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Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

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Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#91

Post by 0xffff2 »

pranau wrote: post #64
hermannj314 wrote: post #9

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…

Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?

I'll grant that the outrage against Sidewalk does seem to be worse, but there are at least some of us who dislike both. I have Find My turned off on my iPhone.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#92

Post by config_yml »

jfengel wrote: post #89

Opinionated products are killer products when lots of people realize they share your opinion. Apple banks on that. They are commonly derided by technical people for what their products don't do, but for a lot of users, they're happy with what the product does. Making it more capable would often make it harder for them to use. Even making it configurable doesn't make it better. Even if the options are hidden, just hav…

It probably matters how this opinion is formed. Often it’s formed first by your own pain, and if you start talk to people and do user research you might discover that you’re on to something.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#93

Post by dgb23 »

fnimick wrote: post #80
dgb23 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I shouldn't have to constantly worry that a remote code change could turn my hardware into a new source of revenue for you while I am on vacation at the beach. This is it. It actually induces some kind of anxiety and mild paranoia. We can also very easily support companies that don't treat their customers this way, or their workers, or business partners...

Unfortunately, companies that don't extract maximum revenue from their customers/workers get outcompeted and put out of business by those that do.

I hear that often but is it really true?

There seem to be tons of companies, typically small to medium ones, who provide quality services and products and have earned the trust of their customers, workers and partners over the years without screwing them over left and right. Some of them additionally have higher standards in regards to environmental issues on top of all of this.

Nobody is perfect, but I don't think it is required to be a bully to find and keep a sustainable market niche.

Overall this behavior is harmful, partly because it puts people into positions where they have overwhelming levels of power and influence. My personal opinion is that this leads to an unreasonable amount of responsibility and an unhealthy detachment or distance from affected people.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#94

Post by fnord77 »

ccity88 wrote: 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…

yes, lots of philosophy and little actual science (testing hypotheses etc)

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#95

Post by cbsmith »

dathinab wrote: post #65
hermannj314 wrote: post #9

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 would argue there is a difference between "being opinionated about how to implement a use-case" + "being opinionated about focusing on a small set of use-cases" and "forcing new use-cases on the user". The article is about the former, Amazon Sidewalk about the later. Also nothing while being opinionated can be very use-full for product design there is no reason why people can't be opinionated in a "bad" way. What t…

"forcing" isn't the right word though. They do have an opt-out. Making it an opt-out vs. an opt-in is very much "the former".

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#96

Post by hosteur »

Torwald wrote: post #44
hermannj314 wrote: post #9

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…

What grates me with these situations is that they have my data, which is one thing, but I don't have access to that data!

In eu you do as per gdpr

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#97

Post by smoldesu »

teekert wrote: post #84
pranau wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any indications that the Sidewalk network can be used to relay other than device control information?

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?

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#98

Post by castlecrasher2 »

mistercow wrote: post #62

I think the tweet in the opening screenshot is simply wrong. I would argue that you almost always want paste to preserve the pasteboard formatting. Most copy/paste is within the same document, where you obviously want the odd bolded or italicized word to retain its formatting. But you don't notice those cases, because everything is working as expected. What you notice is that when you paste from an external source, t…

Is there an option in Word to change the default paste? I think that's what many of these opinions boil down to, and while I imagine there's hundreds of opinions on even the smallest thing I suspect many of these large pain points could be solved relatively easily if those in charge had a vision like the article is suggesting.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#99

Post by smoldesu »

jiofih wrote: post #76
pranau wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please explain how Apple’s Find My is anonymous while Sidewalk is not? As far as I understand, Find My collects device location information through other iPhones and then upload them to Apple’s cloud where it can be viewed by you. Apple states that this is done in a privacy preserving way by using rotating identifiers. In the case of Amazon, they state that all the device information being relayed through you…

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.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#100

Post by wyager »

pranau wrote: post #64
hermannj314 wrote: post #9

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…

Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?

The airtags model is completely different. Much more restricted, secure, and private.
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