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

Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

amateurphotographer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 586 posts

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#101

Post by TravisJamison »

atourgates wrote: post #57
keiferski wrote: post #30

Red Bull really ran the marketing playbook that GoPro should have done: become known for athletes doing extreme things. Instead they stayed too technical and product-based and didn't build a brand beyond "we make action cameras."

They really have tried. They don't have the type of insane cashflow that RedBull does to sponsor tons of athletes and weird events, but their video contests are kind of a big deal in the action sports community. AKA, their Line of the Winter[1] competition for skiing, or their Best Line conest for MTB[2] that they used to run. And they're the title sponsor for the GoPro Mountain Games[3]. They're still THE action spo…

It’s not just the cash flow, it’s the margins.

Redbulls gross margins are probably 90%. It’s basically just water, sugar, and caffeine sold for $3.

You can do a lot of great promotions if the cost of your product is a rounding error.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#102

Post by altcognito »

sgc wrote: post #54
haunter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not american but afaik it's very common. The US is on a different level though, see the flags in the suburbia, the pledge of allegiance in school's every morning etc. But I'd say it's not "too much nationalism" rather the average american is defintiely more patriotic than an average european (who can then again be anyone from the UK to Poland to Moldova) but you get my point

I am American who has lived in many countries around the world, and I think this is distinctly wrong and the source of many problems in the US. It would be more correct to say that the average American values outward displays of nationalism more, and has a more negative perception of those who do not appreciate or want to participate in those displays than people in most other countries. And yes, they conflate this w…

Leadership in European countries is so routinely in conflict with their people who understand the inalienable rights of the people so well. I wonder where that comes from.

You're not wrong that the American public is largely out of touch with the fundamentals of a free society.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#103

Post by adrianN »

Robotbeat wrote: post #89
sen wrote: post #13

I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition. They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and exp…

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

If your country’s industrial and defense policy relies on individual consumers making choices that are worse for them on almost all metrics, it’s time to think about on worse payroll your politicians are.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#104

Post by andmarios »

Contrary to the popular opinion in the rest of the comments, I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware, a lot of thought into usability for professionals, many accessories, and hackable with official firmware from the company.

The "problem" is that I don't use it that often. Most people do not need action footage regularly. It was more like a impulse/hobby buy rather than a need.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#105

Post by tomaskafka »

Robotbeat wrote: post #89
sen wrote: post #13

I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition. They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and exp…

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

Simon Wardley has been shouting this from the rooftops, including detailed per industry timelines when China will take over, in 2015.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#106

Post by ValentineC »

atourgates wrote: post #50
ValentineC wrote: post #7

When I was looking to buy an action camera last year, I was deciding between Insta360 and DJI, with many YouTubers suggesting outright against GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality. Action cameras sound like a tough business, since most of them are built to last ages, and they need to keep the vast majority of content creators happy trying to increase image quality in a small form factor. Anyway, I boug…

Having owned a number of GoPros, I made the same switch last year. The Insta360 has super annoying/intrusive software that always feels like it's trying to sell me something, but it's pretty excellent in terms of actual video quality.

I don't really use the software, not even for updates.

I copy out the footage directly using a USB-C cable (wish it had USB 3.0), and do firmware updates by just dropping the update file into the microSD card.

It's friggin' fabulous that everything is doable without having to use an app. (Also the app takes up somewhere between 1-2GB of storage on my phone, and I don't have that kind of space.)

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#107

Post by ltbarcly3 »

It's a testament to how broken modern business practices are that GoPro can sell 1.2 Million cameras per year and still go out of business.

It's possible they are just poorly run, and they spend more in R&D than they recoup in revenue, but I strongly suspect they were set up to only be profitable if they sold millions of cameras per year as an attempt to maximize profits at that volume, without consideration of other scenarios.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#108

Post by usrusr »

embedding-shape wrote: post #34
haunter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac Mini will be made in Houston (they already make their own servers there) https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...

Is it common in American factories to have US flags hanging on the walls similar to how dictators like to hang their portraits in factories? Never seen that in the (admitted small amount) of factories I've visited around in Europe, but tends to also give off a bit of "too much nationalism" vibe around here unless there is a special event, the US flag seems to be treated differently in the US so maybe it's a common si…

I'm not a friend of nationalism, but I believe that it's a trade-off: of you want to be open to immigration, of the kind that pulls in newcomers, inviting them to become a part of the place they move to, instead of remaining outsiders, you have to give them plenty of opportunity to identify with their new home. Of course these days, we see the American flag used a lot in ways completely opposite to this, but that does not change the great progressive value national symbols could provide.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#109

Post by [deleted] »

Robotbeat wrote: post #89
sen wrote: post #13

I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition. They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and exp…

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

[deleted]

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#110

Post by bogwog »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #67

They could spur a lot of innovation by open sourcing their firmware or introducing plugins. They don't really have a channel to take asks like "ring buffer style recording" but I would do it myself.

They already have Open GoPro: https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro

Idk if the firmware is open source, but there's a whole SDK you can use to implement stuff like that

Post reply on HN