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Dead Startup Toys

deadstartuptoys.com

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171–180 of 211 posts

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#171

Post by ghaff »

techrat wrote: post #119
ohazi wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For "cheap," netbooks as a category have been replaced by your run-of-the-mill entry-level laptop. The cheapest Dell Inspiron starts at ~$300. $400 gets you an Intel i3 or an AMD Ryzen 3, both of which are leagues better than an Atom. For "small," the category was replaced by Ultrabooks as people realized that it's usually better to have a thin laptop that doesn't force you to compromise on the display or keyboard si…

To be fair, you're comparing netbooks then what what we have now. At the time, the pokey, sluggish Atom was the best you could get for a lightweight system and longer-than-usual battery. Remember... the common alternative to a netbook then were awkward 1-2 inches thick 'desktop replacement' style monstrosities unless you wanted to pay a LOT of money relative to performance... and netbooks were $300ish versus $1200+ f…

To be fair there were fairly compact/light* laptops at the time from a variety of manufacturers. But the period between, say, 2000 and maybe the late 2000s in particular laptops were becoming common but you had to make serious tradeoffs between price, size/weight, performance, and other features.

* By the standards of the time

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#172

Post by muyuu »

some people ran away with million$

failure is relative

plus Negroponte got to learnt that communism doesn't work (or maybe he didn't)

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#173

Post by ghaff »

lupire wrote: post #169
garmaine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all accounts they were not really useful, broke easily, and couldn't be repaired in the field. Many countries backed out of their commitment once they tried out their samples. Those which took delivery ended up not integrating them into curriculum because they didn't deliver on their promise. It did kickstart the "netbook" form factor, which ended up replacing most OLPC use cases. So not a total failure from a tec…

It didn't kickstart netbooks, which predate OLPC XO by a decade and were far less experimental designs.

There were older subnotebooks of various kinds but "netbooks" by that name are usually associated with small Atom-based machines that Intel was pushing partly in response to OLPC hype. See, e.g., this article from 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20110130085835/http://blogs.comp...

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#174

Post by ghaff »

seumars wrote: post #125
mushufasa wrote: post #38

Did One Laptop per Child truly fail as a startup? It was always a nonprofit, so of course it didn't make money. While the technology was lacking in many respects, it did serve a lot of children at the time, and proved the market that Chromebooks came to later dominate with a similar approach (linux-based OS with minimal resources at $100-300 price point).

Chromebooks simply took over the netbook market which was already established by the time OLPC got some publicity. I think OLPC failed because it became more about proving that tech and "bold ideas" from silicon valley could change the world, instead of seriously addressing issues in the third world – it reminds me of the PlayPump. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2010/07/01/the-playpump-wh...

OLPC wasn't "silicon valley." It came out of the MIT Media Lab.

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#175

Post by crackercrews »

legohead wrote: post #134
whymauri wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it astroturf, though? I think this is genuinely hilarious. Elizabeth Holmes as the patron saint of the website is the cherry on top.

I'd say so as they just picked the most well known gadgets. So they basically put minimal effort into research and surrounded it by a pretty site.

Where was the pretty site?

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#176

Post by whymauri »

lupire wrote: post #168
johnnyfived wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's the target audience for this crap? A bunch of Hacker News-esque weekend projects that get a bunch of PR from Vice, WSJ, Verge, etc. every time they release something. Just seems like a team of copycats stealing hackathon ideas, giving them a slight twist, then calls it art and journalists fall all over themselves for it. You won't see these publications writing about similar projects on HN, because they're not…

It's VC funded (for some bizarre reason) Silicon Valley late-stage Burning Man appropriation of counter culture.

I don't think it's counter culture, at all (or attempting to be). They were selling Lil Nas X shoes, which is basically peak mainstream culture.

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#177

Post by ghaff »

ohazi wrote: post #114
tinco wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it, and netbooks as a hardware category, failed, it was because in the end they turned out to not have been worth it. I used a netbook happily for about a year or two, it cost ~$400 if I recall correctly, and afterwards I donated it to my sister who I think used it for a while as well. That's at least $150/yr for a low end product fun but uncomfortable product. After the netbook I upgraded to a Macbook Pro that wa…

For "cheap," netbooks as a category have been replaced by your run-of-the-mill entry-level laptop. The cheapest Dell Inspiron starts at ~$300. $400 gets you an Intel i3 or an AMD Ryzen 3, both of which are leagues better than an Atom. For "small," the category was replaced by Ultrabooks as people realized that it's usually better to have a thin laptop that doesn't force you to compromise on the display or keyboard si…

I've had both a "subnotebook" (a Fujitsu) and a small Chromebook. The <13" form factor can be nice for travel but, in both cases, I ultimately came to the conclusion that the compromises relative to a 13" form factor that didn't weigh that much more just wasn't worth it.

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#178

Post by johnnyfived »

whymauri wrote: post #176
lupire wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's VC funded (for some bizarre reason) Silicon Valley late-stage Burning Man appropriation of counter culture.

I don't think it's counter culture, at all (or attempting to be). They were selling Lil Nas X shoes, which is basically peak mainstream culture.

In today's world where everyone's trying to be ironic counterculture is mainstream culture, just with more smugness

Re: Dead Startup Toys

#179

Post by jefftk »

lupire wrote: post #169
garmaine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all accounts they were not really useful, broke easily, and couldn't be repaired in the field. Many countries backed out of their commitment once they tried out their samples. Those which took delivery ended up not integrating them into curriculum because they didn't deliver on their promise. It did kickstart the "netbook" form factor, which ended up replacing most OLPC use cases. So not a total failure from a tec…

It didn't kickstart netbooks, which predate OLPC XO by a decade and were far less experimental designs.

Netbooks are usually considered to have started in 2007 with the OLPC and eeepc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook
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