of Peruvian food)

rdouble
And New Zealand too.. there are zero quality Mexican restaurants there.

The Mexican food I had in Australia was a "shocker."

kiwidrew
There's a couple of lovely Mexican ladies who have a small restaurant in Wellington (Viva Mexico) that is absolutely fantastic! Otherwise, yes, NZ Mexican is rather abysmal.

(I often think that good Mexican would be an awesome business opportunity here...)

qw
Europe consists of more than one country you know :-) Please don't judge other countries in Europe based on your experience.
davidw
i've lived in two countries, actually, and visited many others. Madrid was the only place where i managed to find decent mexican food.
chris11
I had decent Mexican food in London. It wasn't spectacular, but I remember enjoying it.
davidw
London is one of those sorts of places where you could probably find anything, but it's an outlier.
mahmud
No kidding, Spain has great Mexican food. England the best Curry ;-)
mattmaroon
The sad part is there isn't decent Mexican food in Mexico. I've tried in 6 different cities there, it's not at all like what we eat. Might be that the quality of the ingredients is just vastly inferior.

The only place I found so far with decent Mexican food in Mexico is owned by Sammy Hagar.

wheels
For that you have to come to our apartment in Berlin for our startup dinners. We've done about 5 of them (one being a Berlin news.yc meetup) and they all feature enchiladas or fajitas.

Sure, Berlin's a bit out of the way from Italy, but some things in life simply take priority.

ErrantX
Chatterous.com

Rather than rehash why I would.. I explained it not long back here: http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2009/03/dont-ignore-the-donator...

How much? At the moment Chatterous is probably worth... $50 a month to me - and probably more to the company I work at.

EDIT: I realise that verges on linkspam but otherwise I would end up writing an essay on why chatterous should offer "pay for" - and I already did that :P

thorax
Yeah, I use this every single day for different circles of work, hobby, friends. I felt it very succinctly when Gtalk went haywire the other day and Chatterous was broken.
jaxn
A fuel efficient car / minivan with room for a family of 6 to take a road trip. There are no hybrid minivans :(
tokenadult
The current hybrid technology produces the most fuel-efficiency gains in stop and start driving. In other words, it works much better for taxi fleets than for family road trips.
jaxn
Well, most of our driving is stop and go, in-town driving. However, it doesn't make much sense to buy a family car if it doesn't work for road trips as well. Especially since it is cost prohibitive to fly for a family of 6 when we can drive for 8-12 hours for a fraction of the cost.
comatose_kid
Actually, it can make sense to buy a family car that doesn't work for road trips. Save money (fuel + price) by buying a smaller car, and rent a van for the few times a year that you need it.
jaxn
I have not found that to be true for us (again, a family of 6).

Renting a van will cost $500-$1000 for a week. If you do that 3-4 times a year then you are talking about approx $200/mo in monthly payments that you would have to save.

reduxredacted
I'll settle for an inexpensive minivan that I can buy new. Seems like it's a dying breed but when you have kids it's a necessity.
khafra
A combination proxy/script/something that'd pop up an interstitial task tracker/to-do list overview when I go to any of a list of "time-sink" sites. I can click "snooze" and go to the time sink, with the task tracker popping back up after 5,10,30 minutes, turn it off for a day or two, or click through to the detail/edit view for any task and get to work.
cschneid
Leechblock + NowDoThis is my solution to this. I don't actually use NowDoThis, but it's default is to have it's own name in big letters, which is enough to remind me to stop slacking.
khafra
I know of those, but I'm absent-minded enough that I often forget there's many better things I could be doing. Seeing my long-range goals and my short-range deadlines in an easy-to-grok format has done wonders for me in the past; I just need a systematic way of delivering that when it's needed. Ideally, the software solution could also pop up when I start viewing a comic book archive, watching a video file, or preparing a snack just because I can't think of anything more pressing to do.
tsally
A device that could accurately measure caffeine intake, levels present in the body, and the strength of your bodies resistance. I know if I have another cup of coffee at 4PM, the quality of my code will be much better. What I never know is if it will wear off in time for me to get a normal nights sleep. :)
Femur
A cheap and noninvasive device that can monitor and record a bunch of metrics would be great!

