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I think the best lesson is at the time no one called the project out. There were plenty of people who called the project out. Nobody cared, the "story" was to

I think the best lesson is at the time no one called the project out. There were plenty of people who called the project out. Nobody cared, the "story" was too compelling. Here's my favorite quip (I don't remember where I found it) about OLPC: "OLPC is a rich man's idea of what poor men need. It's like donating an expresso machine to a homeless shelter."

aaron695 5y ago
That quip was from 2007, so I will give you that as proof of it being called out early. The TED talk that kinda kicked it off for the public was early 2006, which pre-dates HN - https://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_one_laptop_per_child https://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_one_laptop_per... Early comments are somewhat sceptical on HN. My favourite was something like, what the people in developing countries actually need are radios and cell phones. That was referring to brick phones. Which you might say was an extra lucky comment since smart phones are now so vital in developing countries, but I think the commenter recognised at a base level what mattered. It's not they also knew phones would extra matter in the future, but by recognising a fundamental it progressed with global society. [edit] I will say good coffee at a homeless shelter matters, but agree espresso machines are way to complex and easy to break.