Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

smashcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 178 posts

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#161

Post by galactoise »

coderdude wrote: post #145
wavefunction wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's apparently resonating with the HN audience. I've seen poorly presented material get flagged into null before, so why wouldn't that be the case for this article, if it t'were true? I am _not_ glad to see the title change, as it goes against the stated rule of titles matching the title of the submitted content and is blatant editorializing that is supposedly verboten on HN. It's ridiculous and unwelcome from my pe…

Right now it's fashionable to dislike Amazon. Rants about Amazon are a formula for karma success right now. That's my guess as to why it hasn't been flagged to death. I wouldn't attribute a lack of flagging to legitimacy. HN isn't immune to BS.

That may be true, but to be clear, I love the things Amazon produces in general - I just take specific issue with this one team over the last couple months. I can't speak for the other two people cited in the story, but for my part I can say that I absolutely didn't start a rant in Amazon's developer community for the purpose of someone else blogging about it and getting karma on HN.

I'm more interested in the frankly absurd notion that there is this software giant who is supposedly super good at web services, yet is incapable of doing the simplest possible things to sustain its development community. It's an incredible dichotomy - the Mighty Amazon of Prime Now Shipping vs. the Meek Amazon of "How Do We Certify Like Apple?" - but it's one that needs to go away.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#162

Post by dang »

colinmegill wrote: post #98
dang wrote: post #74

That title is over the top, so we replaced it with the much more neutral first sentence of the article.

yeah, agreed with Candelabra - that title got lots of upvotes and was what it was

The problem is that such titles routinely get upvotes, presumably because of some reflex they trigger in the brain. If we want to have a site that gratifies intellectual curiosity—which we do—we have no choice but to counteract them. That's a fundamental principle of this place.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#163

Post by derefr »

meesterdude wrote: post #154
derefr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An abuse of power to achieve... what, exactly? dang is here as a moderator precisely "on behalf of the community." As in, he acts to facilitate productive discussion. You might disagree with his decision here, but I can't see any way in which he has different goals than you would want him to. At worst, he has made a mistake, and the backlash from it will make him not do it again. (At best, he is being "the hero we ne…

You're talking about goals and motive; I don't know why. I took issue with the behavior, the specific act of editing the title, in a way that contrasts the actual articles title.

Because the GP comment was talking about HN "jumping the shark", and you were agreeing with them and adding that this was an "abuse of power"—both things suggesting that this action betokened bad things for HN going forward.

My point was that it doesn't, any more than a waiter asking after your mother's health when she's just died implies the restaurant is on a decline. That's not insensitive (therefore implying the restaurant is now hiring insensitive people); it's just a faux pas (therefore implying the restaurant is hiring regular ol' fallible humans.) The change to the article title here, likewise, was not an abuse; it was just an overly-hasty application of the regular HN guidelines—the thing dang does literally all day without anyone noticing when he's doing it well, done with slightly less care than usual.

dang is a regular person; regular people realize when they do things other people don't like, and then stop doing those things. Systems composed of regular people (i.e. not tyrants and sycophants) self-correct, rather than entering downward spirals. Not everything presages the end of an era. Most things, where conscientious people are involved, are just hiccups.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#164

Post by SixSigma »

nailer wrote: post #117
SixSigma wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NeXT Computer and the NeXTSTEP operating system was the platform used for creating the first App Store, originally demonstrated to Steve Jobs in 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT

Do you have any screenshots? Your comment originally said NeXT created bundles, which is very different from an online store for software.

Yes, the bundle thing is also true. I found the bit about app stores while I was trying to find a year.

No screenshots. I just remembered that the bundle thing was something I was excited about wrt Next at the time. And booting from Cdrom, and display postscript. I wanted one so badly but by the time I had money they were very obsolete.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#165

Post by mbdev »

galactoise wrote: post #121
mbdev wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that the issue can be fixed so it might have been. But I have the mail conversation here (10 people at least and dozen of back and forth). This was 2 months ago and I gave up on it for this specific reason.

Man, that's weird, I wonder what was different between our implementations. Our original POCs were about 4 months ago, and they were on EC2 at the time. We had plenty of other technical issues (don't get me started on SSL), but running on EC2 was never one of them. That said, I'm curious how you managed to get an email conversation going with the team - the whole crux of the original article by Lawrence (and the foru…

I knew someone working at Amazon. That is why I'm reluctant to show the conversation or be more public about it at that time

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#166

Post by [deleted] »

hiddencost wrote: post #51
lkrubner wrote: post #3

This is perhaps the key bit of silliness: "And this is where we run into the first bit of craziness. Amazon decided that they should model the Alexa app store after the iPhone app store. So there is a certification process to get your app into the store. But think about the difference: you are not uploading a binary file to the Alexa app store, you are simply registering an URL. So Amazon has no real control over you…

I think part of the point is to control the NLU phrases, not the application.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#168

Post by nailer »

SixSigma wrote: post #164
nailer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any screenshots? Your comment originally said NeXT created bundles, which is very different from an online store for software.

Yes, the bundle thing is also true. I found the bit about app stores while I was trying to find a year. No screenshots. I just remembered that the bundle thing was something I was excited about wrt Next at the time. And booting from Cdrom, and display postscript. I wanted one so badly but by the time I had money they were very obsolete.

There's no reference though. It's just:

> creating the first App Store which was originally demonstrated to Steve Jobs in 1993

without any footnotes. Would have loved to actually read something on the topic.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#169

Post by BillinghamJ »

chetanahuja wrote: post #120
BillinghamJ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those things are problems with the review process.

"takes weeks or months to add an app" I'd say that's a problem with the review process.

As an iOS user personally, I greatly value the diligence, so I'm not sure I'd call it a problem.

Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store

#170

Post by SixSigma »

nailer wrote: post #168
SixSigma wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the bundle thing is also true. I found the bit about app stores while I was trying to find a year. No screenshots. I just remembered that the bundle thing was something I was excited about wrt Next at the time. And booting from Cdrom, and display postscript. I wanted one so badly but by the time I had money they were very obsolete.

There's no reference though. It's just: > creating the first App Store which was originally demonstrated to Steve Jobs in 1993 without any footnotes. Would have loved to actually read something on the topic.

I only know really know about it from memory and even then it's from reading PC-World, not direct experience.

The Bundle was one of those great ideas for users that got kicked in the nuts by Copy Protection methods until signing and activation was bult into the OS proper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_%28OS_X%29

Even on early Windows all you had to do was xcopy a directory to share it with friends. My Quake2 folder still follows me from machine to machine.

Post reply on HN