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Yes. That matters immensely. This is not just any bubble, but the bubble of the people who drive technology adoption...by writing articles on tech, by having fr
by theonemind 5y ago
Yes. That matters immensely. This is not just any bubble, but the bubble of the people who drive technology adoption...by writing articles on tech, by having friends trust their judgment, and so on. It is a leading indicator, not a lagging one.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoGmail has well over a billion users. The number of people who search with Google is in the multiple billions. The relatively tiny tech community's opinion doesn't matter at all to the general public who just want to accomplish their communication and search tasks. HN isn't even a blip on the radar.
- alexpetralia 5y agoEarly adopters matter early in the adoption curve, not late.
- interestica 5y agoIn two weeks, Google will start counting new photos against users' Gmail/Drive space unless one pays to upgrade. I think it could cause a shift in perception.
- SllX 5y agoGoogle and Gmail adoption was also driven by the same sorts of people that would have been on HN if HN were around back then. Yahoo and MSN/Hotmail used to matter a lot more than they do nowadays.
- majewsky 5y agoThis does not invalidate the original argument: This crowd here is representative of who first adopted GMail and spread the word. Without these early adopters, the other billion users would likely not have followed suit. I cannot comment on the early years of the search engine since I was about 8 years old at the time, but I find it likely that it was similar back in the day.