4 ms·

rasppi is a niche product. There will never be mass consumer appeal. Just like how you don't see advertisement for Ergodox keyboards. Even if they spent money

rasppi is a niche product. There will never be mass consumer appeal. Just like how you don't see advertisement for Ergodox keyboards. Even if they spent money on ad campaign, it will likely not move the revenue needle

epicide 4y ago
Maybe we need more products that don't target mass consumer appeal.
- bwb 4y ago
  Why? Can you explain that thought process? i.e. everything should be niche? Like toothpaste for devops engineers who want their teeth to grow in the dark when they are around 2 or more wifi networks?
  - xanaxagoras 4y ago
    I mean, I would buy that.
    - bwb 4y ago
      ah crap, i just raised a 4 million angel round due to your response :)
  - epicide 4y ago
    > i.e. everything should be niche? This is not what I said. My thought process is that I personally would like to see more products with a higher focus on being good for a smaller group of people, rather than cheaper and /or worse but aimed at a huge audience. [0] Focusing on delivering a good product to a smaller audience allows you to have tighter feedback loops and create more useful iterations because of that. You can also usually charge more. Personally, there are a lot of product spaces that I currently prefer or would prefer spending more for higher quality. But I don't always get that option due to the obsession with casting a wide net, as it were. Do I expect this to happen organically? No, market forces seem to heavily incentivize races to the bottom. [0]: NB my use of relative statements and not absolutes. Going from one extreme to the other likely won't produce a net positive.
- version_five 4y ago
  I think it's relatively uncontroversial that advertising is a "strategy" for either low quality, not needed, or undifferentiated offerings, and that when looking at how a company goes to market, there is a choice of putting $ into advertising or into a better product. I generally use advertising as a proxy for inverse utility. It would definitely be better to have more products that targeted being good, as opposed to ones that target influencing people to buy them.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >I think it's relatively uncontroversial that advertising is a "strategy" for either low quality, not needed, or undifferentiated offerings, and that when looking at how a company goes to market, there is a choice of putting $ into advertising or into a better product. You mean like iPhones? Because Apple certainly advertises. I'm not sure your statement applies broadly to automobile advertising either.
- jordache 4y ago
  what does your point got to do with my argument - How the cited example of rasp-pi is not a strong argument for usefulness of ads
  - epicide 4y ago
    I think you and I are in agreement. By not focusing on mass market appeal, raspi isn't reliant on massive (traditional) ad campaigns. I see this as a feature, not a bug.
b112 4y ago
No one advertises on the modern web, to "mass appeal". If they are, they're doing it wrong. Ads are far more targeted than that.
sam0x17 4y ago
- version_five 4y ago
  That got really personal really fast for no reason...
  - sam0x17 4y ago
    So sick of people on this site being dismissive of anything that couldn't become "amazon scale" when they often have no idea what the actual market conditions are for said thing, as demonstrated by their comments and general attitude. The aloofness should go in the opposite direction, if anything.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      It just... doesn't really matter. Not worth getting worked up about.
  - spiderice 4y ago
    For the record, GP edited their original comment without acknowledging it. Originally said something like "You're an idiot if you think Raspberry Pi is a niche product". I only point it out as it is very unfair to ninja edit after you already have a reply.
digitallyfree 4y ago
The Pi is a hobbyist device, so yeah. But something like the Ergodox could definitely become popular if video game streamers used it, if there were displays in computer stores, etc. It's an interesting product but many people (like me) simply haven't heard of it.
tanjtanjtanj 4y ago
Funnily enough I purchased an Ergodox EZ after clicking through an ad for it. I actually see this a lot with "niche" products (audio equipment, home automation, keyboards, etc) where I will have never seen an ad for anything in that product category but once I start going to the hobbyist and store pages for such products I get inundated with ads for one specific offering in that category for a week or two before all of my ads go back to what the usually are.
NateEag 4y ago
I absolutely see ads for the ErgoDox EZ. Granted, I bought one and have put another in the shopping cart multiple times, so they probably have good reason to advertise to me. They know I'm a paying customer who's flirting with paying more.

