Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here?

Posted by rokhayakebe on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @03:22PM
from the self-post dept.

HN is a community mostly made (I think) of frugal entrepreneurs. All of us have a few things (electronics, programming books etc..) sometimes that we may not be using and that we would not mind giving away to someone if they paid for shipping. So why not post those giveaways here and select a winner from the community?

The nice aspect of HN, is that some level of trust has already been built using the Karma system and you can easily go back and read someone's comments/submissions to get a feel of who they are.

Now for the self plugin: I am looking for a mint condition ATT phone if you have one collecting dust. Thanks all.

( 25 comments | 16 points | on HN )

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by russell on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @03:55PM (#452717)

No. I come here for news and comments, not used stuff. If I had to wade through another Craigslist or eBay I wouldn't bother. It dilutes the franchise,

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by rokhayakebe on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @05:51PM (#452917)

Well every now and then you get a random question about food, about movies, and other interesting subjects that are necessarily related to most topics discussed on HN. So I think a few random posts about your extra stuff would not hurt.

EDIT: This giveaway could not work anywhere else unless there is a trust system built into the community that was not based on sharing "stuff".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by russell on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @06:22PM (#452961)

I agree that other stuff is interesting, even book reviews, movies, and politics, but I don't think HN should be a classified advertising space.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by old-gregg on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:58PM (#452828)

Good beginning but mediocre ending, your post reads like an average Hollywood movie. A used cell phone? Come on.

There are more "hackery" things we can exchange without USPS involvement.

I am looking for a skeleton sample of building an Outlook plugin, Xobni-style, with potential cotchas solved.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by jodrellblank on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @07:53PM (#453090)

Hrm, if Python's OK, I think I've seen one either in the examples of the Win32 extensions, or the SpamBayes project has an Outlook extension (not a skeleton though).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by beholden on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @06:59PM (#453012)

Check out Freecycle.org. They are linked to Yahoo now so you need a yahoo account but i find the service quite good. However it isn't good enough to find something specific you are looking for - essentially it's hit and miss.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by cubicle67 on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @07:16PM (#453038)

Freecycle varies area to area. We were active members of freecycle Canberra which was a great group, but freecycle Perth is pretty crappy and seems lorded over by some self appointed email nazi.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by mjr578 on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @08:09PM (#453109)

Along the same lines as Freecycle you might sign up for Kashless.org. They are based here in Seattle and are promoting the same free giving and receiving lifestyle.

I recently got in to the alpha and have ten invites if anyone would like to try it out.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by ieatpaste on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:15PM (#452742)

If someone would suggest a service with an open marketplace and group instances, we could probably go there. Or we could just make one.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by alaskamiller on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @06:57PM (#453011)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=451866

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by Xichekolas on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @03:50PM (#452709)

I'm willing to donate the following books to anyone willing to pay the shipping ($4.95 for priority mail, a bit more if you want a confirmation number):

Agile Web Development With Rails: David Heinemeier Hansson (Paperback, 2005) ISBN-10: 097669400X | ISBN-13: 9780976694007

Rails Recipes: Chad Fowler (Paperback, 2006) ISBN-10: 0977616606 | ISBN-13: 9780977616602

I'm the original owner of both and they are in perfect shape.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by Xichekolas on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @07:57PM (#453098)

Well that was quick! Sold out!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by spydez on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @03:27PM (#452667)

AT&T uses SIM cards. So do the cheap pay-as-you-go phones from Walmart, etc. So buy a phone for $10, swap SIM cards, and you're good.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by ieatpaste on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:13PM (#452740)

I worked on these. The phone's price is subsidized into the card pricing, so they would loose money if you could do that. They had us design them that there could be no swapping (they are locked to the pay-as-you-go sims). Unlocking requires both software and hardware modifications - at least the phones we made.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by drewcrawford on Wednesday January 28, 2009 @12:11AM (#453352)

This must be a recent development, because I made extensive use of this trick (1-2 years ago?). Specifically, the $10 walmart ATT go phones worked fine with the contract (3G) SIMs.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by abyssknight on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:28PM (#452766)

I can comment on this. My wife is on tmobile and my father is on ATT, both are using prepaid phones with swapped SIM cards. I know the Virgin mobile phones don't use SIMs (to my knowledge) as well as Tracphone, so those are useless.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by coryrc on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:53PM (#452809)

If you don't power it on with the SIM card, they usually work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by andr on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:18PM (#452750)

The cheap $10 phones are locked to only operate with specific networks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by tptacek on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:21PM (#452754)

And?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by kajecounterhack on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @05:06PM (#452840)

Unlocker at dealextreme.com for $5 -- works on most nokia phones. go on att.net and buy a nokia gophone for $20 or so, use the unlocker, and you're good to go.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by icey on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @05:18PM (#452865)

Since you're already on AT&T, go to best buy and pick up one of those motorola gophones for 15 bucks. They work with the regular AT&T SIMs.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by tocomment on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:28PM (#452765)

I have a Nokia s60 I could send you, but I think the keypad doesn't work. It's fine though if you have people call you and then use the menu to look them up.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by rokhayakebe on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @05:14PM (#452852)

Thanks ToComment. I am emailing you. The incoming address is 1000app.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by davidw on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @03:24PM (#452661)

If someone wants programming books (or other stuff) in Innsbruck, Austria, we're going to be moving shortly:-)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask YC: Why not give away your old stuff here? by PStamatiou on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @04:00PM (#452728)

I know this thread is not highly looked upon, but I have been trying to sell a new Rev A Macbook Air + Superdrive and case for 1400 obo. email in my sig.

[ Parent | on HN ]