4 ms·

> "Are we really going to start using Spotify after so many years of hating on it?" —our 15-year-old. Genuinely curious here - why are so many techies desperat

by mbesto 11y ago

> "Are we really going to start using Spotify after so many years of hating on it?" —our 15-year-old. Genuinely curious here - why are so many techies desperately passionate (both positive and negative) about choice of unseemly unnecessary tech products? I feel like there is this peculiar subculture of tech-minded folk who defend at odds their tech choices. "Slack is the best" "Hell no, IRC has been around for years!" "Let's fight!" I don't see any rational reason to "hate" on the success of a company or a brand...

willtheperson 11y ago
"I chose X so to validate my choice I will tell you why Z is the worst!" It happens everywhere. Some get more caught up in it (Video Game console, iPhone / Galaxy, etc.). Marketing tries to play into this a bit for free promotion. Make you feel intelligent for choosing them and you're part of a club so you'll spread their gospel.
epa 11y ago
The tech generation grew up in a 'free' culture of internet: illegal downloads, open source, pro bono collaboration. Paying for something that is equally equivalent to something that was free for decades usually is a tough sell. This doesnt apply to all people.
- lemevi 11y ago
  This probably also explains why it's so hard to find a good editor. So many devs are totally unwilling to pay a decent amount for anything. Maybe the exception being hosting. Outside of hosting a server and dns and an SSL cert, it's hard to get engineers making 6 figures to spend more than $50 on a tool they use every day of their working life. Intellij recently switched to a new plan that adds up to like $15 to $10 a month for all their awesome (but very specialized) IDEs and people are going nuts over how much that is. It's nothing. But devs want to pay for very little. So we get shitty tools. Like vim[1] or atom[2]. Thanks I guess. Seriously can I have a generic text editor that's as good at editing as IntelliJ is at Java? [1] http://geoff.greer.fm/vim/ http://geoff.greer.fm/vim/ [2] https://news.floobits.com/2015/10/14/developing-atom-plugins-so-much-potential-so-many-bugs/ https://news.floobits.com/2015/10/14/developing-atom-plugins...
  - douche 11y ago
    ReSharper has been worth every penny that I've given them over the years for upgrades. Seriously, it amounts to one or two days' worth of salary for a software engineer. The break-even point is extremely low.
  - pyre 11y ago
    > it's hard to get engineers making 6 figures to spend more than $50 on a tool they use every day of their working life. On the flip-side, why invest all of your time become accustomed (possibly married) to an ecosystem that is beholden to someone else? Just because you spend $100 on VisualStudio doesn't mean that MS will take your input to heart when some manager "on high" decides to change direction with the product.
    - spyder 11y ago
      Depends on what are the alternatives: if there is an open alternative with the same features for free then sure use it, but if there is no alternative with the features you need then you have to invest your time/money to build that feature and very likely it's more time/money than to buy and learn an ecosystem.
      - pyre 11y ago
        If developers are currently using the OpenSource solutions, then they probably work for those people. Who are "you" to question what works for them and what features are a priority to them? Many developers pay for close-source editors and IDEs, and the companies that support/develop them aren't necessarily going under. Heck BBEdit is still around despite falling out of favour as the de facto MacOS editor years ago. Just within the Python ecosystem there are 2 or 3 IDEs that cater to Python developers despite the number of Python developers that prefer Vi(m) or Emacs. The idea that developers don't or won't pay for an editor or that the OpenSource/Free alternatives are the equivalent of developers coding in Notepad on Windows just for save a few bucks is a false premise.
  - paublyrne 11y ago
    I disliked the IntelliJ move because I have a preference for owning over renting. Possibly because I grew up in a country with a preference for owning property and seeing rent as dead money, or because I grew up buying and collecting CDs and putting them into alphabetical order. In this case, I am happy to pay for RubyMine. And happy to pay a little more if I want to update to the latest version. But I don't like the idea of only being able to use it this month as long as I've paid the rent.
frenchie4111 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...
rekoros 11y ago
Well, in the case of Rdio vs Spotify, Rdio is way better, UI-wise. But that has nothing to do with our 15-y-o — she grew up with Rdio and it's the only streaming music service she's ever known.
michaelchisari 11y ago
It all goes back to Emacs vs VI.
witten 11y ago
As a dev, if you are tool-agnostic, then you're also productivity-agnostic.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
You have to keep in mind that this is a kind of game. Almost no one truly, really hates the other product. People don't get into fistfights over Vim vs. Emacs. It's just a community joke. So for instance I'm in the IRC camp of group communication, and I'll go to great length to use it over Slack, but if you really need me to use Slack and it makes sense, then I'll use Slack. But I will be doing cynical jokes so that you won't forget I'm in the other camp :P.
- rtpg 11y ago
  >People don't get into fistfights over Vim vs. Emacs. It's just a community joke. Unfortunately, this can get out of hand, see systemd death threats. Hope people will learn to be nicer on the internet now that the general population is on it.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    That's not a product rivalry, that's a deeper upset with how systemd is handling things. Nobody thinks vim is trying to take over the editor space.
    - EwanToo 11y ago
      But I would hope you'd still think that death threats over it are utterly ridiculous, and unacceptable?
      - Dylan16807 11y ago
        Yes.
- paublyrne 11y ago
  People do get into fistfights over sporting rivalries, though, not to mention religious ones.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
junto 11y ago
It is basic human nature to polarise into distinct communities and take sides. Look at football teams. They wear different colours, have minor differences in ethoses but both play more or less the same game of football. Slack versus IRC is the same concept.
snarfy 11y ago
Tribalism is human nature. It's not rational. In a tribe, being rejected is pretty much a death sentence, so I can see why humans have a strong motivation to be in one. It turns irrational when that tribe is coke vs pepsi, xbox vs playstation, vim vs emacs, etc.
GBond 11y ago
Techies are generally idealist and strongly opinionated about stuff they think they know best.

