I don't think creating an invoice is "niche". It is such a common need for users that invoicing software should be included in the operating system application suite. (Which it is somewhat if you consider Pages invoice templates).

Millions and millions of people need to make and send invoices. Many more than people who need domain name registrars, uptime monitoring services, content delivery networks, or microblogging services.

Hard agree

Thanks for the comment. I hadn’t thought about this before, but it makes sense - I agree.

About European Product Hunt - very good idea.

I was thinking recently that we need more European social networks, messengers, etc.

It’s a very good time to build imo =)

> About European Product Hunt - very good idea.

Older members of HN will remember that Product Hunt probably came to life a lot because of HN and the submissions/comments from rrhoover (founder of Product Hunt). He's still active here, but before/during Product Hunt launch he was very active if I remember correctly.

Maybe a grander idea is a European Hacker News, that has the potential to spawn the European Product Hunts of tomorrow :)

There is one, it starts about 11pm my time at https://news.ycombinator.com :)

Good morning :)

=)

I read about https://techposts.eu/ the other day, seems like a decent alternative, but needs some more traction.

No documentation about who runs it, no privacy policy, no words of licensing or anything else. Seems like a good prototype for a start nonetheless.

I can see it now, if you have a European Hacker news, you'll have a bunch of people complaining about how Europe isn't the world and admonish posters to not be so eurocentric on the site --that other people besides Europeans would read it... but anyway, good luck on the endeavour.

I already have this feeling on french-speaking forums where everything is very France-centric despite there are french speaking people from other countries reading it.

I don't know that an EU Hacker News makes sense, a core EU idea is Freedom of Movement.

This started out as an ideal about Goods. You make a Doodad in Venice, clearly there should be as few obstacles as possible to prevent somebody in Dublin having that Doodad, so no export taxes between Venice and Dublin, shared regulatory framework so that your Venice "This Doodad won't choke a baby/ burn down a house/ spy on you/ etc." paperwork is valid in Dublin, and so on.

But immediately people who make goods said well this rule needs to include Capital, it's great that I can sell Doodads from Venice in Dublin, but if I want to build a Doodad factory in Venice but my money is in Dublin that should be easy too. And Workers realised if it's just Capital and Goods then it's a race to the bottom for Labour, the Capital and Goods will go where it's cheapest but the workers can't move. So very soon Workers can move freely too, in order that Hans the Doodad Engineer can move to Venice and the courts ended up deciding that in practice everybody gets this freedom, a 5 year old can't have a job and a 105 year old probably doesn't want one, but maybe Hans needs to support his 5 year old grand-daughter and his 105 year old grandfather, so Freedom of Movement must apply to all EU citizens.

So, with that idea in mind, I suspect the EU's perspective is that you should come to Europe and write software here, rather than that you should stay exactly where you are and if it's not an EU country then too bad, no EU Product Hunt for you.

I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? Yes, a core idea is freedom of movement, but you make no case for why that makes EU Hacker News infeasible? It has nothing to do with where people write software. I'm using US Hacker News, and I'm in Europe, is that wrong/bad, or what's your argument here?

> EU Hacker News isn't infeasible my argument is rather that it's largely pointless

Ok, but what are your actual arguments against it? Again your comment contains things about the EU and US which I don't know why you keep bringing up.

Do you have any arguments against a European Hacker News that isn't related to the EU and US geopolitics or government policies?

Just seems needless. Like "We should have Hacker News for musicians" or "We should have Hacker News for City Dwellers". I think there's more value from the broader audience than from specialising what is already a fairly niche site. This isn't Facebook or Youtube, it's both less technically sophisticated (no offence to Dan & co keeping it working) but also much smaller in scope.

I'm sure musicians and city dwellers could have some stories they're more interested in versus less interested in, but this gets into the newsgroup hierarchy problem where too much specialisation means there's nothing left to talk about. We presumably agree that a Hacker News for people named Brian who work at Meta is a bad idea?

I used to think like you, but in the last few years I have become tired of American-dominated spaces that ignore other world views and push their narratives endlessly, so I am very much in favour of European-focused forums and social media.

> This started out as an ideal about Goods.

I am sorry but no. This is a common myth, but go way back to the original treaty of Rome and you’ll see much more than free movement for goods. It was just a convenient first step.

I didn't know that's a myth, do you have anything I can look at to learn more, besides "try reading the entire Treaty of Rome" ?

Reading the preamble of the treaty is enough because it explains the mindset behind the European project. The Schuman declaration is also short and very clear on the subject. Even though it’s not a treaty or regulation, it’s a clear demonstration that the people at the time saw much further than just the economy. The core message is political integration to prevent Europe from tearing itself apart every 50 years.

I don't think I see free movement of people in Schuman? It's very clear about wanting to move steel and coal but it mentions workers only to suggest that this ECSC should "improve living conditions" for workers. I could squint at this and consider that a steelworker in Duisburg might "improve their living conditions" by retiring to a nice slow-paced village in Southern Italy but just as easily it could mean the ECSC is about workers staying where they are but being able to afford nicer stuff.

However once I'd fought the EU's terrible web search I did sit and read a bunch of the actual Treaty of Rome, and yes that actually does very clearly specify Freedom of Movement for Workers and is broad enough in how it treats this freedom that it's not a surprise courts subsequently concluded that basically every EU citizen should be able to live anywhere in the EU.