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I didn't miss the point. Of course I agree that it's wonderful to see a product that solves an actual problem. My point was that even in the case of a clearly u

I didn't miss the point. Of course I agree that it's wonderful to see a product that solves an actual problem. My point was that even in the case of a clearly useful and "marketable" product, it is not at all clear that it will ultimately be successful and change people's lives. The Segway itself is a great example of this: The product works, it does what it claims it will, but nobody owns one. Society is no better off because of it, unfortunately. I used the rubric of "hacking" to demonstrate that there is a middle road--between inflated valuations/expectations and pure engineering prowess--that will ultimately create life-changing solutions to problems. Think about Apple's successful products: They did nothing new compared to what was already on the market. But by creatively removing features they made their products more marketable and ended up changing the world.

cushychicken 11y ago
> I didn't miss the point. I'm not so sure you didn't. You keep bringing the conversation back to "hacking", and I'm really unclear as to why. Are you trying to equate hacking to product design? Because neither Apple nor Segway were hacking anything - they both saw a consumer experience they wanted to deliver, and then designed a product that was supposed to deliver it. Both companies took a focused, highly planned approach to delivering their respective experiences. That's just about as antithetical to the "try this and see what happens" hacker mentality as it's possible to get. The only real difference between your examples was the size of their respective markets. (I say that because the few people that buy Segways tend to be outspoken about loving them. Or maybe that's just Woz.) Now, if the question you were trying to bring up in the first place was "Do we have any indication that the product designed here actually has some appeal to its target market?", I would find your statement a little more credible.

cushychicken 11y ago

> I didn't miss the point. I'm not so sure you didn't. You keep bringing the conversation back to "hacking", and I'm really unclear as to why. Are you trying to equate hacking to product design? Because neither Apple nor Segway were hacking anything - they both saw a consumer experience they wanted to deliver, and then designed a product that was supposed to deliver it. Both companies took a focused, highly planned approach to delivering their respective experiences. That's just about as antithetical to the "try this and see what happens" hacker mentality as it's possible to get. The only real difference between your examples was the size of their respective markets. (I say that because the few people that buy Segways tend to be outspoken about loving them. Or maybe that's just Woz.) Now, if the question you were trying to bring up in the first place was "Do we have any indication that the product designed here actually has some appeal to its target market?", I would find your statement a little more credible.