Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

news.ycombinator.com

601–610 of 648 posts

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#601
post #596

I just thought, would Linux's "init" fall under this category with systemd. I am not from Linux background but I've been reading about this recently.

You should read a lot more. The predecessor of systemd was not what you think, and there was not just one. The software is not even "init". * http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/09/05/0/ * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18823871 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13361168

Thank you

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#603
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think the wearables market is really that valuable. Hasn't the Apple Watch been outselling Rolex etc.? https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-outsold-the-entire-swi...

The watch market must be pretty small these days considering everyone has the time on their smartphone... The only people I see wearing watches are business people who wear suits to work or work outdoors (people in the military). That's only a small percentage of people with a ~$100 product.

I see a lot of watches among 'fitness' people as well these days. I'd estimate that roughly half the people in my office wears a watch of some kind and non of them wears a suit to work.

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your pain points, I would not say XMPP that the protocol isn't any good. - Pidgin: Just take a look at their bug tracker. You will not have any problems finding tickets requesting essential features which are 6 years and older (e.g. Message Archive Management). So unless the Pidgin devs get some done I would not use their client (Gajim is a much better alternative, especially since the 1.0 release…

From the user perspective, Pidgin is pretty much unmaintained at this point, so it's like complaining that old software isn't modern. Also, ejabberd doesn't disable OMEMO by default for quite a long time already.

Actually, they still do (or do again?). Here comes the relevant part from their example config [1]:

    force_node_config:
      ## Change from "whitelist" to "open" to enable OMEMO support
      ## See https://github.com/processone/ejabberd/issues/2425
      "eu.siacs.conversations.axolotl.*":
        access_model: whitelist
[1] https://github.com/processone/ejabberd/blob/master/ejabberd....

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the user perspective, Pidgin is pretty much unmaintained at this point, so it's like complaining that old software isn't modern. Also, ejabberd doesn't disable OMEMO by default for quite a long time already.

Actually, they still do (or do again?). Here comes the relevant part from their example config [1]: force_node_config: ## Change from "whitelist" to "open" to enable OMEMO support ## See https://github.com/processone/ejabberd/issues/2425 "eu.siacs.conversations.axolotl.*": access_model: whitelist [1] https://github.com/processone/ejabberd/blob/master/ejabberd....

Oh, my bad - it was the default config in Debian package that got changed. I assumed it originated from upstream, but I was wrong and it's actually patched by Debian maintainer:

http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/e/ejabberd/ejabberd_1... (debian/patches/ejabberd.yml.example.diff)

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#607
post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup unity was what spelled the end for the Ubuntu wave. I think this has been the single biggest mistake they made. I think it will take at least a decade again to bring the linux desktop to the masses. Gnome 2 was perfect for people coming from windows moving over. Gnome 3 is like windows vista. Me personally, I was really disappointed (of course you can install gnome 2 etc). But at the end of the day you just want…

> bring the linux desktop to the masses I am dumbfounded that people still see this happening at some point.

Ubuntu had traction already, they had a perfectly good thing then suddenly changed directions (unity + the phone desktop thing).

My analogy would be xp -> vista. Alienating core & target users.

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#608
post #137

Google's Nexus 7 might qualify. A really great tablet at an affordable price that got one minor refresh then was cancelled. I see Palm already mentioned. Neo Geo. Obviously everything I have done was great--too advanced for its time to succeed.

And the Nexus 5 phone. Lightweight, durable plastic body, good hardware, not ridiculously large... I still havent seen a spiritual successor

I moved from the Nexus 5 to the Motorola G series of phones. Cheap but not too fast.

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#609

WebOS. When I used it, I saw it as a blend between Android and iOS. It had the beauty, polish, and responsiveness that I loved on iPhones, but had the developer options and open community that Android had. It was a great product, and it's a shame that now we really only have two choices for smartphone operating system, WebOS being neither.

I recently helped a friend wall mount a new smart TV and when the boot animation displayed WebOS, it made me incredibly disappointed about how far it had fallen.

Its the best "SmartTV" platform by far. The competition doesn't offer up much of a fight though.

Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?

#610
post #534
post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way about Travis Bean guitars. You can't buy a good TB500, which was a truly great and functional guitar design, on the used market without paying a fortune.

The Electrical Guitar Company makes new aluminium-neck guitars, if that's something you're interested in. https://www.electricalguitarcompany.com/models/

I'd love to get a TB500 with the single coils and single volume and tone controls, but I don't think EGC makes them right now.
Post reply on HN