epicide 4y ago

Maybe we need more products that don't target mass consumer appeal.

bwb 4y ago
Why? Can you explain that thought process? i.e. everything should be niche? Like toothpaste for devops engineers who want their teeth to grow in the dark when they are around 2 or more wifi networks?
- xanaxagoras 4y ago
  I mean, I would buy that.
  - bwb 4y ago
    ah crap, i just raised a 4 million angel round due to your response :)
- epicide 4y ago
  > i.e. everything should be niche? This is not what I said. My thought process is that I personally would like to see more products with a higher focus on being good for a smaller group of people, rather than cheaper and /or worse but aimed at a huge audience. [0] Focusing on delivering a good product to a smaller audience allows you to have tighter feedback loops and create more useful iterations because of that. You can also usually charge more. Personally, there are a lot of product spaces that I currently prefer or would prefer spending more for higher quality. But I don't always get that option due to the obsession with casting a wide net, as it were. Do I expect this to happen organically? No, market forces seem to heavily incentivize races to the bottom. [0]: NB my use of relative statements and not absolutes. Going from one extreme to the other likely won't produce a net positive.
version_five 4y ago
I think it's relatively uncontroversial that advertising is a "strategy" for either low quality, not needed, or undifferentiated offerings, and that when looking at how a company goes to market, there is a choice of putting $ into advertising or into a better product. I generally use advertising as a proxy for inverse utility. It would definitely be better to have more products that targeted being good, as opposed to ones that target influencing people to buy them.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >I think it's relatively uncontroversial that advertising is a "strategy" for either low quality, not needed, or undifferentiated offerings, and that when looking at how a company goes to market, there is a choice of putting $ into advertising or into a better product. You mean like iPhones? Because Apple certainly advertises. I'm not sure your statement applies broadly to automobile advertising either.
jordache 4y ago
what does your point got to do with my argument - How the cited example of rasp-pi is not a strong argument for usefulness of ads
- epicide 4y ago
  I think you and I are in agreement. By not focusing on mass market appeal, raspi isn't reliant on massive (traditional) ad campaigns. I see this as a feature, not a bug.

b112 4y ago

No one advertises on the modern web, to "mass appeal". If they are, they're doing it wrong. Ads are far more targeted than that.

sam0x17 4y ago

version_five 4y ago
That got really personal really fast for no reason...
- sam0x17 4y ago
  So sick of people on this site being dismissive of anything that couldn't become "amazon scale" when they often have no idea what the actual market conditions are for said thing, as demonstrated by their comments and general attitude. The aloofness should go in the opposite direction, if anything.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    It just... doesn't really matter. Not worth getting worked up about.
- spiderice 4y ago
  For the record, GP edited their original comment without acknowledging it. Originally said something like "You're an idiot if you think Raspberry Pi is a niche product". I only point it out as it is very unfair to ninja edit after you already have a reply.

digitallyfree 4y ago

The Pi is a hobbyist device, so yeah. But something like the Ergodox could definitely become popular if video game streamers used it, if there were displays in computer stores, etc. It's an interesting product but many people (like me) simply haven't heard of it.

tanjtanjtanj 4y ago

Funnily enough I purchased an Ergodox EZ after clicking through an ad for it. I actually see this a lot with "niche" products (audio equipment, home automation, keyboards, etc) where I will have never seen an ad for anything in that product category but once I start going to the hobbyist and store pages for such products I get inundated with ads for one specific offering in that category for a week or two before all of my ads go back to what the usually are.

NateEag 4y ago

I absolutely see ads for the ErgoDox EZ. Granted, I bought one and have put another in the shopping cart multiple times, so they probably have good reason to advertise to me. They know I'm a paying customer who's flirting with paying more.