by mbesto 11y ago

willtheperson 11y ago

"I chose X so to validate my choice I will tell you why Z is the worst!" It happens everywhere. Some get more caught up in it (Video Game console, iPhone / Galaxy, etc.). Marketing tries to play into this a bit for free promotion. Make you feel intelligent for choosing them and you're part of a club so you'll spread their gospel.

epa 11y ago

The tech generation grew up in a 'free' culture of internet: illegal downloads, open source, pro bono collaboration. Paying for something that is equally equivalent to something that was free for decades usually is a tough sell. This doesnt apply to all people.

lemevi 11y ago
This probably also explains why it's so hard to find a good editor. So many devs are totally unwilling to pay a decent amount for anything. Maybe the exception being hosting. Outside of hosting a server and dns and an SSL cert, it's hard to get engineers making 6 figures to spend more than $50 on a tool they use every day of their working life. Intellij recently switched to a new plan that adds up to like $15 to $10 a month for all their awesome (but very specialized) IDEs and people are going nuts over how much that is. It's nothing. But devs want to pay for very little. So we get shitty tools. Like vim[1] or atom[2]. Thanks I guess. Seriously can I have a generic text editor that's as good at editing as IntelliJ is at Java? [1] http://geoff.greer.fm/vim/ http://geoff.greer.fm/vim/ [2] https://news.floobits.com/2015/10/14/developing-atom-plugins-so-much-potential-so-many-bugs/ https://news.floobits.com/2015/10/14/developing-atom-plugins...
- douche 11y ago
  ReSharper has been worth every penny that I've given them over the years for upgrades. Seriously, it amounts to one or two days' worth of salary for a software engineer. The break-even point is extremely low.
- pyre 11y ago
  > it's hard to get engineers making 6 figures to spend more than $50 on a tool they use every day of their working life. On the flip-side, why invest all of your time become accustomed (possibly married) to an ecosystem that is beholden to someone else? Just because you spend $100 on VisualStudio doesn't mean that MS will take your input to heart when some manager "on high" decides to change direction with the product.
  - spyder 11y ago
    Depends on what are the alternatives: if there is an open alternative with the same features for free then sure use it, but if there is no alternative with the features you need then you have to invest your time/money to build that feature and very likely it's more time/money than to buy and learn an ecosystem.
    - pyre 11y ago
      If developers are currently using the OpenSource solutions, then they probably work for those people. Who are "you" to question what works for them and what features are a priority to them? Many developers pay for close-source editors and IDEs, and the companies that support/develop them aren't necessarily going under. Heck BBEdit is still around despite falling out of favour as the de facto MacOS editor years ago. Just within the Python ecosystem there are 2 or 3 IDEs that cater to Python developers despite the number of Python developers that prefer Vi(m) or Emacs. The idea that developers don't or won't pay for an editor or that the OpenSource/Free alternatives are the equivalent of developers coding in Notepad on Windows just for save a few bucks is a false premise.
- paublyrne 11y ago
  I disliked the IntelliJ move because I have a preference for owning over renting. Possibly because I grew up in a country with a preference for owning property and seeing rent as dead money, or because I grew up buying and collecting CDs and putting them into alphabetical order. In this case, I am happy to pay for RubyMine. And happy to pay a little more if I want to update to the latest version. But I don't like the idea of only being able to use it this month as long as I've paid the rent.

frenchie4111 11y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...

rekoros 11y ago

Well, in the case of Rdio vs Spotify, Rdio is way better, UI-wise. But that has nothing to do with our 15-y-o — she grew up with Rdio and it's the only streaming music service she's ever known.

michaelchisari 11y ago

It all goes back to Emacs vs VI.

witten 11y ago

As a dev, if you are tool-agnostic, then you're also productivity-agnostic.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

You have to keep in mind that this is a kind of game. Almost no one truly, really hates the other product. People don't get into fistfights over Vim vs. Emacs. It's just a community joke. So for instance I'm in the IRC camp of group communication, and I'll go to great length to use it over Slack, but if you really need me to use Slack and it makes sense, then I'll use Slack. But I will be doing cynical jokes so that you won't forget I'm in the other camp :P.

rtpg 11y ago
>People don't get into fistfights over Vim vs. Emacs. It's just a community joke. Unfortunately, this can get out of hand, see systemd death threats. Hope people will learn to be nicer on the internet now that the general population is on it.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  That's not a product rivalry, that's a deeper upset with how systemd is handling things. Nobody thinks vim is trying to take over the editor space.
  - EwanToo 11y ago
    But I would hope you'd still think that death threats over it are utterly ridiculous, and unacceptable?
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      Yes.
paublyrne 11y ago
People do get into fistfights over sporting rivalries, though, not to mention religious ones.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago

junto 11y ago

It is basic human nature to polarise into distinct communities and take sides. Look at football teams. They wear different colours, have minor differences in ethoses but both play more or less the same game of football. Slack versus IRC is the same concept.

snarfy 11y ago

Tribalism is human nature. It's not rational. In a tribe, being rejected is pretty much a death sentence, so I can see why humans have a strong motivation to be in one. It turns irrational when that tribe is coke vs pepsi, xbox vs playstation, vim vs emacs, etc.

GBond 11y ago

Techies are generally idealist and strongly opinionated about stuff they think they know best.