6 ms·

Odds of this company being relevant are nil. If this product ever becomes popular it will be because of a $300 chinese knockoff. However I very much doubt that

Odds of this company being relevant are nil. If this product ever becomes popular it will be because of a $300 chinese knockoff. However I very much doubt that it will be able to overcome the cultural association of sillyness and the aesthetic disaster that is "rolly-sandals with shoes".

alexb_ 4y ago
For everyday use, maybe. For someone whos job requires them to walk along flat surfaces all day, this could be a worthy investment for a company to make.
- RajT88 4y ago
  UPS and similar companies might invest. Companies with big warehouses. I'm skeptical Amazon would.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Companies with big warehouses are already buying cheap regular old bikes for getting around, or even trikes where you can carry stuff on a little truck bed in the back.
RajT88 4y ago
Agree. Especially considering that rollerskates and rollerblades kind of already fulfill this function (just are bulkier, and take more skill to use, but honestly are easy enough to learn) and people don't usually use those for commuting in urban areas. That said, when I lived in Chicago, I used to see a lady who rollerbladed to the office. I am sure you're thinking, "Young techie, jeans & t-shirt", but you'd be wrong. 40's or late 30's, dressed like an exec. Wearing a dress, make-up, string of pearls, with a fancy handbag, nice haircut. I don't think this is a relevant data point (clearly an outlier), I just thought it was awesome and wanted to share.
- zanecodes 4y ago
  From personal experience, Chicago is kind of both the best case and the worst case for rollerblading: it's very flat and has nice wide sidewalks, but the sidewalks and even the streets are pretty rough and require large wheels for a smooth ride. Having a good amount of reasonably well maintained dedicated bike lanes would have made rollerblading to work a lot easier!
  - RajT88 4y ago
    Totally agree. I biked around the streets, and it's tough. Bike lanes are somewhat respected by drivers, and somewhat respected by people parking on the street, which in aggregate makes them not all that well respected... People get creamed on bikes all the time in bike lanes. Pedestrians on the sidewalks and bike paths just don't pay attention to anything other than what is 3-4 feet from them, and are always forcing you to dodge if you have any kind of speed if you're just even jogging. It's more a cultural problem than a city planning problem. Contrast how seriously bike lanes are treated in (say) Munich, which is very seriously.
  - selectodude 4y ago
    Chicago's pavement will always be in difficult shape due to the climate and, more importantly, the incredible amounts of road salt used to keep the roads ice-free. I am seeing more and more e-bikes though, which, since you can keep up with traffic relatively well, allow you ride in the car lane under most circumstances. That's what I do, and if some dickhead really feels the need to pass me when I'm going >25mph, I'll give them a wave at the next light. And probably be shot in the chest one of these days.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      I wonder where the break-even point hits that it becomes cheaper to plumb hot water pipes or electrified heating elements under better-built sidewalks than to resurface every year.
      - 4y ago
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
It might be a viable product industrially, eg pickers working in large warehouses or similar. But it has to be actually better than just a basic Lime style electric scooter.
williamdclt 4y ago
That's expressing a lot of confidence for something that I assume you don't know much about? I've repeatedly looked for this exact product in the past, "wheel-augmented shoes", for my 10-to-30 minutes travels (to the shop, to the public transportation, to a friend's...). So as anecdata, I would absolutely be interested in this: maybe not at $1400 but I'd certainly pay a few hundreds. > cultural association of sillyness and the aesthetic disaster that is "rolly-sandals with shoes". I don't know how many "that's what was said of Airpods" are needed for this argument to die. Actually, I'm much less weirded out by these shoes than I was of airpods, I don't find them silly at all
- occamsrazorwit 4y ago
  It's probably because the aesthetic here is relatively bland, and sandals are an existing form-factor of shoe. Airpods are aggressively sleek and white, and they sit in a weird uncanny valley of accessory and tool. Technically, wired earbuds have the same hanging-stem, but everyone's used to them, so no one notices them. As to the aesthetics, I'm sure people thought the same of all types of bicycles. Penny-farthings used to be the cultural norm, and people still ride less-common forms like small-wheel and recumbent bicycles.
- time_to_smile 4y ago
  > I don't know how many "that's what was said of Airpods" are needed for this argument to die Apple has always been the exception that proves the rule in the types of cases. Very, very few companies are able to create demand rather than merely satisfying it. On top of that only experience with Airpods is as the current gen teenage reality blockers and older people screaming through static about how they must have run theirs through the wash.
tduberne 4y ago
Re looking silly, I am not so sure. Only 10 years ago no one would have expected adults to proudly navigate the city on flashy colored elwctric kick scooters, and yet look at any big (european?) city nowadays. Even investment bankers in tailor-made suits move on those abominations as if it was the next lamborghini. I actually find them quite attractive as a means to access my local train station: easier to take with me than a bike or kick scooter, apparently much safer than rollerblades or skateboard. Just not for that price, but let's give it a few years to see if it takes on.
- croes 4y ago
  Wasn't the selfie stick in a book about useless inventions?
  - pmontra 4y ago
    Not useless but it went extinct in my part of the world. I can't remember when I saw one in Europe. People shot selfies with their arms again. Is it still a thing somewhere else?
    - croes 4y ago
      Found it https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32336808 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32336808 It was in the book of 101 Un-Useless Japanese Inventions.
    - asdff 4y ago
      It's a thing in the U.S. still but a lot of places have banned them. Where you do see the selfie stick sometimes is skiing, but I think they are using an actual gopro product for that mostly.
csharpminor 4y ago
Aesthetic taste and fashion are hard to predict; people said the same thing of Crocs. In fact, many workplaces banned Crocs because they were considered so aesthetically offensive. Crocs, Inc. is up 725% over its lifetime. People are really into weird shoes right now (see pretty much all of sneakerhead culture). I could see this taking off if partnered with the right influencer and offered at about $500-$600. On Chinese knockoffs: yes, this is a danger with nearly any product made today. If they achieve brand prominence then the risk will be mitigated. Their apparent moat seems to be making walking feel natural. This may be temporarily difficult to reverse engineer and give them some lead time.