I would love to be able to graph my cholesterol, BP, heart rate, etc. over time. It is a shame i can monitor my car more easily than I can my body.

tsally
Yeah, data on this stuff is great. The treadmills at our gym actually have a USB port that you can use to export your average pace and heart rate over a run. That's the closest I've been able to come.
qw
I don't use narcotics, but if there were a 100% safe drug out there (not addictive and/or dangerous) I would pay for it.
yummyfajitas
Pot comes very close, particularly if you make brownies rather than smoking it.
Femur
I desperately wish i could find top level tropical and non-tropical fruit of many varieties here in Houston. I love fresh fruit but mangos from Mexico are not that great and the lack of variety gets old.
kingsley_20
I'd say. I miss the rainbow hued cornucopia of Indian mango markets. Yes, even blue mangoes.
melvinram
Teleportation device. Sign me up today!
davi
"18. The WebOS. It probably won't be a literal translation of a client OS shifted to servers. But as applications migrate to servers, it seems possible there will be something that plays a central role like an OS does."

http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

I'll know it when I see it, and when I see it, I'll happily pay for it.

It has something to do with CMS + federated, micro social networks. One should be able to easily migrate + back up one's "OS" to another provider, or even run the OS in parallel between two providers.

I know this is vague, but I feel the absence of something like it.

ivankirigin
I want a desktop computer with a docked netbook. The files, programs, and program configuration on the netbook should auto-sinc with the desktop. Large files should be easy to stream from the desktop to the netbook. The netbook needs to have an embedded, fast cell network data connection.

I might be able to build this myself with a MacPro, a router, a COTS netbook, hackintosh, dropbox, etc.

I'd probably have at least 2 30 inch displays for the desktop, making the total cost in parts ~$8K. Companies would be wise to pay $10K for this kind of setup.

ibsulon
I've thought about the same thing myself. (I'll make do with the 24 inch monitors, though. :) I'm surprised the Mac Pro doesn't have a way to dock the air yet, though.

There are a lot of usability pieces to think about. Do you really want program configuration to sync? I use programs differently on laptops and desktops.

ivankirigin
I use a laptop for my "desktop", so I don't see the problem. I run firefox, terminal, textmate, tweetdeck, and iWork. No configuration changes needed. Maybe for VM software - which I just wouldn't run on a netbook.
ibsulon
I use different font sizes for my work on larger screens, for one example.
ivankirigin
That's interesting. I routinely switch from a 17 inch laptop screen and a 30 inch monitor screen, and don't change the font.
jaxn
The MobileMe preferences sync is close and seems to be more elegant to me.
CalmQuiet
Ah yes, takes me back to my days with a Mac Duo.

We didn't have any decent syncing software hopes then.

I'll second your motion.

taciturn
An online memorial for a dead relative.
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antiismist
check out http://mem.com. They made something for a friend's relative recently (unfortunately) and it looked quite nice.
staticshock
I don't mean to be rude, but how is a service like this actually used? I mean, in your experience, what's different about it versus, say, a blog, or even a simple cms like jottit?
antiismist
Here's how it was done: http://jeffreyfalstrom.com/

When someone close to you passes away, you are distraught and have a lot of things to take care of. Maybe you don't want to register a domain and do design and stuff (most people aren't designers afterall). So they set you up with a nice memorial and take care of the details in a tasteful way. Think of it as a specialized CMS.

ryanwaggoner
A quick google search turns up a glut of these services...are you looking for something different?
taciturn
The available ones are pretty horrible.
cschneid
Check the last bunch of techcrunch 50s. I think there was something along these lines, but I can't remember what it was called.
intheory0
I'd buy a CDMA iPhone. Forget ATT's slow and spotty GSM 3G. Bring on CDMA RevA.
jamiequint
Totally, its unacceptable that there are so many 3G dead spots in San Francisco of all places!
nickfox
A robotic pleasure unit like in the movie BladeRunner...
tricky
would you settle for a real doll rental service?
lallysingh
Ugh, who'd want to be #2?
yummyfajitas
It's different from being #2 with a real girl how?

Viscerally I agree with you, but I can't rationally understand why.

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Oxryly
Its like a real girl who doesn't take hygiene all that seriously...
yummyfajitas
Boiling water + disinfectant beats a shower or any other non-lethal cleaning method. The doll should be more hygienic than any human could possibly be.
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tricky
that plus a few disposable parts and you're in business. It might take some time to convince the health dept, though.
ivankirigin
The problem is trust. People won't know for sure that's what they are getting. It's a similar problem with online fresh grocery shopping.

