Priceonomics
priceonomics.com · Group blog · on HN since 2011
The blog of a data-driven content company, publishing stories on economics, pricing, and business history, such as the diamond industry.
What HN saysHN links it for its Diamonds Are Bullshit article, cited as a classic on perceived rarity. Commenters also cite its other data-driven stories.
652HN people shared it
309linked it in comments
1.0Kstories submitted
30Kstory points
4 months agolast shared
2011people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Diamonds Are Bullshit15 people · 265 points · first shared 2015 · 45 comments on HN
- 2Joe Bankman: Tax Hero14 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 3Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue13 people · 257 points · first shared 2015 · 110 comments on HN
- 4What It's Like to Fail11 people · 842 points · first shared 2013 · 317 comments on HN
- 5Is Every Speed Limit Too Low?11 people · 774 points · first shared 2014 · 725 comments on HN
- 6When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)11 people · 570 points · first shared 2014 · 259 comments on HN
- 7The Time Everyone “Corrected” the World’s Smartest Woman (2015)11 people · 459 points · first shared 2015 · 316 comments on HN
- 8Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? (2016)10 people · 214 points · first shared 2016 · 267 comments on HN
- 9Porsche: The Hedge Fund That Also Made Cars9 people · 300 points · first shared 2014 · 66 comments on HN
- 10How Breakfast Became a Thing9 people · 249 points · first shared 2016 · 193 comments on HN
- 11The Invention of the AeroPress8 people · 496 points · first shared 2014 · 184 comments on HN
- 12How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain8 people · 267 points · first shared 2016 · 162 comments on HN
- 13How Police Officers Seize Cash from Innocent Americans8 people · 244 points · first shared 2016 · 207 comments on HN
- 14Why the Father of Modern Statistics Didn’t Believe Smoking Caused Cancer8 people · 85 points · first shared 2016 · 29 comments on HN
- 15A History of Tug-of-War Fatalities7 people · 226 points · first shared 2014 · 30 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
fbuilesv · 2012-12-21
You might be interested in learning more about Priceonomics (http://priceonomics.com/), a company does price comparisons for a bunch of stuff. I don't know what their engine is written on but it's certainly something custom, and that's most likely the way you want to go.
They also have an amazing blog (http://blog.priceonomics.com/) where they showcase products and nifty stuff they do with them. They use Tumblr for this part of the site but you might as well go for Wordpress or whatever you prefer.
No matter what you choose, you want to separate both parts of your site, and the comparison engine will most likely be a custom solution (Ruby, Python, PHP, doesn't matter).
yayitswei · 2026-05-17
Expensive because they were perceived as rare. Classic article: https://priceonomics.com/diamonds-are-bullshit/
Synthetic has pretty much eaten their lunch now.
abetusk · 2026-03-31
I think this is a gross cultural misconception. Most scientists do their best work in their 30s and 40s. See [0].
My take on this is that it takes about a decade before experience, knowledge and wisdom can be used to see a bigger picture to make a breakthrough.
[0] https://priceonomics.com/at-what-age-does-genius-strike/
Molitor5901 · 2024-06-28
I really don't like this ruling. My reasoning is that a public park, for instance, is public property available for use to everyone. Anywhere you go will either be private, or public property. The homeless cannot sleep on private land, fine, but it's coldly unreasonable to say they cannot sleep in the park at night. During the day, ok, move along, I can accept that but.. The homeless are humans and we should stop treating them as a general nuisance. Any one of us could just as easily find ourselves homeless, falling from great success.
https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/
Fezzik · 2023-09-05
What a great opportunity to re-share one of my favorite articles: https://priceonomics.com/diamonds-are-bullshit/
I really can’t think of an example better than people buying shiny rocks for absurd amounts of money that demonstrates how non-advanced we are, as a society generally.
alexpotato · 2023-08-15
> I honestly didn't even know who Taylor Swift was for an embarrassingly long time and I yet enjoyed her songs when I heard them
The below article (from 2014) has a great perspective on how popular TS was not just in the US but also globally and how rare this was (and still is):
https://priceonomics.com/some-artists-are-big-in-america-some/
dxbydt · 2023-04-28
>At the time a very famous statistician (Fischer?) maintained that we couldn't actually tell whether it was causal or not.
