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Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

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151–156 of 156 posts

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#151
post #11

I feel like I read something new every week on HN about design philosophy; make your product this way not that way, try to do this and not that, here's 10 examples of products that failed because of x, here's 5 products that were successful because of y - maybe it's time to realise that there's no monolithic overarching "right" way to design a product. This is how we ended up with the current trendy cohort of minimal…

In every functional department, there is some amount of this - UX folks want to update the design language, advertising needs a fresh campaign for the new version, devs want to move to some new framework, and/or rewrite etc. Everyone thinks their actions are well justified - except for the user who rarely benefits :)

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#152
post #61
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So both are opt out. Which one is worse?

Amazon. Apple’s system doesn’t use much of your bandwidth or have anyone else’s data going through your device (it’s completely anonymous).

So the ethical distinction is just data amount? Both send anonymous data, if you just mean encrypted.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#153

Amazon recently turned on support for Amazon Sidewalk on all of their hardware in my home (convention) and decided it was fine to do this because I could opt out (configuration). That decision was the final straw for me. Every Amazon device is now unplugged, Prime membership and Amazon music canceled, no longer shopping on their site. Doing what is "easy for the average user" is not sufficient for me, some configurat…

I feel like, supporting them or not with their store, it was always a no-brainer to not purchase smart, cloud connected doorbells and wire-tape speakers and litter my house with them. I kinda hate my Roku even having a microphone button and my kid figuring out how to use it. We're crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, ripe for corporate/state abuse and we already have history and experience about the usage of tec…

People need real hobbies

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#154
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not, but as always it comes down to trust. And I trust Apple to be more diligent with my iPhone's AirTag locating capabilities than Amazon is with their ability to help any device get online. Amazon makes things cheap and easy but not always in ways agree with. As a counter Example, Canonical got some critique with their "telemetry in the installer", but if you ask me, they did it in the nicest way possible: Th…

In all fairness, there are several ways to transmit arbitrary information on the AirTag protocol. The overall reason why people trust Apple with Airtags/Find My is because they're too big to fail. Everyone has already come to terms with the fact that iCloud owns their photos, iTunes owns their music... what's the difference if they also have your location data?

My iPhone’s backend is Nextcloud (files, picture uploads, contacts, calendar) I have 0 bytes in iCloud.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#155
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidewalk is carrying all kinds of data from other users. You have absolutely no idea what. It’s a loosely defined system that Amazon controls remotely at their will. The encryption stops you from snooping like any other TLS traffic, but Amazon itself is the receiver on the other end. And it piggybacks on your own internet connection - 80Kbps is a huge amount of data. Find My identifiers have a single purpose, are use…

> You have absolutely no idea what. It’s a loosely defined system that Amazon controls remotely at their will. s/Amazon/Apple and you've got yourself the Airtag protocol. Obviously Airtags use less bandwidth, but both are proprietary and about equally as evil in my eyes.

You are entitled to your feelings of course, but the design of the two systems could not be more different.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like, supporting them or not with their store, it was always a no-brainer to not purchase smart, cloud connected doorbells and wire-tape speakers and litter my house with them. I kinda hate my Roku even having a microphone button and my kid figuring out how to use it. We're crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, ripe for corporate/state abuse and we already have history and experience about the usage of tec…

People need real hobbies

its a combination of things. People want convenience and that desire is never ending and never sated.

in the age of consumerism, people want to consume MORE but live more minimally. This gives way to more cloud, connected services, more "renting". More.. processing by someone else, somewhere else.

And yes, people spend less time creating and doing and too much time just consuming as their main hobby. They need to spend more time outdoors, doing stuff with their hands, being creative and constructive.

And lastly - my more controversial, generalized but hyper-specific point - is up until COVID and tons of protests turned riots, people were moving into cities at a high rate. They moved into gentrified areas, down played the crime, downplayed the smog, downplayed the endless mismanagement of tax money by old corrupt city governments. They'll go as far as to call people who don't want to move into the city as being racist (for wanting to avoid the crime) or for destroying the environment b/c they don't want to live packed in like sardines in a smog filled urban center.

Well for all those hipsters who think crime isn't such a problem and only something "racists" point out - they all seem to have this incessant need for RING doorbells to keep people stealing the never ending array Amazon and other CongloMo Inc packages from their middle class porches.

They go out in the streets, pumping their fist in the air for BLM, then go home, waiting for their packages from amazon, hopefully protected by Amazon RING doorbells which are expanding the private/public partnership in an ever growing police and surveillance state. They get online and finger wag in one direction and allow their money to vote in another. They're an awful lot like rural republicans voting against their own economic interests, but at least on the Republican side there's a bit of a bait and switch going on. here, it's just direct hypocrisy.

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