GoPro warned it may not survive • Hacker News Board

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#31

Post by nubinetwork » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:07 PM UTC

Lammy wrote: post #20

No sympathy from me. I have a GoPro Hero11 Black and it's easily the worst camera product I've ever used. Damn thing overheats constantly . 4K60 never works for more than 15-or-so minutes even with an AC vent aimed directly at it. 1080p60 is its limit for any long-duration recording, and even then it still overheats from time to time if I'm in a particularly hot environment. Made me realize why so much of their marke…

> overheats

This is the biggest thing that I've constantly heard about GoPros... I get that they're small and portable, but what good are they if you can almost never use them?

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#32

Post by jmount » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

I honestly thought GoPro and FitBit had both been stomped out a long time ago, and we were just watching new companies brand-squatting.

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#33

Post by thinkindie » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

ink_13 wrote: post #21

Curious parallel to iRobot (Roomba): first mover in new product segment, became genericized name for things in that segment, in the end, (possibly in GoPro's case) could not compete in that segment

it's not the first nor the last case. Another excellent similar case was Nokia.

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#34

Post by rconti » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #29

nikisweeting wrote: post #18

Good riddance, GoPro squandered their market lead for many years and shipped bafflingly mediocre software that seemed to add more bugs with every generation. I hope Insta360, DJI, and many more competitors spring up out of their ashes. Assuming fast microsd cards for writes, how much DDR RAM do they really need to buffer videos during recording? 4gb? 8gb?

So US Ai schizophrenia kills an American company and you’re hoping two Chinese companies (one of which the US has banned on fabricated accusations) take its place. Man, what a timeline

GoPro has been squandering their lead for like 15 years.

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#35

Post by suncemoje » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

merelysounds wrote: post #17

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #12

I don't care so much about GoPro. I am worried about Fujifilm though, they seem on the cusp of a golden era.

I hope they are working hard on the xpro4! Retro styled cameras are only gaining in popularity; the competition is increasing, but Fujifilm has a big head start. And still many concepts to try out. We have yet to see true manual focus confirmation in stills mode (something a retro nikon zf has been praised for), or an autofocus capable lens with a distance scale (leica q style).

Curious what defines a retro camera for you? You mean a digital camera that imitates some analog feel?

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#36

Post by suncemoje » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:19 PM UTC

thot_experiment wrote: post #9

They certainly wouldn't survive if capitalism was working as intended. GoPro is one of the most institutionally arrogant companies around, they seem unable to understand that they have competition. (Which to be fair they absolutely didn't for the first few years of their existence). In 2026 they make a mediocre product with horrible software, and even worse customer service. In contrast, I've smashed the absolute shi…

I'm curious as to what they could have done at what point in time to avoid this? Or was it "unavoidable"?

Apple managed to stay ahead of the competition for years now, but I guess the iPhone and Macs are just more complex products and revolve around an ecosystem, so not really comparable I guess. Still, I'm fascinated by the GoPro "case". I had a Hero 3 back in the days and loved it!

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#37

Post by ge96 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

ink_13 wrote: post #21

Curious parallel to iRobot (Roomba): first mover in new product segment, became genericized name for things in that segment, in the end, (possibly in GoPro's case) could not compete in that segment

I got a Insta 360 go 3S camera recently and damn the tech is amazing. What's sus is the mandatory phone activation/allowing permissions. Once I activated the camera I deleted the app.

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#38

Post by toasty228 » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:25 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #29

nikisweeting wrote: post #18

Good riddance, GoPro squandered their market lead for many years and shipped bafflingly mediocre software that seemed to add more bugs with every generation. I hope Insta360, DJI, and many more competitors spring up out of their ashes. Assuming fast microsd cards for writes, how much DDR RAM do they really need to buffer videos during recording? 4gb? 8gb?

So US Ai schizophrenia kills an American company and you’re hoping two Chinese companies (one of which the US has banned on fabricated accusations) take its place. Man, what a timeline

> the free market is amazing, I love the free market

> wait no not like that

Americans slowly discovering this isn't the 80s anymore and that China is beating them at their own game, delightful

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#39

Post by KomoD » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:26 PM UTC

nikisweeting wrote: post #18

Good riddance, GoPro squandered their market lead for many years and shipped bafflingly mediocre software that seemed to add more bugs with every generation. I hope Insta360, DJI, and many more competitors spring up out of their ashes. Assuming fast microsd cards for writes, how much DDR RAM do they really need to buffer videos during recording? 4gb? 8gb?

Yeah, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about GoPro, and most of the GoPro footage I've seen has been pretty shitty in my opinion, so I've never thought about getting one.

Re: GoPro warned it may not survive

#40

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 9:27 PM UTC

nubinetwork wrote: post #31

Lammy wrote: post #20

No sympathy from me. I have a GoPro Hero11 Black and it's easily the worst camera product I've ever used. Damn thing overheats constantly . 4K60 never works for more than 15-or-so minutes even with an AC vent aimed directly at it. 1080p60 is its limit for any long-duration recording, and even then it still overheats from time to time if I'm in a particularly hot environment. Made me realize why so much of their marke…

> overheats This is the biggest thing that I've constantly heard about GoPros... I get that they're small and portable, but what good are they if you can almost never use them?

They even made them a little bigger, and they still overheated...

All because they had to have the top line specs for video, pushing the little SoC to the limit while recording. The heat makes battery life worse, too.