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Reminds me of the (in?)famous Dropbox comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224. It's one thing to implement

Reminds me of the (in?)famous Dropbox comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224. It's one thing to implement something. It's another thing to implement it in a way that makes other people want to use it.

droopyEyelids 4y ago
That is actually half of an ignorance dichotomy, the other half is the guy who refers to The Dropbox Comment in all situations, as if there are not projects that could be hacked into a product a short period of time.
- Karunamon 4y ago
  Perhaps there are. But I think the one of the many lessons of The Dropbox Comment is that nobody cares about any of these projects until they actually are turned into a product. Many of the ideas behind some very successful services are shockingly simple, in a "I could have built that!" sort of way. But I didn't, they did, and that's why Dropbox printed money.
  - misnome 4y ago
    Nobody? It was a comment, not the consensus of the entire community.
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      It was a comment that demonstrated being out of touch at the end of the day. HN lives in this bubble of tech enthusiasts where people are a lot more forgiving of poor polish and poor UX because they know and care how things work. Outside this bubble, rsync and git and cron are not solutions to syncing your files across devices. Outside this bubble, people just want a solution to the problem, not a box of parts to construct their own solution to the problem from 2nd principles. …Also, people tend to want this inside the bubble too :-)
perardi 4y ago
It’s another thing to implement something that is, in fact, trivial to make, because there are lots and lots of calendar-to-Slack integrations that update your status to show you’re in a meeting. https://slack.com/app-pages/google-calendar https://slack.com/app-pages/google-calendar This is not robust cross-platform syncing of huge files on flaky networks. This is looking for the the word "dog" in your calendar and changing the emoji to a dog.
tiffanyh 4y ago
WhatsApp started out as a "simple status updater". https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/whatsapp-status-guide/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/whatsapp-status-guide/
hbn 4y ago
The difference is the Dropbox comment is expecting every user to reimplement a complicated recreation of the service. The user you replied to is (I assume) suggesting someone else can make a recreation of the service and give it away. i.e. not suggesting everyone hack together their own implementation
denton-scratch 4y ago
Well, you can just push it at users for ten years solid, like they've been doing with Pocket. It strikes me that there's a positive correlation between executive pay, and the user-hostility of the resulting product. Firefox (and derivatives) is my daily driver, but I despise the company that makes it. They made their name by being a lightweight, standards-compliant fast browser. I don't know how the company became such a pile of sh*, but I find it credible that excessive executive pay has more than a little to do with it.
satvikpendem 4y ago
That's nothing, I can just ask ChatGPT to make me a clone instead (last image in this album): https://imgur.com/a/d8LZicq https://imgur.com/a/d8LZicq

droopyEyelids 4y ago

That is actually half of an ignorance dichotomy, the other half is the guy who refers to The Dropbox Comment in all situations, as if there are not projects that could be hacked into a product a short period of time.

Karunamon 4y ago
Perhaps there are. But I think the one of the many lessons of The Dropbox Comment is that nobody cares about any of these projects until they actually are turned into a product. Many of the ideas behind some very successful services are shockingly simple, in a "I could have built that!" sort of way. But I didn't, they did, and that's why Dropbox printed money.
- misnome 4y ago
  Nobody? It was a comment, not the consensus of the entire community.
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    It was a comment that demonstrated being out of touch at the end of the day. HN lives in this bubble of tech enthusiasts where people are a lot more forgiving of poor polish and poor UX because they know and care how things work. Outside this bubble, rsync and git and cron are not solutions to syncing your files across devices. Outside this bubble, people just want a solution to the problem, not a box of parts to construct their own solution to the problem from 2nd principles. …Also, people tend to want this inside the bubble too :-)

perardi 4y ago

It’s another thing to implement something that is, in fact, trivial to make, because there are lots and lots of calendar-to-Slack integrations that update your status to show you’re in a meeting. https://slack.com/app-pages/google-calendar https://slack.com/app-pages/google-calendar This is not robust cross-platform syncing of huge files on flaky networks. This is looking for the the word "dog" in your calendar and changing the emoji to a dog.

tiffanyh 4y ago

WhatsApp started out as a "simple status updater". https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/whatsapp-status-guide/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/whatsapp-status-guide/

hbn 4y ago

The difference is the Dropbox comment is expecting every user to reimplement a complicated recreation of the service. The user you replied to is (I assume) suggesting someone else can make a recreation of the service and give it away. i.e. not suggesting everyone hack together their own implementation

denton-scratch 4y ago

Well, you can just push it at users for ten years solid, like they've been doing with Pocket. It strikes me that there's a positive correlation between executive pay, and the user-hostility of the resulting product. Firefox (and derivatives) is my daily driver, but I despise the company that makes it. They made their name by being a lightweight, standards-compliant fast browser. I don't know how the company became such a pile of sh*, but I find it credible that excessive executive pay has more than a little to do with it.

satvikpendem 4y ago

That's nothing, I can just ask ChatGPT to make me a clone instead (last image in this album): https://imgur.com/a/d8LZicq https://imgur.com/a/d8LZicq