The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2020
usb-hubs.org: a filterable spec layer on top of Amazon's messy USB-C hub listings
Stuck buying a USB-C hub, junkern turned Amazon's unfilterable listings into a searchable spec database with an affiliate-link off switch.
usb-hubs.org
What it had to solve
junkern wanted to buy a USB-C hub but Amazon's category offered no filtering and no clear feature marking, and tech friends had hit the same wall. So he quickly built a comparison site from Amazon's own listings.
How it works
In January 2020 a builder posting as junkern launched usb-hubs.org and put it on Hacker News with a deliberately plain pitch: a website to better compare the USB-C hubs found on Amazon. His trigger was personal - he wanted to buy a hub, found Amazon's category gave him no filtering and no clear marking of features, and discovered his tech friends had all hit the same wall. Within hours the site had 560 points and 275 comments.
The move was to treat Amazon as the data source rather than the destination. Instead of writing reviews, junkern collected the marketplace's hub listings and normalized their spec text into structured rows - how many USB-C and USB-A ports, whether power delivery or a card reader existed, what video could pass through - then made those features filterable. A product was one click away from its Amazon listing, so the site could run on affiliate commissions.
The trust detail was the toggle. Visitors could switch the affiliate links off entirely, and the option sat prominently on the page, so the tool could not be dismissed as a pure link farm. Commenters called that honesty rare, while others used the thread to debate the category's real pain: Amazon's search could not answer whether a hub did 4K at 60Hz, and SEO-spam listings made the problem worse. The site was still online in September 2026, still billing itself as a 'Best Amazon USB-Hub Finder'.
Why it lands
- He sold the filter Amazon never built: feature-level search over a category where the marketplace itself only offered keyword search.
- Scraping the incumbent's catalog made data collection cheap and kept every product one click from purchase, so the site could monetize without inventing inventory.
- The affiliate-link off switch turned the category's biggest objection - recommendation sites that exist to earn commissions - into a visible design choice.
- Launching on Hacker News put the site in front of the exact audience that had felt the pain, which is why 275 commenters handed him a detailed product roadmap in one day.
What it did
The Show HN drew 560 points and 275 comments on 2020-01-26, and the thread became a live feature backlog: Thunderbolt 3 support, no-feature search, video filters, ReviewMeta scores, multi-country Amazon links and a redesign. The site was still online as a 'Best Amazon USB-Hub Finder' when checked in September 2026.
What you can take
Where a giant's own catalog is unusable, the layer on top can be the product: normalize its data into the filter it never built, and make the monetization honest enough to defend.
Since then
junkern stayed in the thread answering questions and collecting requests: Thunderbolt 3 support, 'does not have this feature' search, card-reader and video-output filters, price history, ReviewMeta and Fakespot integration, Amazon UK/DE/FR links and a cleaner design all went on his list. Commenters warned that showing Amazon prices could breach affiliate-program terms and debated whether comparison sites only recommend products with referral programs. The site was still reachable in September 2026, more than six years after launch.
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