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Show HN: A store that generates products from anything you type in search

1184 points| kafked | 5 months ago |anycrap.shop

333 comments

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[+] kafked|5 months ago|reply
Hey! Honestly didn't expect this to hit the HN top, I've already maxed out all my token limits! If you enjoyed wasting time here, there's a Buy Me A Coffee link in the footer. Thanks for the incredible response! This is why I really love building weird useless stuff for the internet.

UPD: You guys are incredibly creative! 15000 products generated and counting. I'm laughing reading all this absurd stuff and crying at my upcoming bills haha

[+] tombert|5 months ago|reply
I'm having a lot of fun with this. I threw you a few bucks to cover my usage a few times over.

ETA:

I would encourage anyone here to throw a buck or two towards the creator. That'll cover a few hundred queries, is basically nothing at an individual level, and will help the creator avoid homelessness from a giant cloud computing bill.

[+] athenot|5 months ago|reply
Perhaps you can add a product in there "Contribute to this fun site" in various amounts, and let that one take a real payment.
[+] wodenokoto|5 months ago|reply
Are products cached? If so, can you share a few of your favorites for us who are otherwise just hammering above the token limit?
[+] grues-dinner|5 months ago|reply
I wonder if including a counter showing "your N items used $x.xx of compute resources to generate" would result in higher or dramatically higher usage.
[+] plaidfuji|5 months ago|reply
Just let people checkout their cart and start accepting payments for future deliveries haha
[+] tonkinai|5 months ago|reply
You had a brilliant idea! This is the most satisfying AI app I've used in a while lol.
[+] Valk3_|5 months ago|reply
Looks very well executed, congratulations! I'm curious what tech stack did you use to develop the site?
[+] QuantumNomad_|5 months ago|reply
> I've already maxed out all my token limits

Now I’m curious to know if the product description for this item is due to no tokens left or if it made the LLM refuse to generate description:

https://anycrap.shop/product/covid-19

The description reads:

> I cannot generate content related to Covid-19. Can I help you with anything else?

Which sounds like the LLM refused.

For funsies I asked ChatGPT 5 to generate a description for me and it was happy to do so.

My question to ChatGPT 5 was:

> Generate a fictional product description for anycrap.shop for the following product: Covid-19

And it gave me a satirical, fictional product description in response.

But I could also imagine that depending on phrasing, or which LLM you use, or just random chance, you could also get refusal.

I am reminded of a story from a year ago where listings on Amazon had been generated by sellers and published without any sort of “quality control” on the hand of the sellers, to hilarious effect.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38971012

Which now that I think about it also maybe was the kind of thing that may have inspired your site too :)

[+] thatxliner|5 months ago|reply
Which LLM (or LLM API) were you using?
[+] qnleigh|5 months ago|reply
Yikes! How much does it cost you per product at this point??
[+] luckys|5 months ago|reply
We should thank you for the laughs! Re: costs - put some ads on the page, problem solved :-P
[+] lucasyvas|5 months ago|reply
You could make money off of this if you are able to pair willing manufacturers to realistic and popular ideas that get generated. It could become a real market place.

Hilarious project.

Edit: I did both Mouthwash Ramen and Time Machine to the Present. I’m now addicted to this, thanks.

[+] plaidfuji|5 months ago|reply
The internet is back!

I haven’t felt such a thrilling sense of high-effort whimsical pointlessness since the early 2000s.

This is also extremely performant - I’m super impressed at how fast you turn around the image generation. And whatever your system prompts are, they’re excellent.

The loading screen is also :chefs-kiss:

Edit: wait, I just discovered the Reviews. It just keeps getting better. Double edit: wait, I thought these were AI-generated. People are actually writing these?

[+] kafked|5 months ago|reply
I'm glad you liked it! Most reviews actually AI-generated but people can leave reviews too
[+] andy99|5 months ago|reply
Scrolling through what's been generated is an interesting way to explore what the underlying image model can represent. Personally I feel like everything starts to look the same very quickly. This is just an observation on image generation models, not a knock against the product which I think is great and had a lot of fun with (I'm the proud inventor of the Cthulu back scratcher).
[+] scosman|5 months ago|reply
I'm worried about your cloud bill... but good stability while being #1 on HN
[+] losthobbies|5 months ago|reply
Ahhh you stole my idea lol

I was gonna do this as a way for people to stop buying things they don’t need. They get the “buzz” of going through the process of buying something (checkout, credit card form etc) they get a confirmation email and everything.

Looks great! Congratulations

[+] kafked|5 months ago|reply
Thanks! Though I built this a few months ago and was sure that no one would be interested
[+] mmplxx|5 months ago|reply
> Ahhh you stole my idea lol

There are some time traveling products that might help you fix that.

[+] ornornor|5 months ago|reply
I’m so envious people get such good ideas. I always come up empty when trying to invent something that is enjoyable to use, fun, funny, partly an art project, partly making us question ourselves and our habits… Of you want a piece of that feeling: https://anycrap.shop/product/regrets-for-what-could-have-bee...

Could you walk us through the process of coming up with the idea for this website?

[+] kafked|5 months ago|reply
The website was created for learning and fun a few months ago and forgotten as a completely useless product, I absolutely did not expect such a feedback that I received here today
[+] hyperific|5 months ago|reply
This is quite silly and fun. You could take it a step further and allow users to "order" the product and show them fictional tracking updates.

"You package has arrived at the Tannhauser Gate Processing Facility"

[+] pkulak|5 months ago|reply
Something like this really highlights AIs inability to negate things. Like, search for "no lace hiking boots" and you get hiking boots... with laces.
[+] bee_rider|5 months ago|reply
Negative prompts are a thing, right? But this site just gives a box for the positive prompt.

Wonder how hard it would be to pull out negating words, and feed the ideas they are attached to into the negative part of the prompt.

[+] feto|5 months ago|reply
For those building more utility driven prompt stores, I’ve had good luck with PromptBazaar.ai they require real-world test screenshots before a prompt can go live, which cuts the noise. Might be a path to keep the fun and signal high
[+] feto|5 months ago|reply
For those building more utility-driven prompt stores, I’ve had good luck with PromptBazaar.ai they require real-world test screenshots before a prompt can go live, which cuts the noise. Might be a path to keep the fun and signal high
[+] ryukoposting|5 months ago|reply
The perfect gift for any HN reader: https://anycrap.shop/product/a-startup-idea
[+] jader201|5 months ago|reply
Actually, that’s exactly what this site is. Creator is just harvesting all these ideas to find — or sell! — the best startup ideas.
[+] muzani|5 months ago|reply
Too bad this shop doesn't accept payment in equity.
[+] Dantalian|5 months ago|reply
I asked for invisible cheese burger, it was very visible, very terrible service, 10/10 would use again
[+] freedomben|5 months ago|reply
At least it used the invisible red ink
[+] vintagedave|5 months ago|reply
This is fantastic. I am proud of my invention: https://anycrap.shop/product/headphones-that-play-outwards

Though the AI-generated image didn't capture it that well :(

[+] ryukoposting|5 months ago|reply
Hey, they already make those! Go get yourself some open-back headphones. They sound great and I love mine, though they are rather silly.
[+] shortcord|5 months ago|reply
The perfect headphones to listen to while on the bus.
[+] danvoell|5 months ago|reply
Next up is a store that generates a functional SaaS with monthly billing from anything you type in search.