4 ms·

In 1997, I bought a DVD player, and didn't have a VCR. You couldn't rent DVDs at Blockbuster, or indeed anywhere. Most movies weren't available on DVD, so you

In 1997, I bought a DVD player, and didn't have a VCR. You couldn't rent DVDs at Blockbuster, or indeed anywhere. Most movies weren't available on DVD, so you could watch only the few that had made it to the format (and had to purchase them for full price, at that). Being a DVD-only owner was limiting and annoying in a bunch of ways, even though the DVD experience was a lot better than the VCR experience. If in 1997, I had written a blog post about how having just a DVD player kinda sucks, and I want to have a "hybrid" VCR + DVD experience, it wouldn't have been a super hot take -- but at the same time, it would have also been clear that I wasn't saying there's any big problem with DVDs, I was just having normal early adopter problems, and pretty soon they'd all be solved. (By 1999, Blockbuster offered hundreds of DVDs for rental, pretty soon studios were cranking out their entire catalogs on DVD, and not long after that Netflix broke big.) And... that's about where we are with EVs. If you have an EV today, you're an early adopter, and you're going to suffer early adopter pains. In 2-3 years, things'll be better. In five years, they'll be better yet. At some point, EVs will be so normal that only a few EV OGs will be like "man, remember when it was a whole big thing to find a working charger? Haha, wow, that sucked back then."

cs702 3y ago
> If you have an EV today, you're an early adopter, and you're going to suffer early adopter pains. Today, that's true only for non-Tesla EVs. Five years ago, it was true for Tesla too. But not anymore. Speaking from experience as someone who regularly goes on ~300-mile trips on a Tesla EV: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35678905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35678905
Thorentis 3y ago
> and I want to have a "hybrid" VCR + DVD experience To be fair, that's exactly what I had. You could buy these two in one VCR/DVD players that had a cassette reader on one side and a DVD drawer on the other. Super handy for quite a while. Hybrid cars will make sense economically for a while yet in my opinion.
noogle 3y ago
So the article seems to be right - wait with EVs until they improve. Why suffer the pains of an early adopter?
- mkozlows 3y ago
  I think it is absolutely true that people who don't want to be early adopters shouldn't be. At the same time: I had no regrets about being a DVD early adopter, because (hot take incoming) DVDs were in fact better than VHS tapes, and not dealing with VHS's badness was really nice, even if it was also annoying in some ways. Similarly, there are going to be people who are happy being EV early adopters because the (very real) wins of EVs outweigh the early adopter annoyances. "This technology is still relatively new, and if you buy into it, you're going to have some early adopter pains" is a fine message that will help people sort out what they personally want to do, but isn't the same as a blanket "wait until they improve."
  - noogle 3y ago
    It's a different risk: if your novel DVD player did not work, you could just watch something else. If your novel EV doesn't charge, you may be left stranded, miss a flight or fail to reach medical care. Moreover, no government planned to ban VCRs using those early problematic DVD players as a justification.
    - jjav 3y ago
      > It's a different risk: if your novel DVD player did not work, you could just watch something else. Also, you could (and nearly everyone did) add a DVD player to your stack but keep the VCR so you had both. Sure, the same is possible with cars, but gets several orders of magnitude more expensive to have multiple cars so it's not practical for many people.
- tapoxi 3y ago
  As an early adopter, the benefit of less maintenance, home "refueling", and the fact that an EV is more fun to drive offsets the hassle. We've done a few road trips in it, and while road trip charging is annoying (we have a VW ID4, so the CCS network) its still worth dealing with because we enjoy the EV. Personally I think right now EVs are a great second car for almost everyone because you get the benefits of an EV but can fall back to your gasoline car for trips. We're still in the early adopter phase of "primary" car right now, where you need to be aware of the drawbacks.
jjav 3y ago
> even though the DVD experience was a lot better than the VCR experience Remember how with a VHS you could skip all the obnoxious copyright and fbi warnings but with the DVD you were stuck with them? Not all newer is a better experience.
- sasaf5 3y ago
  + no zoning + recording being a basic feature. But hey, with DVD there's no need to rewind!
- TapWaterBandit 3y ago
  Sure but do you also remember having to rewind tapes or do an absurd dance to rewatch or find a specific scene? I was a big watcher of both and there isn't a doubt in my mind that in terms of time wasted with BS, VHS had DVD comfortably beat.

cs702 3y ago

> If you have an EV today, you're an early adopter, and you're going to suffer early adopter pains. Today, that's true only for non-Tesla EVs. Five years ago, it was true for Tesla too. But not anymore. Speaking from experience as someone who regularly goes on ~300-mile trips on a Tesla EV: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35678905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35678905

Thorentis 3y ago

> and I want to have a "hybrid" VCR + DVD experience To be fair, that's exactly what I had. You could buy these two in one VCR/DVD players that had a cassette reader on one side and a DVD drawer on the other. Super handy for quite a while. Hybrid cars will make sense economically for a while yet in my opinion.

noogle 3y ago

So the article seems to be right - wait with EVs until they improve. Why suffer the pains of an early adopter?

mkozlows 3y ago
I think it is absolutely true that people who don't want to be early adopters shouldn't be. At the same time: I had no regrets about being a DVD early adopter, because (hot take incoming) DVDs were in fact better than VHS tapes, and not dealing with VHS's badness was really nice, even if it was also annoying in some ways. Similarly, there are going to be people who are happy being EV early adopters because the (very real) wins of EVs outweigh the early adopter annoyances. "This technology is still relatively new, and if you buy into it, you're going to have some early adopter pains" is a fine message that will help people sort out what they personally want to do, but isn't the same as a blanket "wait until they improve."
- noogle 3y ago
  It's a different risk: if your novel DVD player did not work, you could just watch something else. If your novel EV doesn't charge, you may be left stranded, miss a flight or fail to reach medical care. Moreover, no government planned to ban VCRs using those early problematic DVD players as a justification.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > It's a different risk: if your novel DVD player did not work, you could just watch something else. Also, you could (and nearly everyone did) add a DVD player to your stack but keep the VCR so you had both. Sure, the same is possible with cars, but gets several orders of magnitude more expensive to have multiple cars so it's not practical for many people.
tapoxi 3y ago
As an early adopter, the benefit of less maintenance, home "refueling", and the fact that an EV is more fun to drive offsets the hassle. We've done a few road trips in it, and while road trip charging is annoying (we have a VW ID4, so the CCS network) its still worth dealing with because we enjoy the EV. Personally I think right now EVs are a great second car for almost everyone because you get the benefits of an EV but can fall back to your gasoline car for trips. We're still in the early adopter phase of "primary" car right now, where you need to be aware of the drawbacks.

jjav 3y ago

> even though the DVD experience was a lot better than the VCR experience Remember how with a VHS you could skip all the obnoxious copyright and fbi warnings but with the DVD you were stuck with them? Not all newer is a better experience.

sasaf5 3y ago
+ no zoning + recording being a basic feature. But hey, with DVD there's no need to rewind!
TapWaterBandit 3y ago
Sure but do you also remember having to rewind tapes or do an absurd dance to rewatch or find a specific scene? I was a big watcher of both and there isn't a doubt in my mind that in terms of time wasted with BS, VHS had DVD comfortably beat.