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Respectfully, fuck this attitude. Trying to recreate something each of us uses every day and make it delightful is a completely worthy goal. To say that a “key

Respectfully, fuck this attitude. Trying to recreate something each of us uses every day and make it delightful is a completely worthy goal. To say that a “keyless lock” isn’t a new user experience makes zero sense whatsoever - it’s a new UX by definition. The fact that it wouldn’t stop a SWAT team from breaking the door down is beside the point - they never claimed it would, and that wasn’t the goal. Why is their passion for building great locks any more silly than the passion each of us has? They took a stab at it and it didn’t work out, and that’s too bad, especially since it seems to have been for business reasons as much as product reasons. It’s ok to say it shouldn’t have worked out because it’s fundamentally flawed. But to cheer and mock the demise of a project a lot of people were passionate about, one that was dedicated to making a great anything, seems to me to be the antithesis of what a community of hackers and makers should be for.

_aarti 9y ago
Agreed!. They took a chance on hardware Look at all the companies building the same old SAAS products doing the same old stuff and getting tons of investment.
exergy 9y ago
Irreverently, fuck this attitude instead. Silicon valley is chock full of know-nothing delusionals who love the smell of their own farts a little too much. People who're convinced that their idiotic pilgrimage towards delivering a "magical" "experience", while completely divested from common sense and lacking any semblance of an answer to "but why?", will nevertheless change the world and "delight" users. Fuck all of it. Here's what this genius has to say: "...the software team challenged themselves to complete the full user experience so that our customers would fall in love with the way they engaged the product and actually experience joy as they used it." Huh? Whatever. Let's put a chip in it. I've never EVER had an interaction with a motherfucking lock where the lock was even the subject of my consideration, let alone worthy of delighting me. Usually when I'm unlocking shit, I'm focussed on what lies beyond the lock. There really IS such a thing as solving the wrong problem. I'd say all the engineers who joined this foolhardy project deserved what came their way, but unfortunately most of them were probably young engineers desperate for experience or a chance to work at a "startup". This fucking internet of shit trend cannot fucking die soon enough.
- austenallred 9y ago
  > Silicon valley is chock full of know-nothing delusionals who love the smell of their own farts a little too much. And Hacker News is full of people who lob bombs at everyone who tries and fails because it makes them feel superior for never having tried, all the while vastly underestimating the difficulty of building something meaningful. Most efforts at building something great fail, so it’s easy to shit on everything and be right 90% of the time and think you’re a genius. The thing that makes Silicon Valley work is that the times when you’re are what really matter. If you say Facebook is overvalued at $3 Billion (as most of HN agreed) you could easily be wrong not just 1x, but 100x. The world would be much better off with more people trying and failing while using hyperbolic language than having more trolls throwing parties on their graves. There’s absolutely no shortage of the latter.
  - exergy 9y ago
    [Removed pointless ranting]
    - dang 9y ago
      I'm glad you work at CERN as an engineer. I work at Hacker News as a moderator. Really, please don't "do this". You're doing more damage to this site, which is trying against steep odds to be a place for thoughtful conversation, than even 100% rightness of your points could justify. I assume you benefit from Hacker News, since you're a user here and a welcome one. But if you're benefitting from it, please take care of it, the same way you wouldn't litter in a city park or set fire to one. If you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html you'll get an idea of the intended spirit of the site. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do; assume good faith, and please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
      - exergy 9y ago
siddharthdeswal 9y ago
I want to point out that they weren't necessarily building a great lock. The "great product" bit seems to be the usual consumer startup rhetoric by the CEO, which many people fell for. I can confidently say that it is marketing rhetoric because a similar example already exists in the world: car locks. I still drive a car where you have to manually insert the key and turn it to open the door. I've also driven cars where the locks are remote controlled. I've also seen cars where you press your thumb to the lock to unlock it. There's nothing "great" about any of the above after the first two or three uses.
mikeash 9y ago
I’m all for reinventing the wheel to make it better. It rarely works out, but when it does it’s well worth it. But if you can’t even describe what makes your wheel better, what are the odds it’s actually better?
angel_j 9y ago
To your three points: 0. We could all delightfully try to innovate all day without millions of wasted funding and a guy spewing garbage like every day that for a boss, filling our heads with propaganda. Also, does a lock need to be delightful? Did you not read they wanted you do be addicted to using their lock???? 1. What's the difference? How about money, ego, and industry. we all get to have passions, but do they all deserve millions in funding? 2. Uh, what community is that? One of those "global" communities? I'm a hacker and maker, but I certainly don't feel like i'm a member of any such community. I'm not here to pat on the back the privileged failure of people I don't know, just cuz they are by some loose definition "makers" or hackers. Like, hackers do things with ingenuity and curiosity, not $50M. And I am mocking that project from the top-down, starting with the manic CEO who wrote that crap; so, it only trickles down to the hard working people who were conned into giving passion and time to the endeavor, but at least they got paid for being hoodwinked into believing they were "changing the world"... with a lock.

