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> Yes, the iOS app has more downloads, and it got there in only a few weeks. But if the iOS market were so much larger than the Mac market, you’d have expected

by larrik 7y ago

> Yes, the iOS app has more downloads, and it got there in only a few weeks. But if the iOS market were so much larger than the Mac market, you’d have expected this to happen within a day or two of launch day. Based on what logic? Everything about this article feels like it's based on vague and incorrect assumptions.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I feel like being on Hacker News sometimes warps the context of a personal blog post. If I put out a tweet that said "Huh, my app got about the same number of downloads on iOS and Mac, I think the market's about the same for certain types of apps" would you say my tweet is full of vagaries and incorrect assumptions?
- throwqwerty 7y ago
  the difference between your hypothetical tweet and this article is that humble qualifier "I think". what I've seen hn (and startup culture in general) distort is people's confidence in their own opinions. this is probably because it is repeated ad nauseum that you cannot start a successful startup without being an iconoclastic innovator. what isn't repeated ad nauseum is that you should save that kind of arrogance for your vc pitch rather than take it on as a mantle.
  - addicted44 7y ago
    One of the first things I learnt in English 101 is that "I think" is redundant. Your writing something automatically implies that it's what you think. Unless you explicitly say something is a "fact" or quote a 3rd party.
    - kranner 7y ago
      It is not always redundant. It can be used to politely signal that you may be wrong about something you are asserting, even when you are sure about it and everyone knows you are sure. This is especially helpful when you have visible authority over the other parties in the discussion.
    - frosted-flakes 7y ago
      "I think" is not always redundant. It serves the same purpose as "in my opinion" or "I'm pretty sure", which is to temper the confidence of the statement or indicate an unverified intuition. Example: "Hey, where's the emergency toilet paper supply?" "I think it's in the cupboard under the stairs." I think (but am not sure!) that this use of "I think" is intuitively obvious to most native English speakers, especially when paired with voice tone. Obviously, if you're sure that a statement is true, then adding "I think" only weakens your point. Unskilled writers might not know to avoid it in (say) an essay, which may be why you heard that advice in school.
    - throwqwerty 7y ago
      i meant exactly what i said: it's a humble qualifier . "I think" functions as an admission of fallibility. it transforms a certain claim into a proposition subject to change. its purpose is rhetorical rather than formal.
      - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        Quoting the linked article: "I've thought for a long time that, for some types of apps, a Mac app would do as well as an iOS app." Isn't it pretty clear that when he's asserting that the relative downloads of NetNewsWire for iOS vs. macOS "confirms" that thought, he's (a) describing that as his thought, rather than trumpeting it as an immutable fact, and (b) both admitting that this is just one piece of data ("admittedly just one app") and confining even his hypothesis to "some types of apps"? tl;dr: I get what you're saying, but I think you're giving too ungenerous a reading in this specific case.
    - eindiran 7y ago
      Linguists call "I think" when used this way a "stance marker"[0]. It's definitely not redundant: it reveals pragmatic information[1] about the context you're speaking in, namely by tempering your stance and revealing your level of confidence in the statement you're making. See this for example: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SC59wwEkK64tvQsDb9hC/full https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SC59wwEkK64tvQsDb9hC/full [0] Here, "stance" means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stance_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stance_(linguistics) [1] For more info, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics
    - chirau 7y ago
      Then let's hope you did not end at 101 Q: What's the best phone out there buddy? A1: The iPhone Super Max A2: I think it is Samsung S20, but there are several options out there A3: I think it is the iPhone Super Max, though i agree, there are plenty of competing options around. -- "I think" is very important in establishing/shaping context and clarifying the source of the opinion you are referring to.
    - runawaybottle 7y ago
      I was taught this too, but it was more of a guideline for students who got away with writing basically substandard essays in high school. It was like having to teach Javascript the Good Parts to kids that just started every sentence in a paragraph with ‘I think that ...’.
- pvg 7y ago
  sometimes warps the context of a personal blog post That's true but those blog posts end up making poor HN posts. This one is very short, contains a little bit of data and would not have been hn-noticed other than for the deliberately provocative title which then becomes the central topic of the HN discussion. People familiar with the author/blog don't have any trouble recognizing their chain is being playfully tugged; on HN it's just a bombastic one-liner sitting on the front page, demanding rebuttal. A lot of tweets that are perfectly fine tweets make bad HN posts for similar reasons.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    I’ve had my personal blog be linked on HN without my knowledge and the comments damn near made me stop writing altogether. Everyone assumed I wrote the post for them to read it, when in reality I just wrote it for myself and someone else submitted it.

