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My main issue with Product Hunt is that most of the products are so trivial that it almost seems like a parody site. A sample from right now: 'The funniest do

by flashm 11y ago

My main issue with Product Hunt is that most of the products are so trivial that it almost seems like a parody site. A sample from right now: 'The funniest dog name generator ever' 'Fast and easy way of collecting email addresses' 'Finally, an emoji keyboard for the modern desktop' Don't people have more interesting things to do with their time, or try to create more interesting, useful products?

moab 11y ago
Producthunt tends to attract the same sort of 'undergrad CS major with a business minor' types that has contributed to the valley's reputation a status circle-jerk since the 90's. I think producthunt is also the natural result of hackathon culture---a culture where how you dress up a project and sell it matters infinitely more than the technical prowess or understanding that building it took. For anyone in the know---have they fixed their issues regarding product submission? IIRC, they have some weird, draconian rules regarding multiple submissions, so if someone happens to submit your side-project and you weren't really ready for the traffic they just tell you 'too bad' (that is unless you have some well connected VC pulling strings for you).
devindotcom 11y ago
Yeah, it cracks me up nearly every time. I mean, there's definitely a place for little projects like this where a couple people say "man there's gotta be a better way to collect email addresses and put them in a shared doc" and put something together. It's like a novelist writing a little two-page short story - just someone executing an idea. But there are so many, and they're often so overwrought! I guess it's really easy to make a professional-looking landing page for stuff now, but that doesn't excuse the vapid self-hype the items give to themselves: "Hat management will never be the same again." "Prepare to start a new life with this revolutionary alarm app." "You've never experienced productivity unless you've tried these Slack automation scripts." (fake but still representative) So yeah. I've thought about doing a column mocking these things but it would probably just leave me more jaded.
untog 11y ago
Product Hunt's greatest success is being the perfect reflection of the Silicon Valley industry and mindset that surrounds it. Whether you consider this a feature or a bug is a personal judgement. Personally I'm glad it exists because it seems to divert at least some of the vacuous SV sycophancy away from Hacker News.
- mbavio 11y ago
  Your first paragraph deserves to live in a poster.
mbesto 11y ago
And everyone responds with: (these are usually the top comments btw) "great product! awesome team! :)" "Love these guys and the future of work looking so beautiful" "This is awesome" "this is awesome" "Probably one of my favourite teams lately." "this is wonderful. Thank you for this. Can't wait to start contributing, if that ever becomes a possibility." What I'm amazed at is that very few people actually comment on the value/benefits of the product and focus more on the (1) team building it (2) the design/beauty of the landing page (3) a virtual high five. It seems a little...backwards...no?
- romanhn 11y ago
  If vote brigading is the main way for products to make front page (per the original article), then this type of behavior follows logically. Chances are 90% of those commenters did not actually try the product itself.
pavlov 11y ago
To me, the weirdest thing about Product Hunt is the lackluster name. The word "product" mostly makes me think of SKUs and novelty plastic junk. Who really wants to be a "product hunter"? The excitement factor in that would seem to fall somewhere between "discount shopper" and "logistics manager"...
- solveforall 11y ago
  I actually like their name when paired with the cat, which is a "hunter".
clay_to_n 11y ago
Small projects have a higher likelihood of being on the front page since they're quicker to build. You see more of them. There are many large, non-trivial products that rise up and have way more votes than the trivial ones - it just happens less often. Check out some of the collections of most upvoted products over time ranges, for example: https://www.producthunt.com/e/most-upvoted-in-tech https://www.producthunt.com/e/most-upvoted-in-tech

by flashm 11y ago

moab 11y ago

Producthunt tends to attract the same sort of 'undergrad CS major with a business minor' types that has contributed to the valley's reputation a status circle-jerk since the 90's. I think producthunt is also the natural result of hackathon culture---a culture where how you dress up a project and sell it matters infinitely more than the technical prowess or understanding that building it took. For anyone in the know---have they fixed their issues regarding product submission? IIRC, they have some weird, draconian rules regarding multiple submissions, so if someone happens to submit your side-project and you weren't really ready for the traffic they just tell you 'too bad' (that is unless you have some well connected VC pulling strings for you).

devindotcom 11y ago

Yeah, it cracks me up nearly every time. I mean, there's definitely a place for little projects like this where a couple people say "man there's gotta be a better way to collect email addresses and put them in a shared doc" and put something together. It's like a novelist writing a little two-page short story - just someone executing an idea. But there are so many, and they're often so overwrought! I guess it's really easy to make a professional-looking landing page for stuff now, but that doesn't excuse the vapid self-hype the items give to themselves: "Hat management will never be the same again." "Prepare to start a new life with this revolutionary alarm app." "You've never experienced productivity unless you've tried these Slack automation scripts." (fake but still representative) So yeah. I've thought about doing a column mocking these things but it would probably just leave me more jaded.

untog 11y ago

Product Hunt's greatest success is being the perfect reflection of the Silicon Valley industry and mindset that surrounds it. Whether you consider this a feature or a bug is a personal judgement. Personally I'm glad it exists because it seems to divert at least some of the vacuous SV sycophancy away from Hacker News.

mbavio 11y ago
Your first paragraph deserves to live in a poster.

mbesto 11y ago

And everyone responds with: (these are usually the top comments btw) "great product! awesome team! :)" "Love these guys and the future of work looking so beautiful" "This is awesome" "this is awesome" "Probably one of my favourite teams lately." "this is wonderful. Thank you for this. Can't wait to start contributing, if that ever becomes a possibility." What I'm amazed at is that very few people actually comment on the value/benefits of the product and focus more on the (1) team building it (2) the design/beauty of the landing page (3) a virtual high five. It seems a little...backwards...no?

romanhn 11y ago
If vote brigading is the main way for products to make front page (per the original article), then this type of behavior follows logically. Chances are 90% of those commenters did not actually try the product itself.

pavlov 11y ago

To me, the weirdest thing about Product Hunt is the lackluster name. The word "product" mostly makes me think of SKUs and novelty plastic junk. Who really wants to be a "product hunter"? The excitement factor in that would seem to fall somewhere between "discount shopper" and "logistics manager"...

solveforall 11y ago
I actually like their name when paired with the cat, which is a "hunter".

clay_to_n 11y ago

Small projects have a higher likelihood of being on the front page since they're quicker to build. You see more of them. There are many large, non-trivial products that rise up and have way more votes than the trivial ones - it just happens less often. Check out some of the collections of most upvoted products over time ranges, for example: https://www.producthunt.com/e/most-upvoted-in-tech https://www.producthunt.com/e/most-upvoted-in-tech