6 ms·

The one that said "Dropbox will never work because I can do the same thing with rsync"

rockbruno 5y ago
My favorite is "What's the point of this product? This is very easy to do today. All you have to do is (insert very complex series of steps and tools)"
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I feel like this is the story of everything that succeeds wildly.
  - whoomp12342 5y ago
    be ware that following this story does not necisarly yield success
hluska 5y ago
I came here to mention that one! It was a really critical moment that helped me realize I will never please 100% of people all the time. As soon as I have that (silly) idea up, I started really creating…
arduinomancer 5y ago
There are lots of comments like that on HN every day. I feel like a lot of them are just people who see something getting praise and need to put it down to make themselves feel better. Seeing other people be clever somehow threatens them.
- Clubber 5y ago
  I think people believe that the technology is what makes a company rather than the customers and overall market. I believed that for a while too. I could build this better than X company and I did, and it sat there doing nothing because I couldn't market / sell / monitize it. There's a hell of a lot to building a company and customer base; the technology is only part of that.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  I think it's more a matter of a lot of HN users living in an echo chamber and not realizing that the extreme majority of the population is non-technical. Good luck guiding grandma through setting up rsync.
thatwasunusual 5y ago
I guess it's this one?[0] For me, as a tech-guy, rsync (or similar) _is_ actually better than Dropbox. :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18255896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18255896
dang 5y ago
That's not what the comment said. It has been unfairly misconstrued. What BrandonM actually said was that he had "a few qualms" about Dropbox's YC application (which is what the word "app" meant back then) - i.e. he was worried on their behalf and wanted it to succeed. He was clearly intending to be helpful. He had a nice exchange with Drew, as anyone can see if they would read the replies (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224). In 2007, the conventional wisdom was that file sync was a solution-in-search-of-a-problem that would never be a successful business because the idea only appealed to technical users. Joel Spolsky famously wrote a blog post mocking technical people who wanted to work on file sync. That's the context in which the comment was posted. That turned out to be totally wrong, but it took the success of Dropbox for everyone to know that (and then forget that anybody ever said otherwise). Brandon's comment ended up getting stranded like a little island in an ocean of hindsight fallacy. It's hopeless, of course, to fight the internet once it has decided on a meme. But it bugs me when unfairness get repeated, especially when someone is being scapegoated, so even though it's hopeless, I still post about it from time to time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28293146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28293146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24366316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24366316
- muzani 5y ago
  While I like the meme, this is the first time I've heard the context, so I appreciate that you wrote this.

My favorite is "What's the point of this product? This is very easy to do today. All you have to do is (insert very complex series of steps and tools)"

Aeolun 5y ago
I feel like this is the story of everything that succeeds wildly.
- whoomp12342 5y ago
  be ware that following this story does not necisarly yield success

hluska 5y ago

I came here to mention that one! It was a really critical moment that helped me realize I will never please 100% of people all the time. As soon as I have that (silly) idea up, I started really creating…

arduinomancer 5y ago

There are lots of comments like that on HN every day. I feel like a lot of them are just people who see something getting praise and need to put it down to make themselves feel better. Seeing other people be clever somehow threatens them.

Clubber 5y ago
I think people believe that the technology is what makes a company rather than the customers and overall market. I believed that for a while too. I could build this better than X company and I did, and it sat there doing nothing because I couldn't market / sell / monitize it. There's a hell of a lot to building a company and customer base; the technology is only part of that.
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
I think it's more a matter of a lot of HN users living in an echo chamber and not realizing that the extreme majority of the population is non-technical. Good luck guiding grandma through setting up rsync.

thatwasunusual 5y ago

I guess it's this one?[0] For me, as a tech-guy, rsync (or similar) _is_ actually better than Dropbox. :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18255896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18255896

dang 5y ago

That's not what the comment said. It has been unfairly misconstrued. What BrandonM actually said was that he had "a few qualms" about Dropbox's YC application (which is what the word "app" meant back then) - i.e. he was worried on their behalf and wanted it to succeed. He was clearly intending to be helpful. He had a nice exchange with Drew, as anyone can see if they would read the replies (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224). In 2007, the conventional wisdom was that file sync was a solution-in-search-of-a-problem that would never be a successful business because the idea only appealed to technical users. Joel Spolsky famously wrote a blog post mocking technical people who wanted to work on file sync. That's the context in which the comment was posted. That turned out to be totally wrong, but it took the success of Dropbox for everyone to know that (and then forget that anybody ever said otherwise). Brandon's comment ended up getting stranded like a little island in an ocean of hindsight fallacy. It's hopeless, of course, to fight the internet once it has decided on a meme. But it bugs me when unfairness get repeated, especially when someone is being scapegoated, so even though it's hopeless, I still post about it from time to time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28293146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28293146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24366316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24366316

muzani 5y ago
While I like the meme, this is the first time I've heard the context, so I appreciate that you wrote this.