I have a few friends in robotics who periodically pitch this idea around.

joeyo
For starters, the human epidermis turns over with a period on the order of 45 days.
stcredzero
I wonder if there are nerd-oriented escort services?
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blender
Single serving cat food tins. i.e. Half the size of regular tins.

You might think I'm joking, but I'm not - I looked for this earlier today online.

Cheers

johnm
There's already 3 Oz. cans and vacuum packs. Or do you really want 1.5 Oz?
phr
I use 3oz cans, feed my cat 1/2 can at a time, and still have quite a bit left over.
MichaelApproved
I had the same issue with my cats but they sell lids that seal the can well enough for a day or so of storage. Just put it in the fridge and you're good.
blender
I have tried the lids. My cat is so fussy that it just will not eat it once it has been in the fridge.

I'm very serious about the 1.5 Oz cans - I'd be a customer immediately.

rdouble
Regenerative disc therapy for my lower back injury.
abstractbill
I would pay for a good enough telepresence application for keeping in touch with my family and friends (they're in the UK, I'm in San Francisco).

Skype is better than nothing, but still not good enough.

davidw
Yeah, that's tough. It's even worse when you have a small baby and the grandparents are far away:-/

Here's an idea for someone: Virtual Grandpa - some sort of telepresence thing that's been made a bit robust so that a kid can drag it around and drop it without problems. Maybe like a robust cell phone with a decent size screen and camera? I actually wouldn't mind working on that too, but feel free to run with it. The big problem is probably finding hardware that will work: cheap, robust, and more or less customizable so that the parents can fiddle with it to 'tune in', and then lock it to some degree.

comatose_kid
Great idea. A Chumby with a built-in video camera + gtalk/video support might fit the bill.
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dexen
A computer display with at least 200DPI, and about 19...21 inches diagonal. I'd consider only 1:1 and 4:3 sized ones.

Honestly, several times I've been searching for high resolution displays, and aside of old, expensive and slow T221 (or crazy-expensive medical and flight control ones), there are none.

Why such DPI? For starters, it makes anti-aliasing (think, `blurry' fonts, jagged or blurred widgets and 3D objects and so on) irrelevant. Also, with the current 85...100 DPI screens, I still see individual pixels, and that's quite disturbing to me.

TheSOB88
Stare at the sun for a couple of hours; that might help with the whole "seeing pixels" issue.
cjbos
Something that allows me to search across all my old browser history (Content of the pages not the titles). So I can find all those blog posts and articles I forgot to bookmark for later reading at the time. (I guess I could start using stumbleupon or something but I want to be able to search in those pages as well.)
ks
Opera has that. Once you have visited a page, you can use the address bar to search through the cache. It will not only search titles but also the content of the pages
cjbos
Oh cool thanks for the heads up, I just installed 9.6 and it's right there in the "What's new in 9.6" copy.

"Quick Find

Have you ever forgotten the page where you found that great article or that perfect gift? When using Opera, the browser remembers not only the titles and addresses, but also the actual content of the Web pages you visit."

No need to pay for it either!

madh
Would be cool for the browser to recognize that a certain tab has been open for hours or even days. For me, the tabs that are open for a long, long time (and aren't a web app) are usually articles I intend to read.
bemmu
Apartment with a pool in Tampere, Finland. Also I would be more likely to rent a place using a site that actually allowed me to search for apartments from a map.

Instant helpful per-minute advice from MySQL/Linux/etc. gurus 24/7 when I need it. Similarly graphic design where I could in a few moments get sketches of things and commission them to be turned into finished works. I don't enjoy hunting for talent on forums/elance and having to wait days for responses when I need something done now while I am still in the zone to work on that particular project.

Frappuccino in Finland, although I hope nobody actually does that as it would make me poor.

A mouse that makes no clicking sound. It seems to exist: http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/14/thanko-silent-mouse-kills... I'll buy one when I go to Japan next time.