_aarti 9y ago

Agreed!. They took a chance on hardware Look at all the companies building the same old SAAS products doing the same old stuff and getting tons of investment.

exergy 9y ago

Irreverently, fuck this attitude instead. Silicon valley is chock full of know-nothing delusionals who love the smell of their own farts a little too much. People who're convinced that their idiotic pilgrimage towards delivering a "magical" "experience", while completely divested from common sense and lacking any semblance of an answer to "but why?", will nevertheless change the world and "delight" users. Fuck all of it. Here's what this genius has to say: "...the software team challenged themselves to complete the full user experience so that our customers would fall in love with the way they engaged the product and actually experience joy as they used it." Huh? Whatever. Let's put a chip in it. I've never EVER had an interaction with a motherfucking lock where the lock was even the subject of my consideration, let alone worthy of delighting me. Usually when I'm unlocking shit, I'm focussed on what lies beyond the lock. There really IS such a thing as solving the wrong problem. I'd say all the engineers who joined this foolhardy project deserved what came their way, but unfortunately most of them were probably young engineers desperate for experience or a chance to work at a "startup". This fucking internet of shit trend cannot fucking die soon enough.

austenallred 9y ago
> Silicon valley is chock full of know-nothing delusionals who love the smell of their own farts a little too much. And Hacker News is full of people who lob bombs at everyone who tries and fails because it makes them feel superior for never having tried, all the while vastly underestimating the difficulty of building something meaningful. Most efforts at building something great fail, so it’s easy to shit on everything and be right 90% of the time and think you’re a genius. The thing that makes Silicon Valley work is that the times when you’re are what really matter. If you say Facebook is overvalued at $3 Billion (as most of HN agreed) you could easily be wrong not just 1x, but 100x. The world would be much better off with more people trying and failing while using hyperbolic language than having more trolls throwing parties on their graves. There’s absolutely no shortage of the latter.
- exergy 9y ago
  [Removed pointless ranting]
  - dang 9y ago
    I'm glad you work at CERN as an engineer. I work at Hacker News as a moderator. Really, please don't "do this". You're doing more damage to this site, which is trying against steep odds to be a place for thoughtful conversation, than even 100% rightness of your points could justify. I assume you benefit from Hacker News, since you're a user here and a welcome one. But if you're benefitting from it, please take care of it, the same way you wouldn't litter in a city park or set fire to one. If you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html you'll get an idea of the intended spirit of the site. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do; assume good faith, and please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
    - exergy 9y ago

siddharthdeswal 9y ago

I want to point out that they weren't necessarily building a great lock. The "great product" bit seems to be the usual consumer startup rhetoric by the CEO, which many people fell for. I can confidently say that it is marketing rhetoric because a similar example already exists in the world: car locks. I still drive a car where you have to manually insert the key and turn it to open the door. I've also driven cars where the locks are remote controlled. I've also seen cars where you press your thumb to the lock to unlock it. There's nothing "great" about any of the above after the first two or three uses.

mikeash 9y ago

I’m all for reinventing the wheel to make it better. It rarely works out, but when it does it’s well worth it. But if you can’t even describe what makes your wheel better, what are the odds it’s actually better?

angel_j 9y ago

To your three points: 0. We could all delightfully try to innovate all day without millions of wasted funding and a guy spewing garbage like every day that for a boss, filling our heads with propaganda. Also, does a lock need to be delightful? Did you not read they wanted you do be addicted to using their lock???? 1. What's the difference? How about money, ego, and industry. we all get to have passions, but do they all deserve millions in funding? 2. Uh, what community is that? One of those "global" communities? I'm a hacker and maker, but I certainly don't feel like i'm a member of any such community. I'm not here to pat on the back the privileged failure of people I don't know, just cuz they are by some loose definition "makers" or hackers. Like, hackers do things with ingenuity and curiosity, not $50M. And I am mocking that project from the top-down, starting with the manic CEO who wrote that crap; so, it only trickles down to the hard working people who were conned into giving passion and time to the endeavor, but at least they got paid for being hoodwinked into believing they were "changing the world"... with a lock.