Young founders building Utopias with Code
Young founders building Utopias with Code: Sourced from ChatGPT

Who if they could offer help for some problem would (for free) provide that to any stranger some software application suggested needed it?

See I was frustrated with the fact there was a lot of people out there that needed help, and a lot that could provide the help and yet the two parties did not know about each other’s existence. Being a programmer, that got me thinking of a code solution;An application that would connect people that had certain needs with others on the same application platform that could fulfill those needs. Think of an auto barter system but with some extras (giving without expecting anything in return**).

Say imagine you need past papers for some exam and someone has them but you don’t know if they do. If you registered your need on this app and some user with papers had allowed the app to traverse their file system, you two would be matched for a potential exchange. Or another example.. say, you had connections for internships, or knew about a good house to rent with good pricing, or knew about a store that sold stuff modestly… the list of forms of help is endless.

The app was going to rely mostly on users trusting it with as much information about themselves as they could provide. Future plans, file access, interests, contacts, financial information, e.t.c plus permission to use this information for match making. It was in return going to match them with those in need or, those that could provide help if they ever needed it. How cool !!

Now I was assuming a lot of things as true if this was at all going to work. I was assuming that because someone could help, they were always going to. And that they were going to regardless of which stranger it was and how distant the stranger was. And that this was going to be true for all forms of help. And that people were going agree to freely sharing all this information with the app for the uses it would state since, as it is ideally stated elsewhere, all information should be free for all.

But I woke up to the fact I was dealing with ideals, not reality. That I was dealing with human users, not 100% rational beings. And that all these assumptions, the would have been bedrock for my application if it launched, were just me naively providing simple solutions to complex problems. There was a lot of reasons this idea was not feasible.

I personally wouldn’t offer donation only because some stranger said they needed money and my code of ethics (something I’d shared with the app) included monthly charity donation. I don’t think many would share their contacts or ‘connections’ only because some stranger on the sharing app said they could use ‘connections’. I was surprised when I learnt I personally wouldn’t have used the application if it launched. Good for me, I hadn’t yet written a single line of code.

But conceptually analyzing this, I think that this is a problem that’s common with a lot of failed software solutions. An idea feels good, seems like it can do a lot of social good, it is good.. so go go go … let’s get building and launching. Only for it to fail like it was always destined to.

And even if the app failed at idea stage, it was a learning experience for me. I learnt how much there’s to consider when attempting to solve human problems with code. The importance of research outside code, into how humans , in reality, away from computers, actually function. That just because in my mind some idea seemed like it could do good and made me feel good didn’t mean was practical.

But .. its lessons like these, I think, that eventually make of potential young founders, successful founders. A lesson..

But have I dropped everything about the idea.. nope I haven’t. I mentioned one reason the app would fail was people being less willing to provide help the more distant the helped was. So, if it was with friends that help matching was done… wouldn’t it be more feasible..

I’ll let you off and get back to thinking.. but yeah.. hope reading my ramblings wasn’t a waste of your time.