It was Fisher, here's a fantastic summary of the whole episode: https://priceonomics.com/why-the-father-of-modern-statistics-didnt-bel…
My statistics professor showed us gruesome pictures of what was done in the 70s due to lack of conclusive evidence that smoking causes cancer. They forced dogs to smoke.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/may/20/thepeople-inv…
Then monkeys.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6782600/
Now that we have conclusive evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, have we stopped ? Here's a zoo in China that forces a baby monkey to smoke in an apparent attempt to dissuade future smokers.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/05/china-baby-monkey-forced-to-smoke-for-z…
Overtonwindow · 2023-02-11
For a college educated, white-collar view of the issue, I highly recommend the Priceonomics article about David Raether. He wrote almost 100 episodes of the TV show Roseanne, only to wind up living in a van. It wasn't due to drugs, alcohol, or mental disease. Just an unfortunate turn of events.
https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/
JKCalhoun · 2023-01-05
I'm reminded of the Hunt brothers attempt to corner the silver market in 1980 [1].
> But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.
> “In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.” [2]
Price seems to be able to make material availability very elastic. If there is a huge demand for lithium and our collective resources are bent toward obtaining it (or finding a substitute) I think you can trust "The Market" to find a way.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
[2] https://priceonomics.com/how-the-hunt-brothers-cornered-the-silver-mar…
photochemsyn · 2022-12-08
The links between Hollywood, the CIA and the Bond movies are pretty well-known and discussed, and it's hardly just the Bond movies. For example:
https://priceonomics.com/how-james-bond-introduced-the-cia-to-1950s-am…
> "The agency’s director at the time, Allen Dulles, loved the Bond novels. Despite the derision most agents held for the series, Moran notes that he had a signed copy of each and every novel. Dulles and Fleming struck up a relationship that at times seemed mutually beneficial. Dulles peppered his public remarks with references to Bond, while Fleming dropped positive mentions of Dulles into the mouths of his characters."
Given the climate of the era, anti-communist blacklisting in Hollywood and so on, it seems fairly obvious that the Bond movies were given a clandestine stamp of approval.
melling · 2022-09-16
This guy? One of the best traders in history.
https://priceonomics.com/the-trade-of-the-century-when-george-soros-br…
His streak was something like 25% or 30% over 30 years?
The tide is definitely going out. The Fed created a huge bubble and everyone knew it.
Fed Balance sheet at $9 trillion…
jjav · 2022-04-19
> In fact, look at an old map of almost any city near a large body of water and compare it to today and you'll find a lot more land being used.
At a great environmental cost. Thankfully society is a bit more careful about environment destruction than in the days where all garbage was dumped on the shoreline to create landfill and build on it.
https://estuarypress.com/hrma-photo-post/filling-the-san-francisco-bay…
https://priceonomics.com/what-parts-of-san-francisco-are-built-on-land…
Borrible · 2022-02-16
Poor Beanie Babies, but what about other investments you can hug?
https://priceonomics.com/when-the-great-alpaca-bubble-burst/
brianmcc · 2021-11-24
I thought this could be about the Monty Hall Problem, which I think is my own personal favourite. It isn't, of course, but I'll share some info here as no one else has raised it so far this thread :-)
It's an interesting probability question in its own right, as it has a hugely counter-intuitive correct answer in my opinion. But the sh*storm it caused is equally interesting. Hence I will share this article which covers both aspects:
https://priceonomics.com/the-time-everyone-corrected-the-worlds-smarte…
A major takeaway - statistics and probability can be really tough sometimes and even world class practitioners can be caught out when intuition and mathematics clash. And a little humility is perhaps wise when trying to "correct" people, just in case...
freefriedrice · 2020-05-13
I remember reading this in Parade Magazine when Marilyn Vos Savant published her column. And then was completely blown away by the landslide of scathing letters written by adult professors at colleges belittling her for being so dumb. And they were wrong. Truly amazing demonstration of how bias (and the limbic system) work against rational thought.
