the readme uses paulgraham.com as an example (which is text articles mostly) and I never use "Save As" for a web page (for the reasons the author states), I always just print as PDF and save the PDF file.
for an entire website though of many pages I can see this can be useful.
I agree with this. AI is a tool and amplifier. If one is already disciplined and strong-minded and has clear meaning and purpose in their life, AI is a very powerful aid in accomplishing missions. But I'm afraid most people in the world are not like that, too.
- at the first layer, people (even mainstream folks) hear about openclaw and what it "can" do, gives them amazement and think they want to try (somewhat like chatgpt itself did a few years ago). the github stars on the main repo can come from that. people think of the potentials, want to do something with it
- most people who actually set up an openclaw, don't actually have legitimate and substantial use cases of it. I'd wager >90% of them end up setting up something basic. the gmail/search/etc "pedestrian connectors" you mentioned is a good indicator that people are doing pretty basic stuff they could've used other tools for. they use openclaw for it for a variety of reasons, maybe they haven't heard of the other tools, or they think openclaw is novelty tech, etc.
- the skills has way fewer installs and stars than the main repo because setting up an openclaw by itself is hard enough and most people probably don't understand why they need skills or what they use it for. I actually barely understand it myself either.
- also, the high number of stars indicate most people see it and think it's cool and want to try it out, but never end up doing it. as an example, in a tech co of 200~ people, maybe 10 people will have tried actually installing openclaw and using it. most will have heard of it and maybe starred it but never had time or bothered trying.
- most people try openclaw for a bit and realize actually how expensive it is to run. to do some basic cron job you're easily using a few dollars a day in API costs. $3/day doesn't sound like a lot and sounds like coffee money but you soon realize that's equal to a $100/mo subscription (assuming you're using raw API per token pricing and not some flat monthly plan). it really isn't a toy but most people who try it treat it like a toy and it's way too expensive for that. properly set up, it really should be a virtual assistant for a busy business owner. you have to get enough value out of it to be worth its price in tokens.
all in all, at this point in its ease of use, it really is niche tech, that somehow made it into mainstream consciousness, but mainstream is realizing it's not for them, after trying it.
It would seem that way for sure, if it was just a random anon posting it, but the person you're replying to is the creator of Redis so I feel it's more likely a genuine opinion/experience rather than a Claude ad...
If I remember correctly (it has been a while since I looked), Hetzner although is a lot cheaper on the price sheet, they're European region by default and then if you look to get US region servers at Hetzner, the pricing is a lot higher and similar to Digital Ocean. Is that still the case?
For OP though who is a Turkey-based company and want European region servers anyway, it might make sense.
Hah I don't know if your msg is a "show me the script so I know where the security holes are so I can hack it" or just genuinely want a setup script for yourself to use.
But either way, nowadays it's trivial to ask Cursor/Claude Code to write you such a shell script.
The personality part, wow I thought I was the only one since no one else seems to have mentioned it anywhere. I agree.
During initial setup it even asked how you want its personality to be, I said upbeat and cheery. I know, I know, cliche for AI chatbots, but I kinda like it that way. But after that setup, it was nothing like it. Everything it says is just matter-of-fact-ly/stoic. That wouldn't be so bad if it didn't also have this quirk where if you point out its mistakes, it keeps saying it'll fix it, but it still does not work right the next time. It just keeps reassuring you it'll be fine, in that stoic way, and then it's not fine. That's enough to drive me nuts.
I got used to it now though and I don't get mad at it or scold it. I just learned to work with its quirks and still get tasks accomplished.
I think this is a pretty common experience with setting up openclaw to do useful work. Both the unreliability as well as all the reassuring you it fixed some stuff but not really.
I use it, it works well for a certain limited category of tasks once you've set it up properly, it's not as easy and straightforward as it seems, but once you've learned its quirks you can make it work.
The category of task I have it do is basically the pattern of "scrape some certain websites on a regular schedule, do some light data processing/understanding/analyzing, report the result to me [all or sometimes only when there is something worth mentioning]".
You could simulate the same things with cron jobs on a server and some scripts and LLM APIs. But having Openclaw do it does make it a little bit easier to set up and make changes.
The initial setup was a bit more time consuming than I thought it would be. I set it up on a VPS, I already have scripts to set up a server and tighten security normally, so I could just use that, but people who don't already have that stuff would have to do that first. Then the Openclaw setup and configuration was like a 20~30 step situation, lots of API keys to get, etc. I opted for Slack over Telegram or Discord (I don't use either of those regularly) and you pretty much have to set up a new slack bot app yourself (you follow their listed steps, but there's still hiccups here and there), you have to debug and solve issues etc. to get through it all.
