But what if I want a faster horse? • Hacker News Board

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#371

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #36

cjs_ac wrote: post #16

For any given thing or category of thing , a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing , but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing . For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into car…

> Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them). My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful…

Honest question: are you not a "car guy/girl"? Lexus people absolutely love Lexuses. I recently sold mine (needed something larger after having another kid) and I miss it every day.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#372

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:55 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #52

sokoloff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them). My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful…

I would say they're popular because they are expensive. It's bragging rights, conspicuous consumption…

Not for the enthusiasts. My neighbor has a $120k Porsche and a $20k Porsche and appears to adore them both

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#373

Post by skydhash » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

names_are_hard wrote: post #359

lotsofpulp wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to bring the knowledge to people that the advertising is incorporated into the product. Lots of people don’t know the extra long car chase scene isn’t due to the director’s artistic preference, but rather economic preference, at the viewer’s expense. There is a clear conflict of interest that can only be addressed by buyers being knowledgeable.

This is an important point. Readers should remember that what's obvious to them is not necessarily something "everyone knows" until it's pointed out. Personally I will say that when I first starting consuming movies at around age 20 I was not conscious of this dynamic, until I read about product placement in movies and then suddenly I started noticing it. Especially when a car chase scene goes into slow motion at jus…

I don't really care for these type of ads as I see them everyday. They're already plastered on products I use. I would be grateful if ads on website were that static.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#374

Post by noisy_boy » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #78

Ironically the old horses were faster! Run XP on modern hardware (if you can get it running at all) and you'll see what I mean. Explorer opens fully rendered in the span of a single frame (0.016 seconds). And XP was very slow and bloated for its time! It'll do this even in VirtualBox, running about 20x snappier than the native host, which boggles my mind.

I think they were designed at the time of less powerful machines so they had to be designed better. Nowadays there is not as much push to eke out every last bit of performance because there is loads of power at everyone's disposal and developers are pushed to focus on features first without being given time to refine performance because features mean adoption. So the bloat creeps up, and hardware makers keep designing more powerful machines which further enables the bloatiness. It is a vicious cycle.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#375

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

temp0826 wrote: post #219

chasd00 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luxury watches are a good analogy too. A $5 watch from the gas station will give you the time just fine but there’s a market for watches costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I'm convinced expensive watches are exclusively used as a vehicle for money laundering

[deleted]

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#376

Post by xigoi » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

karn97 wrote: post #327

xigoi wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A watch is more convenient. I don’t need to take my phone out of my pocket to see the time, I just look at my wrist.

I think you're quite underestimating how many times a person takes their phone out and it's way more than they turn their wrist around to see their watch

I bought a watch about half a year ago just because I was tired of taking out my phone to check the time, so I know what I’m talking about.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#377

Post by BigGreenJorts » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

cestith wrote: post #316

echelon wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if someone today builds a better version of what Netflix used to be, it wouldn't matter. They won’t have the rights and licenses to the shows and movies. That’s what keeps people from switching. What, apart from Stranger Things and Squid Game, has been enough of a cultural touchstone that it keeps people on Netflix? Those aren't things you keep coming back to again and again. Netflix doesn't own Friends, Seinf…

Nobody Wants This; Bridgerton; Wednesday; Man on the Inside; 3 Body Problem; Emily in Paris; the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender; Love, Death, and Robots; How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast); Is It Cake?; Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney; and some others I’ve definitely had conversations about outside my own household. Arcane was a pretty big deal and it was released on Netflix and TenCent. They also have contin…

Love How to sell drug online (fast), surprised to see it listed here tho 'cause I've never heard anyone talk about it. Considering it got 4 seasons, it must be popular tho.

And yeah, Bridgerton, Wednesday, Emily in Paris, and 3 Body Problem each certainly take their moment at least in my circles.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#378

Post by fer » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

nthingtohide wrote: post #202

another-dave wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is also what I feel about the Spotify algorthim at times — no matter what I'm listening to, it invariably brings me back to what it thinks are my "old reliables" once it gets onto recommending stuff. I might just listen to it, if I have it on in the background, which then in turn feeds the algorithm that it made the "correct choice", but it's a million miles away from, say, listening to a radio DJ where you lik…

> if I have it on in the background, which then in turn feeds the algorithm that it made the "correct choice" I have a very horrible case of this. One day at night, I slept listening to lofi playlist. The next week all my recommendations were screwed. Horrible assumption on the part of algorithm.

I have something worse. One morally questionable video popped in my Instagram that showed some disabled person doing something outrageously stupid capitalising on their disability for engagement.

I didn't like it, I didn't share it, I didn't do any other thing than just stare at it in shock.

Big mistake.

For over 6 months that became +50% of my feed. Incredible and depressing amount of people monetising the disability of their friends, siblings, children, or their own. Really effed up content that makes you stop and say wtf out loud. But they also earn a living. But they should do it in a honorable manner. But maybe they don't have the chance. So I flag as not interested but that just swaps those videos with new BRAND NEW "content creators" of this kind that I hadn't yet seen. Wow thanks Instagram.

At some point they changed something in the algorithm and now those videos rarely pop anymore, and I'm wary and scroll away fast.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#379

Post by Suppafly » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 5:03 PM UTC

cjs_ac wrote: post #16

For any given thing or category of thing , a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing , but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing . For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into car…

>maybe that really is the most profitable way to run a tech business.

That's the issue, it seems like it really is the most profitable way to do things. Everything sucks now because shooting brainrot and advertisements at our eyes and ears is more profitable than actually giving us what we want.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#380

Post by TimPC » Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #286

_kush wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Porsche is easy to replace only if you bought it as just another fast car. If you bought it for the design, the legacy, or what the brand means to you, it’s not so easy. Netflix has their content as their moat. Even if someone today builds a better version of what Netflix used to be, it wouldn't matter. They won’t have the rights and licenses to the shows and movies. That’s what keeps people from switching. Porsche h…

>Netflix has their content as their moat. Only Netflix-produced shows apply here. Before Netflix started producing content they had *no moat*. That's the big problem with media streaming - the content owners have all the leverage. Any profit you make they can see and simply increase licensing costs to transfer to them. If you don't want to pay they can (and will, and have done) start their own competitor since the te…

Large aggregation is also to a certain degree a moat. Most creators have quickly found that people won't pay for one creator's content unless that creator is a huge volume creator (at the scale of maybe Disney). No one subscribes to a platform with 20 movies and 5 TV shows.