As someone in his forties who was born here and has lived all of his life here, I have an answer for you, but of course, it's just the opinion of one person. T

As someone in his forties who was born here and has lived all of his life here, I have an answer for you, but of course, it's just the opinion of one person. There is wonderful terminal an email client called 'mutt' with an interesting motto, "All email clients suck, but mutt sucks less." This, of course is an adaptation and adoption of a very old programming adage, "All software sucks, but some software sucks less." Some consider it a pessimistic saying, and others consider it a realistic saying. If you prefer a more positive restatement, "All software can be improved, but some software needs less improvement," might be a fair corollary. Amongst technical people, specifically programmers, the above should show you the underlying reason for the criticism; their first thought is how to improve things. The look for the rough spots in implementation, presentation, and of course, usefulness. Sadly, many are willing to enter a debate of opinion rather than do a fair analysis with real data for supporting evidence. In quick paced communication, remembering to also be positive when looking for ways to improve something is often forgotten. You can see it all the time on HN and other text based communication mediums, but it also happens verbally in person. One poorly phrased statement, and the discussion escalates. If you prefer to look at this positively, consider the criticisms to be bug reports. Sure, bug reports are "bad news" but it is far better to know about a problem than to not know about it. Your latter two points are identical; both are due to others not being impressed, or more succinctly, not being supportive or excited. When people are inundated with new tech every day as well as inundated with marketing and advertising about new tech, people learn to ignore it. You probably ignore banner advertisements, and probably ignore the text advertisements on the right side of your Google results. The more of it you see, the more you learn to ignore it. The people in the Bay Area have seen far more than most, and as a result, they can and do ignore more than most. The more annoyed you become by needing to ignore stuff, the closer you get to wanting to block it completely. If you have the technical acumen to block it, you do block it, and hence the rise of AdBlockPlus, Readability, InstaPaper, ReadItLater, FlipBoard, and countless related bits of software and configuration. Even TiVo is just a different aspect of the same issue of fighting inundation. Spam filter? --Yep, same thing. The things to realize are the trends; more people being annoyed, more people learning to ignore, blocking tech becoming easier to use, more people embracing blocking tech, ... You want my attention... --just like everybody else. If you think about social networks like Facebook on a fundamental level, you can see them for what they really are; an attempt to grab attention. You create an inflated caricature of yourself with the hope of attracting "friends" of some sort; everyone there is trying to grab your attention. Twitter? --Yep, same thing. On top of the real people trying to grab your attention, there are also companies operating on these supposedly "social" platforms trying to grab your attention through paid placements and gamification. Come on and face the facts; you've probably ignored an invitation when your cousin invited you to the birthday party of her three year old kid. You also probably ignored the shared images, wall posts, tweets or whatever else that resulted from said three year old's birthday party. A response of not impressed and not interested is to be expected. You have been conditioned to ignore things, and so has everyone else to one degree or another. The people in the Bay Area are just a bit more conditioned than people in other places. You might run away to Austin or Charlotte, but doing so is simply buying time. It's really just a matter of time until people there are conditioned by the same forces that have conditioned most of the people around here. The interesting question is whether or not impressing people in a non-technical populace is better? Since the bar for impressive is much higher here, you may benefit more by receiving feedback from more discerning and experienced (and critical) people. Preventing annoyance and avoiding apathy may be difficult, but it is not impossible. The humongous secret to being fascinating is simply being fascinated. If you are fascinated, others will find you fascinating. Similarly, if you are excited by your work, others will also find it exciting, and if you are impressed by your work, others will also find it impressive. The toughest truth to accept is, it's a decision. You've decided to be turned off, and hence, you turn off others. You've decided not to be impressed, and hence, others are not impressed. You've decided not to be fascinated, and hence, others don't consider you fascinating. You can change your decisions. I know it might sting a bit since it stung for me when I learned it and it took me some time to accept it. It's not easy, but it is good for you in the long run. I realize you're posting anon with a throw-away account, but my email address is in my profile if you want to contact me.