Live data from Hacker News

When we get Komooted

bikepacking.com

201–210 of 275 posts

Re: When we get Komooted

#201
post #180
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time we can maaaaaaaybe start pushing back on all of the "capitalism is not the problem" and "capitalism is the least worst of all available options" memes? Or is it too soon already?

It's not like there are good options out there. USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A most damning example is that it was impossible to leave USSR during the most of its existence, and people had to do crazy things like jump off cruise ship and swim many miles [0] just to get out of country. If I have a choice between being jailed in the country and having VCs drive…

How about good ol' morals? We don't need to get rid of capitalism, but how about getting the proportionality back on track? Does a single person need to make billions and billions of money? Should I, as a CEO, earn millions of dollars while my workforce can barely survive with one job?

I don’t think so. This is what needs to be fixed on a global scale.

Re: When we get Komooted

#202
post #7
post #3

I felt betrayed as well. Just paid €30,- the month or so before because I liked the app and the service, but I also needed more maps. It offered great value to me. If I knew 80% of the employees would be fired, inevitably leading to a degrading service, I would have never done that. It is weird, but I do not trust the app any more in planning routes either. Sometimes i have the feeling bugs in the planning part alrea…

The article mentions one example: https://wanderer.to/ . Haven't used it personally but seems promising (albeit less "social" than something like Strava).

I've been using https://bikerouter.de/ to plan my ride and then import the GPX into OsmAnd~. Works quite well. It is possible to host brouter (which is what bikerouter is running) on your own http server.

In OsmAnd~ just remember to fix the track to existing paths, otherwise OsmAnd~ routing engine may have difficulty to guide you. I've never dig into it, but it looks like there can be a small offset between the GPX and Osm map.

Re: When we get Komooted

#203
post #180
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time we can maaaaaaaybe start pushing back on all of the "capitalism is not the problem" and "capitalism is the least worst of all available options" memes? Or is it too soon already?

It's not like there are good options out there. USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A most damning example is that it was impossible to leave USSR during the most of its existence, and people had to do crazy things like jump off cruise ship and swim many miles [0] just to get out of country. If I have a choice between being jailed in the country and having VCs drive…

> It's not like there are good options out there

Yes, there are.

> USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A

The USSR and other Leninist-derived regimes showed what one narrow set of models of authoritarian state “socialism” looks like, sure, and its not pretty just like the pure private capitalism that was generally abandoned netween the early and mid 20th century for the modern mixed economy was not.

OTOH, Leninism and its authoritarian state capitalism (that is, featuring a narrow elite that control society via control of the non-financial means of production, just as the private capitalist class does in private capitalism) is not the only option to to the presently dominant mixed economy that reduces or eliminates the private capitalist elements.

Democratic market-oriented socialisms where the private firms still exist but the non-financial means of production are controlled (either entirely in pure forms, or simply more than in the status quo systems in forms which are still mixed economies but with a different mix) by those working in the firms employing them are possible. In fact, variations along this dimension already exist among modern mixed economies, and the ones further along it are not the limit of how far that can go.

Re: When we get Komooted

#204
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there are good options out there. USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A most damning example is that it was impossible to leave USSR during the most of its existence, and people had to do crazy things like jump off cruise ship and swim many miles [0] just to get out of country. If I have a choice between being jailed in the country and having VCs drive…

How about good ol' morals? We don't need to get rid of capitalism, but how about getting the proportionality back on track? Does a single person need to make billions and billions of money? Should I, as a CEO, earn millions of dollars while my workforce can barely survive with one job? I don’t think so. This is what needs to be fixed on a global scale.

> How about good ol' morals? We don't need to get rid of capitalism,

Yes we do. Capitalism, even at the somewhat attenuated level it exists in the modern mixed economy compared to the original system of the same name, creates too strong of a reward system for immoral behavior to correct the moral problems while preserving the system.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” is a systemic, not isolated individual, problem with capitalism.

