[Fnoord]

All I see is valid criticisms which 'builders' can take at face value. Criticism shouldn't demotivate them, it should empower them. At worst, it is defamation and BS. If it is good, constructive criticism (which I see a lot of on the website) then it is very valueable.

Market cap or getting hired by a VC grift aren't good examples of success though. They only look like such on the surface. I mainly see grifts or otherwise overrated tooling here. Bitcoin: still near zero use in 2026. Openclaw: grift, since it doesn't handle the security aspect (ie. this existed long ago, but the security aspects couldn't be dealt with so it never took off). Openclaw in particular is so disruptive, it sets a new lowest common denominator for automation at the expense of security (the afterthought "we'll figure that part out later" never works out well). It disgusts me, because it is unfair.

Frankly, a lot just exists because of network effect, hype, and because people in power can use value out of it. But the very useful things, aren't the ones which get popular (for long) here. For example, on 39C3 a couple of talks stood up there. I really liked the one about starting your own hardware company in Europe, and also the one about A-GPS near the Baltic. Neither will be remembered since they're not (American) product launches, but they are valueable to me.

Right now, if you want to be successful, there are easy markets to go with, but also more difficult. For example, a company who'd start right now in the DRAM market could get a lot of traction, and spending on defense and data sovereignty in Europe is also gonna go up.

Companies like Discord, Flock, and Palantir get a lot of flak because they deserve it. Their core business isn't build on serving the general people, but a selfish interest which doesn't add up for the general population. A website like this appears to ridicule them.