Entirely agree with you. They are nothing but script kiddies. Anyone can download Metasploit, Nessus, Nikto, etc. and test for thousands of vulnerabilities. Then they either turn vulnerable servers into botnet zombies or steal their data and post it on the web. I've seen no sign they have any 0day exploits (which would make them the real deal), just some basic SQL injections, XSS, and brute forcing.
Reddit has quite a few stability/uptime problems. Probably not his fault, but a scary prospect nonetheless.
EDIT: Did I get downvoted by someone who thinks Reddit is stable? It clearly isn't and anyone who thinks otherwise is dreaming. I guess I'll stop going against the HN hivemind just to keep my account in good standing. This place feels more like Reddit every day.
Linking to a bunch of "let me google that for you"? That's about the least productive answer you can give some one (not to mention it's incredibly rude, and incredibly unwelcoming to somebody asking a question); come on...
Not to be a jerk, maybe you have more than one account or something, but I don't really know that you can start getting angry at the HN community for not being up to your standards just yet.
I think it's off base to blame someone that has meager personnel running such a highly trafficked site, especially since Conde Nast is/was reluctant to hire more. Read his blogs on his dedication to putting out fires. He didn't get enough resources to manage the complexity. I think most of HN's readers would hire him in a heartbeat, if they only got the chance.
This is the reason that you're getting downvoted, not because people think it's stable.
The resume site was built on WordPress (somewhat unnecessarily in the projects final iteration it turns out - hindsight) because Clourlovers was hiring for WP devs. A few things that were in at the start that would've actually taken advantage of the platform were dropped. There is other work in my folio that does take full advantage of the platform and really pushes it to its limits. (Although it seems that around HN WP's name is mud more often than not.)
As for the template monster thing and the PKDcure.org design, that design is 100% original and was part of a 9 month roll out for a huge corporate client with usability testing and extensive UX planning etc, etc... Any similarity is coincidence. The design in question was worked on by a team of designers for months so it's ironic/depressing that there's apparently a template out there for it that can be had for a few bucks (I'm assuming). Although there's literally no way it's exactly the same, PKDcure.org is a 400 page site with 10-15 unique page layouts.
Can I get a link to the template of which you speak?
Building the prototype is the easy part. If you're going to do 40% of the work, ask for 40% of the equity. This is assuming he has no revenue, no customers, and no other partners. Being accepted into an accelerator program doesn't make this a guaranteed success and even that 40% could end up being worth $0.
You're the first developer on board. Get more equity, 2% would be good if they are giving you half-salary. 1% would be good if they are willing to do full salary.
Walking away from lowball offers makes you worth more in the long run.
Too many people these days think they are entitled to everything for free, especially on the internet. I dabble in angel investing and you wouldn't believe how many people think they are entitled an investment because they think they have "the next big thing" -- if they are so sure, bootstrap it and prove it!
I apologize, I probably should have been more clear about this point.
I do not at all believe that I am in any way entitled to things for free. I myself am in computer science and contributed to OSS and get annoyed by people frequently thinking that software/services have no value just because they are getting used to having things for free.
That being said, I did consider that there are many (more or less successful) business models centered around services that are (partially) free for end-users (e.g. social networks, email, ...). I have not yet founded any startup myself, so I don't want to lean myself out of the window and claim that something like that would be successful for business this.
We (the group of people wanting to conduct the polls) are students. It's not like there wouldn't be a budget for something like this; but a lot of the good services have high per-poll or monthly rates.
So my question was not why someone isn't doing a lot of work to provide me with a quality service, but more: Why isn't there anything between [free + basically broken] and [amazing + highly priced].
Why is there nothing in between? Is there no market for a middle segment? This I believe to be a valid question.
That is a much better question. Although I can't tell you why in this specific scenario, I can tell you that middle markets can be tough because they're not the cheapest or the most expensive, which are two common selling points.
Not impressed.