Then even after all the initial setup is done, it takes some time to learn and get used to its quirks and behaviors, at the beginning there's just a lot of frustration about things it can't do, or things it says it can or will do, but doesn't.
I think you're not wrong and I also think the author is not wrong -- and this just may be how technology/civilization/humans are going to change inevitably?
For example a possibly trajectory might be that many years in the future because human thinking has degraded due to AI-assisted cognition, most people will get a chip implant and AI-assistance becomes integrated with the brain. Basically same pattern as most everything else -- technology augments solve the new reality. I'm not saying this will happen, but just a possible outcome of this.
I don't know about any of the drama happening, but if LibreOffice ceases to exist, there's still Softmaker FreeOffice as a free & local option. It's nothing fancy, but works for the times when I have to use one. I'm not against cloud products as you are, but it's nice being able to do stuff locally sometimes, it's just more convenient.
The way I approach having LLM help with writing documents like this is to have it help me clean up my writing, not write the substance of it.
I tend to do extensive research (that process in itself would involve LLMs too, sure) in a tech plan, a product spec, etc. and usually end up with a really solid idea in my head and like say, five critical key points about this tech plan or product spec that I absolutely must convey in this document.
Then I basically "brain dump" my critical key points (including everything about it, background/reasoning, why this or that way, what's counterintuitive about it, why is this point important, etc.) in pretty messy writing (but hitting all the important talking points) to a LLM prompt, asking it to produce the document I need (be it tech plan, product spec, whatever) and ask it to write it based on my points.
The resulting document has all the important substance on it this way.
If you use LLM to produce documents like this by a way of a prompt like "Write a tech plan for the product feature XYZ I want to build", you're going to get a lot of fluff. No substance, plenty of mistakes, wrong assumptions, etc.
Wow, I did not know about this Feeds page despite being a daily FB user for 20 years (yes, to the ridicule of most people, I know). Thanks for pointing this out. I wish this was the default homepage or at least a way to set it as default.
I agree, there seems to be a level of criticism of marketing bordering on irrational among devs, it's almost like it's trendy to hate on marketing.
For devs who currently think this way, I suggest thinking about it more deeply from the perspective of a developer: Let's say you want to start a company/startup from a passionate idea you had. What do you think happens when you build it? In reality, do you truly expect "build it and they will come"? What happens when you bought a domain, put up your product on the web, or the app store? I can tell you what will happen: there will be zero people signing up to use it. Posting it on a Show HN or Product Hunt is an illusion of ease to publicize a product. A PH launch is a carefully planned and curated process involving hours and hours of marketing work to prepare for. A Show HN post will go unnoticed with no clicks 99.9% of the time.
And if you just work in a bigger company, as a non-founder, and say "this isn't my problem, I just build stuff for a job", what do you think the founders did to build their company so there are users who sign up and pay?
> Could it be bigger? Sure. But at some point — maybe even before 1,000 people — the vibe breaks. The intimacy evaporates. You stop recognizing names. People talk less because it’s harder to know who’s listening. Growth would make it worse, not better.
>
> Some things work precisely because they’re small.
I'd argue this is true for social networks like Facebook actually. There was a magical period in Facebook between 2005 to 2010 or so where it was mostly college friends, high school friends, some work friends, and we all actually shared what we thought on our posts, shared links to interesting stuff, etc.
When all the relatives started being added to your network the vibe became decidedly different, and then acquaintances, people who aren't close, etc. and everyone has that one experience where one time they post something and someone who isn't close get offended, whether it's political or not, and they gradually share less and less.
I don't have "the right answer" for you but I would just chime in that in the current job market, your best bet is your existing/previous network. Reach out to folks you previously worked with in past companies, especially those in tech leadership positions. With more and more AI applicants trust is weighed more than ever and existing relationships is a major leverage point now.
I don't know if this "should" be how it is but this is the reality based on what I observe now. Hopefully you have some relationships you can reach out to.
One thing that not enough people realize is that the gap between haves and have-nots widen in almost everything when technology advances, and I don't mean just wealth (that is one too), but also knowledge (LLM/AI widens knowledge gap between the curious and not-curious by a lot), and in this case socialization -- the availability of technology (in both organizing activities like your example and in AI loneliness like the article) widens the socialize and not-socialize people.
In the old days, not-socialize people tend to be forced to socialize anyway; but techonology enables them to not-socialize 99% of time now. Likewise, socialize people needed to put in more effort to socialize in the old days, but now it's easier than ever.
When more people realize this, the discourse should shift from "technology creates this trend" to "technology widens the gap between X and not-X".
for an entire website though of many pages I can see this can be useful.