alexb_ 4y ago

For everyday use, maybe. For someone whos job requires them to walk along flat surfaces all day, this could be a worthy investment for a company to make.

RajT88 4y ago
UPS and similar companies might invest. Companies with big warehouses. I'm skeptical Amazon would.
- asdff 4y ago
  Companies with big warehouses are already buying cheap regular old bikes for getting around, or even trikes where you can carry stuff on a little truck bed in the back.

RajT88 4y ago

Agree. Especially considering that rollerskates and rollerblades kind of already fulfill this function (just are bulkier, and take more skill to use, but honestly are easy enough to learn) and people don't usually use those for commuting in urban areas. That said, when I lived in Chicago, I used to see a lady who rollerbladed to the office. I am sure you're thinking, "Young techie, jeans & t-shirt", but you'd be wrong. 40's or late 30's, dressed like an exec. Wearing a dress, make-up, string of pearls, with a fancy handbag, nice haircut. I don't think this is a relevant data point (clearly an outlier), I just thought it was awesome and wanted to share.

zanecodes 4y ago
From personal experience, Chicago is kind of both the best case and the worst case for rollerblading: it's very flat and has nice wide sidewalks, but the sidewalks and even the streets are pretty rough and require large wheels for a smooth ride. Having a good amount of reasonably well maintained dedicated bike lanes would have made rollerblading to work a lot easier!
- RajT88 4y ago
  Totally agree. I biked around the streets, and it's tough. Bike lanes are somewhat respected by drivers, and somewhat respected by people parking on the street, which in aggregate makes them not all that well respected... People get creamed on bikes all the time in bike lanes. Pedestrians on the sidewalks and bike paths just don't pay attention to anything other than what is 3-4 feet from them, and are always forcing you to dodge if you have any kind of speed if you're just even jogging. It's more a cultural problem than a city planning problem. Contrast how seriously bike lanes are treated in (say) Munich, which is very seriously.
- selectodude 4y ago
  Chicago's pavement will always be in difficult shape due to the climate and, more importantly, the incredible amounts of road salt used to keep the roads ice-free. I am seeing more and more e-bikes though, which, since you can keep up with traffic relatively well, allow you ride in the car lane under most circumstances. That's what I do, and if some dickhead really feels the need to pass me when I'm going >25mph, I'll give them a wave at the next light. And probably be shot in the chest one of these days.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    I wonder where the break-even point hits that it becomes cheaper to plumb hot water pipes or electrified heating elements under better-built sidewalks than to resurface every year.
    - 4y ago