by larrik 7y ago

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

I feel like being on Hacker News sometimes warps the context of a personal blog post. If I put out a tweet that said "Huh, my app got about the same number of downloads on iOS and Mac, I think the market's about the same for certain types of apps" would you say my tweet is full of vagaries and incorrect assumptions?

throwqwerty 7y ago
the difference between your hypothetical tweet and this article is that humble qualifier "I think". what I've seen hn (and startup culture in general) distort is people's confidence in their own opinions. this is probably because it is repeated ad nauseum that you cannot start a successful startup without being an iconoclastic innovator. what isn't repeated ad nauseum is that you should save that kind of arrogance for your vc pitch rather than take it on as a mantle.
- addicted44 7y ago
  One of the first things I learnt in English 101 is that "I think" is redundant. Your writing something automatically implies that it's what you think. Unless you explicitly say something is a "fact" or quote a 3rd party.
  - kranner 7y ago
    It is not always redundant. It can be used to politely signal that you may be wrong about something you are asserting, even when you are sure about it and everyone knows you are sure. This is especially helpful when you have visible authority over the other parties in the discussion.
  - frosted-flakes 7y ago
    "I think" is not always redundant. It serves the same purpose as "in my opinion" or "I'm pretty sure", which is to temper the confidence of the statement or indicate an unverified intuition. Example: "Hey, where's the emergency toilet paper supply?" "I think it's in the cupboard under the stairs." I think (but am not sure!) that this use of "I think" is intuitively obvious to most native English speakers, especially when paired with voice tone. Obviously, if you're sure that a statement is true, then adding "I think" only weakens your point. Unskilled writers might not know to avoid it in (say) an essay, which may be why you heard that advice in school.
  - throwqwerty 7y ago
    i meant exactly what i said: it's a humble qualifier . "I think" functions as an admission of fallibility. it transforms a certain claim into a proposition subject to change. its purpose is rhetorical rather than formal.
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      Quoting the linked article: "I've thought for a long time that, for some types of apps, a Mac app would do as well as an iOS app." Isn't it pretty clear that when he's asserting that the relative downloads of NetNewsWire for iOS vs. macOS "confirms" that thought, he's (a) describing that as his thought, rather than trumpeting it as an immutable fact, and (b) both admitting that this is just one piece of data ("admittedly just one app") and confining even his hypothesis to "some types of apps"? tl;dr: I get what you're saying, but I think you're giving too ungenerous a reading in this specific case.
  - eindiran 7y ago
    Linguists call "I think" when used this way a "stance marker"[0]. It's definitely not redundant: it reveals pragmatic information[1] about the context you're speaking in, namely by tempering your stance and revealing your level of confidence in the statement you're making. See this for example: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SC59wwEkK64tvQsDb9hC/full https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SC59wwEkK64tvQsDb9hC/full [0] Here, "stance" means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stance_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stance_(linguistics) [1] For more info, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics
  - chirau 7y ago
    Then let's hope you did not end at 101 Q: What's the best phone out there buddy? A1: The iPhone Super Max A2: I think it is Samsung S20, but there are several options out there A3: I think it is the iPhone Super Max, though i agree, there are plenty of competing options around. -- "I think" is very important in establishing/shaping context and clarifying the source of the opinion you are referring to.
  - runawaybottle 7y ago
    I was taught this too, but it was more of a guideline for students who got away with writing basically substandard essays in high school. It was like having to teach Javascript the Good Parts to kids that just started every sentence in a paragraph with ‘I think that ...’.
pvg 7y ago
sometimes warps the context of a personal blog post That's true but those blog posts end up making poor HN posts. This one is very short, contains a little bit of data and would not have been hn-noticed other than for the deliberately provocative title which then becomes the central topic of the HN discussion. People familiar with the author/blog don't have any trouble recognizing their chain is being playfully tugged; on HN it's just a bombastic one-liner sitting on the front page, demanding rebuttal. A lot of tweets that are perfectly fine tweets make bad HN posts for similar reasons.
- freehunter 7y ago
  I’ve had my personal blog be linked on HN without my knowledge and the comments damn near made me stop writing altogether. Everyone assumed I wrote the post for them to read it, when in reality I just wrote it for myself and someone else submitted it.