Morieris
I am now suddenly aware that I can hear every mouse click within a 5 cubicle radius, and I can't ignore it anymore =(
melito
People often laugh at me when I tell them this, but "Awful Mart" on the Awful Forums is a GREAT place to get good graphic design quickly. Lot of REALLY talented people visit the awful forums. http://forums.somethingawful.com

edit: Just noticed you said you hate searching through forums. SA is rather large and if you have the patience for a usual 1-2 day turn around its worth it.

bemmu
What I mean is being able to buy some credits, then going into a realtime environment where I can type "Paul graham eating a tuna sandwich", and after 15 minutes seeing several rough sketches. Then I choose the one I like and get a finished version in less than 24h.
ALee
Business: - a way way better analytics system that integrates with our own logs and sql calls - a better referral system for hiring, contacts, etc.

Personally: - a system to clean up my contacts and make sure that all my living address books (linkedin facebook) work out. - a front end for mechanical turk, so that I know I'm getting Turk rates without doing the outsourced assistant

jmtame
a way to record streaming audio on a mac and auto splitting with auto tagging. Would pay up to $100
terragb
A dead simple, cheap 8.5x11 e-ink device with no wifi or touchscreen or anything like that. Just the ability to page through my already owned pdfs. Some of them are scanned images, not text so no text conversion. Even if the only way to get the docs on it was via some kind of virtual printer driver I'd be happy. I'd basically like a way to read stuff on e-ink as if it had been printed.
moe
Seconded. Just today I looked at ebook reader devices again because I really want one - but the prices are ridiculous.

$359 for a kindle? Come on, that buys me about 35 physical books - close to 2 years of reading material. Give me the kindle and 20 books included, then we might be talking.

Scriptor
Some flexibility would be nice here. I'm sure there'd be a few books I'd like to read in the future, so maybe 10 books with the reader and 10 free ones I can choose later would be nice.

Still, the XKCD on the Kindle made me really want to try one, if only because of sentimental reasons.

moe
In fact, since the kindle is a closed platform, feel free to lock me into amazon until I have bought enough books to pay it off. I would immediately order a kindle for $0 that forces me to buy the first 100 books at amazon (as long as the pdf function is not crippled). $100 / 50 and other combinations would also work.

I do consider myself an early adopter. But the current asking price is too steep.

reduxredacted
Agreed ... Foxit's e-book reader "appears as though" it's getting a little closer. For me it's not about page size but price. It seems like there'd be a market for a "light on features" ebook reader for those of us who don't care about whispernet, touch screens or wifi.

Though I don't know that I would be willing to skimp on everything (like a reader with just forward and backward buttons). When I read PDF files on my screen, I regularly use the search features to zero in on things.

Your statement of "as if it had been printed" is intriguing. So the device would have to have something that you can at least plug a page number into (kinda like thumbing to somewhere that you think might be the location you're looking for). At the right price, I'd give up search if it had this as a minimum.

terragb
The reason I say "as if it had been printed" is because converting things to "kindle format" sucks and tends to not work correctly unless it is just plain text. My printer never has this problem. Also it seems like this would reduce the complexity of the device and with that hopefully the price. Furthermore, searching will only work if you have only text which is one of the problems... You're definitely right about needing page numbers though.
diego
- A laptop battery that lasted for as long as I can stay awake (say, 24 hours).

- A cellphone that people could call anywhere in the world without paying for an international call, and that allowed me to call anyone or use my data plan at the same price regardless of where I'm located. International roaming charges are so absurdly high that they force me to have different sim cards and an unlocked phone (extremely inconvenient).

- A nonstop flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina (EZE) to a major city in California (SFO, LAX, SAN). I do this several times a year and the layover/recheck luggage after customs is a killer.

TheSOB88
I assume the big problem with having two SIM cards would be having two different numbers and missing tons of calls. Wouldn't it help to have two different phones so that you wouldn't miss calls?
ZehraNasif
Teleportation --will pay double for the service.
niels_olson
you know all those random pixels you get in a fax or even a scan? Yeah. Do that to your brain. Or, more particularly, the wall of a high pressure artery, in your brain.
icey
Excuse me while I put my sci-fi hat on...

I think teleportation will have to be an analog technology instead of a digital one.

By analog I mean manipulation of space/time fabric that you actually step through, as opposed to being scanned and reconstructed on the other side.

mohamedsa
Very durable writable DVDs that could keep the data even after multiple scratches, the passage of decades...etc