Here is a link with some hilarious quotes from livid professors saying dumb shit:
https://priceonomics.com/the-time-everyone-corrected-the-worlds-smarte…
notlukesky · 2020-04-06
In many countries they have toilets with integrated bidets which deals with the space issue of separate bidets, a concern in expensive real estate markets like Manhattan. But I think people will forget this toilet paper scare just like the one in 1973:
https://priceonomics.com/the-great-toilet-paper-scare-of-1973/
dhshahsndeisjwn · 2019-12-19
Was just about the say the same. He has an excellent chapter on the history of smoking research with an interesting anecdote (repeated here https://priceonomics.com/why-the-father-of-modern-statistics-didnt-bel… that the pipe-smoking Fischer refused to believe smoking caused harm well after the evidence was clear because correlation!=causation.
john_minsk · 2019-11-13
Loved below article. It explains everything. Was recommended by someone else on HN 2 weeks ago.
https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bullshit
maximente · 2019-07-17
it'd be great if it worked this way, but it's already been captured at both a federal and at least 1 state level:
https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-the-govern…
https://priceonomics.com/the-stanford-professor-who-fought-the-tax-lob…
stcredzero · 2019-06-18
In aerospace, a hyphen might well be worth $80 million.
https://priceonomics.com/the-typo-that-destroyed-a-space-shuttle/
Simulacra · 2019-03-24
Related, this is an excellent story about a millionaire who lost it all to become homeless, and then how he pulled himself back up: https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/
nathancahill · 2019-01-18
And the classic Priceonomics article: https://priceonomics.com/are-rotisserie-chickens-a-bargain/
bogomipz · 2018-09-18
No, the OP is actually correct. The origin of the term "white flight" was a phenomenon that that followed the "great migration" of people from the rural south during the war and immediate post war years in the US.[1][2]
>"The phrase "white flight" refers to a 1970s phenomenon ..."
No, the 1970s may have seen a recirculation of the original phrase but it is commonly understood that "white flight" refers to phenomenon around the war years.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight
[2] https://priceonomics.com/the-great-migration-the-african-american-exod…
afarrell · 2018-04-15
There is a useful distinction to be made among three things:
- The activity of lobbying, which is explicitly protected by the 1st amendment as petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.
- Contracts to pay someone else to engage in lobbying, which apparently used to be illegal[1].
- Giving gifts to legislators, which is illegal if quid-pro-quo.
[1] My source is https://priceonomics.com/when-lobbying-was-illegal/ though that does not itself cite any sources. I'd love if someone more familiar with legal history could comment on its accuracy.
pradn · 2018-01-22
Related: https://priceonomics.com/can-you-buy-a-license-to-speed/
"The answer is the state highway patrol -- the men and women that most people interact with only when getting ticketed for speeding. A number of the frames read “CHP 11-99 Foundation,” which is the full name of a charitable organization that supports California Highway Patrol officers and their families in times of crisis. Along with engraved mugs, jackets, and leather wallets, the foundation gives out the license plate frames as tokens of thanks to donors who become “Lifetime Members.” Donors receive one license plate as part of a $2,500 “Classic” level donation, or two as part of a bronze, silver, or gold level donation of $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000."
jsnell · 2017-12-30
I'm not aware of any good centralized collection of them. But the articles written on the amazing durability of the scam usually include an example or two:
https://priceonomics.com/the-email-scam-with-centuries-of-history/
http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/articles/spanish_prisoner_swindle.html
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-9-lives-of-the-spanish-priso…
cryptodogemoon · 2017-12-22
How foreboding!
https://priceonomics.com/when-the-great-alpaca-bubble-burst/
(1) The asset not the product is the thing being marketed (i.e. live alpacas, not fiber)
(2) investors have unrealistic expectations (alpaca fiber would replace wool, despite the lack of infrastructure; and besides the fact that people don’t really wear that much wool)
(3) information is controlled through industry sources (most of the information the researchers were able to dig up was put out by breeding associations)
nerdponx · 2017-12-14
Some articles worth reading if you're interested in this topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14318646
https://priceonomics.com/does-using-airplanes-to-put-out-forest-fires/
snowpanda · 2017-12-04
I just read an article related to that the other day, it's a good read:
https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-domain/