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago

It might be a viable product industrially, eg pickers working in large warehouses or similar. But it has to be actually better than just a basic Lime style electric scooter.

williamdclt 4y ago

That's expressing a lot of confidence for something that I assume you don't know much about? I've repeatedly looked for this exact product in the past, "wheel-augmented shoes", for my 10-to-30 minutes travels (to the shop, to the public transportation, to a friend's...). So as anecdata, I would absolutely be interested in this: maybe not at $1400 but I'd certainly pay a few hundreds. > cultural association of sillyness and the aesthetic disaster that is "rolly-sandals with shoes". I don't know how many "that's what was said of Airpods" are needed for this argument to die. Actually, I'm much less weirded out by these shoes than I was of airpods, I don't find them silly at all

occamsrazorwit 4y ago
It's probably because the aesthetic here is relatively bland, and sandals are an existing form-factor of shoe. Airpods are aggressively sleek and white, and they sit in a weird uncanny valley of accessory and tool. Technically, wired earbuds have the same hanging-stem, but everyone's used to them, so no one notices them. As to the aesthetics, I'm sure people thought the same of all types of bicycles. Penny-farthings used to be the cultural norm, and people still ride less-common forms like small-wheel and recumbent bicycles.
time_to_smile 4y ago
> I don't know how many "that's what was said of Airpods" are needed for this argument to die Apple has always been the exception that proves the rule in the types of cases. Very, very few companies are able to create demand rather than merely satisfying it. On top of that only experience with Airpods is as the current gen teenage reality blockers and older people screaming through static about how they must have run theirs through the wash.

tduberne 4y ago

Re looking silly, I am not so sure. Only 10 years ago no one would have expected adults to proudly navigate the city on flashy colored elwctric kick scooters, and yet look at any big (european?) city nowadays. Even investment bankers in tailor-made suits move on those abominations as if it was the next lamborghini. I actually find them quite attractive as a means to access my local train station: easier to take with me than a bike or kick scooter, apparently much safer than rollerblades or skateboard. Just not for that price, but let's give it a few years to see if it takes on.

croes 4y ago
Wasn't the selfie stick in a book about useless inventions?
- pmontra 4y ago
  Not useless but it went extinct in my part of the world. I can't remember when I saw one in Europe. People shot selfies with their arms again. Is it still a thing somewhere else?
  - croes 4y ago
    Found it https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32336808 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32336808 It was in the book of 101 Un-Useless Japanese Inventions.
  - asdff 4y ago
    It's a thing in the U.S. still but a lot of places have banned them. Where you do see the selfie stick sometimes is skiing, but I think they are using an actual gopro product for that mostly.

csharpminor 4y ago

Aesthetic taste and fashion are hard to predict; people said the same thing of Crocs. In fact, many workplaces banned Crocs because they were considered so aesthetically offensive. Crocs, Inc. is up 725% over its lifetime. People are really into weird shoes right now (see pretty much all of sneakerhead culture). I could see this taking off if partnered with the right influencer and offered at about $500-$600. On Chinese knockoffs: yes, this is a danger with nearly any product made today. If they achieve brand prominence then the risk will be mitigated. Their apparent moat seems to be making walking feel natural. This may be temporarily difficult to reverse engineer and give them some lead time.