Re: When we get Komooted

#205
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there are good options out there. USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A most damning example is that it was impossible to leave USSR during the most of its existence, and people had to do crazy things like jump off cruise ship and swim many miles [0] just to get out of country. If I have a choice between being jailed in the country and having VCs drive…

There are many better options right now then US-style kleptocapitalism. Just look at the HDI index.

[deleted]

Re: When we get Komooted

#206

Founder here of a 300 person startup. It's appalling and infuriating to read stories like these. I started my biz because I wanted to make products that people love, that create value and timesave for others (specifically restaurants). I've always thought that if I do that and have a good time doing it the money will take care of itself. I would be horrified if some PE firm rug-pulled our users and screwed our employ…

How many offers have you rejected so far? What were the amounts?

When founders sell, it's rarely to end up making the same amount of money they would make if they kept ownership. And once you've sold you have no control.

Re: When we get Komooted

#207
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a post recently on linkedin. A founder was saying "If you had one year to live, would you still choose to work at this company? That is the bar to join ". It was so incredibly sad.

Boy, please share. I need something depressing to laugh about

Managed to find it again, there you go: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arnau-ayerbe_met-brian-chesky...

Re: When we get Komooted

#208
post #206

Founder here of a 300 person startup. It's appalling and infuriating to read stories like these. I started my biz because I wanted to make products that people love, that create value and timesave for others (specifically restaurants). I've always thought that if I do that and have a good time doing it the money will take care of itself. I would be horrified if some PE firm rug-pulled our users and screwed our employ…

How many offers have you rejected so far? What were the amounts? When founders sell, it's rarely to end up making the same amount of money they would make if they kept ownership. And once you've sold you have no control.

I've been doing this for 13 years. You can use your imagination :)

Re: When we get Komooted

#209
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there are good options out there. USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A most damning example is that it was impossible to leave USSR during the most of its existence, and people had to do crazy things like jump off cruise ship and swim many miles [0] just to get out of country. If I have a choice between being jailed in the country and having VCs drive…

> It's not like there are good options out there Yes, there are. > USSR showed what state-controlled socialism looks like, and the picture is not pretty. A The USSR and other Leninist-derived regimes showed what one narrow set of models of authoritarian state “socialism” looks like, sure, and its not pretty just like the pure private capitalism that was generally abandoned netween the early and mid 20th century for t…

I'd love to hear about examples.

Sweden tried to become more socialist in 1970s-80s, and it did not look pretty. (Then Mr. Palme was shot and killed.)

Venezuela... well, does not look like an enticing example either.

I would say that socialism as a state-imposed regime does not work, same as communism. BTW communism does work in communes of like-minded individuals, be it a bunch of hippies or a bunch of monks. The key is self-selecting people who subscribe to that way of living voluntarily. This can't work for a whole country.

OTOH what the TFA suggests does work, exactly because mission-driven open-source projects / foundations and non-profits attract the right kind of motivated people, while providing little to no incentive for entities seeking pure profit to take over. Debian is one example: it exists for decades in the normal capitalist economy, is going strong, and shows no signs (and no ways) of selling out.

This, to my mind, is the future. Maybe 50 years from now our grandchildren will be appalled by the fact that we kept giving our free labor and free time to for-profit entities which did not have our best interests aligned with theirs.

Re: When we get Komooted

#210
A practical observations independent from the komoot future.

In the past I switched to komoot from osmand because it produced better trail running routes. In both apps you set some anchor points to get a gpx, but osmand often sticks to the shortest path between them (often boring roadways) while komoot chose scenic trails where available. Also osmand heats up my phone significantly both then when doing pathfinding and when just drawing a complicated piece of terrain.

I recently discovered a new feature in the Strava subscription: you just "draw" a route how you like it and the app glues it to the nearest available track. Even though komoot may have resolved ambiguities better, the strava ui is just faster to get what you want, so I switched to it.

IMO the Strava UX overall is not pleasant, I don't like their business model, and this is the second useful feature in the subscription ever since heatmaps. But it's genuinely good and I'll stick to it until a better alternative comes around. I still pay for osmand though and I hope it survives. Strava doesn't work offline for one thing so the first thing I do is exporting the gpx to osmand.

Post reply on HN