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I assumed HN community was beyond fashion and opinions like this.

onion2k 10y ago
It was meant as a joke, but your reply is interesting. Why would you assume that the HN community is "beyond fashion" and particular opinions? We're human beings. We have flaws and biases that lead us to make irrational decisions. Some of the things that HN users do are hugely driven by fashion (in the sense of following ideas before they're proven) rather than empirical evidence - entrepreneurship has fads (lean startup, startup canvas, social businesses, moonshots, etc), software development flits from one methodology to another (agile dev, functional dev, etc). They're fashions that are trying to improve things rather than merely looking different, but that doesn't mean they're not fashionable.
Razengan 10y ago
I assume it was a joke. There are definitely things though, that would sully your reputation in any community; for example, using Comic Sans.
Amezarak 10y ago
I know it was a joke, but there actually is something to it. I started using Bing for the rewards program. I would probably use it even without the rewards program, now. The results are approximately as good as Google - when I can't find something and I go to Google, 95% of the time Google isn't giving me good results either. There are some nice little features and I like the look and layout, but fundamentally what really sold it was the rewards program, which I've been turning into Amazon gift cards and using to fill my bookshelves. But every time someone sees me use Bing, or I mention that I use Bing, there's very often some judgement there. Like it or not, people, even people on HN, judge you by the tools you use. The social aspect matters: Google and Apple produce excellent technical products, but they're so popular in part because of social effects. No surprise; humans are fundamentally social animals, none of us are beyond fashion.

It was meant as a joke, but your reply is interesting. Why would you assume that the HN community is "beyond fashion" and particular opinions? We're human beings. We have flaws and biases that lead us to make irrational decisions. Some of the things that HN users do are hugely driven by fashion (in the sense of following ideas before they're proven) rather than empirical evidence - entrepreneurship has fads (lean startup, startup canvas, social businesses, moonshots, etc), software development flits from one methodology to another (agile dev, functional dev, etc). They're fashions that are trying to improve things rather than merely looking different, but that doesn't mean they're not fashionable.

Razengan 10y ago

I assume it was a joke. There are definitely things though, that would sully your reputation in any community; for example, using Comic Sans.

Amezarak 10y ago

I know it was a joke, but there actually is something to it. I started using Bing for the rewards program. I would probably use it even without the rewards program, now. The results are approximately as good as Google - when I can't find something and I go to Google, 95% of the time Google isn't giving me good results either. There are some nice little features and I like the look and layout, but fundamentally what really sold it was the rewards program, which I've been turning into Amazon gift cards and using to fill my bookshelves. But every time someone sees me use Bing, or I mention that I use Bing, there's very often some judgement there. Like it or not, people, even people on HN, judge you by the tools you use. The social aspect matters: Google and Apple produce excellent technical products, but they're so popular in part because of social effects. No surprise; humans are fundamentally social animals, none of us are beyond fashion.