The $300 Million Button
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThe original reasoning that went into the design of the first form is (I think) the classic perspective taken from someone that has never had to use their own product. "Why wouldn't someone want to create an account? Ship it!" Then as soon as you are in a rush, shopping for some tents online for a camping trip (something you rarely do) and REI is forcing you to create an account just to order the clearance tents you found, you…
It must be Best Buy. Their checkout copy is quoted in this thread from 2005, and matches the article exactly. http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum22/4423.htm "you do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout." "to make your future BestBuy.com purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout." Best Buy had close to $25 bil in revenue in 2004 and 2005.
See also here, for the identity of the site among other insightful commentary: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=434510
I can't tell you the number of times I've gone to purchase a product online and bailed when asked to create an account. This is basically the story's point. KISS in action. Maybe more: get out of my way. I was working with a travel sales' company recently and noticed that they had a dropdown in their product search that had two entries, neither of which was clear what they did, although each produced different results. There was much wringing…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 288
- Total comments
- 79
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-01-14 | The $300 Million ButtonFirst breakout | astrec | 113 | 43 |
| 2009-02-21 | How Changing a Button Increased a Site's Annual Revenues by $300 Million | nickb | 9 | 1 |
| 2010-09-17 | The $300 Million Button | bjonathan | 5 | 2 |
| 2010-10-13 | How Changing a Button Increased a Site's Annual Revenues by $300 Million | DeusExMachina | 5 | 0 |
| 2011-07-27 | The $300 Million ButtonBest thread · Latest 20+ point return | cynusx | 142 | 30 |
| 2012-10-15 | The $300 Millon Button | zsherman | 3 | 0 |
| 2013-08-06 | The $300 Million Button (2009) | jmduke | 7 | 3 |
| 2013-09-19 | The $300 Million Button | mknappen | 2 | 0 |
| 2013-10-25 | The $300 Million Button | pajju | 1 | 0 |
| 2015-08-18 | The $300M Button | tarikozket | 1 | 0 |