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I worked in a big box electronics retail store in the early 2010s. Most customers were reasonably trusting which as someone not looking to screw them over made
by tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
I worked in a big box electronics retail store in the early 2010s. Most customers were reasonably trusting which as someone not looking to screw them over made for quite a pleasant job. Perhaps the worst type of customer, was the vaguely ‘informed’ know it all ‘nerd’. Around this time, the “don’t buy the expensive gold-plated HDMI cable” movement was in full swing, but it was also about this time that different types of HDMI cables were starting to matter for (higher-end) prosumer setups.
Trying to convince some abrasive knowitall that our $15 home brand HDMI cable is going to be the bottleneck in their setup, and that it was basically orthogonal to any ‘good plated’ BS, was almost always not worth it. Eventually I learned to just let them make their own mistakes, dooming them to slink off to Amazon or whatever when they weren’t getting the resolution or frame rate they were after and eventually happened upon the CNET article that made them see the light.
The fact that there is an objective functional difference between different types of HDMI cables, whereas the jury is still out on blue blocker glasses, is pretty much irrelevant to my point. Any ‘science says…’ rhetoric is almost always parroted by people that don’t know what they’re talking about. At the end of the day, self-described ‘informed consumers’ LOVE feeling like they’ve got The Knowledge that’s going to give them a leg up on the slimy salesperson. A fair bit of the time though, the fact that the majority of these people aren’t actually all that knowledgeable means that these pearls of wisdom get corrupted over time and end up being entirely untrue. I’ve got no doubt that plenty of Hacker News regulars are the sorts of people that were incredibly hard to work with back then.
- hderms 3y agoWell, engineers are kind of the archetypal model of the "but ackshually..." guy, so I'd venture to say you're right. I used to be more bold in my pronouncements when I was younger, now I think I like to repeat stuff I've heard like "interesting, I had heard that X was a factor with this, do you know if that's true or not?" In these situations. Having some intellectual humility and actively seeking opinions of people who might be more informed goes a long way.
- veb 3y agoThis also works in _so many different work environments too_! I like how you term it "intellectual humility" but I wonder if "professional intellectual humility" is more suited.
- hderms 3y agoYeah it's considerably more harmful in professional environments, imo. I forgot to mention in my initial comment that I feel like people underestimate how effective it is to drop the pretense that you already know enough about what's being discussed to learn more, and how 'disarming' it is to people to be asked instead of told. Disarming in a sense that they will usually be inclined to react in a magnanimous way, instead of possibly adopting some other frictional communication pattern. It really just makes everything easier if you actively try to leave your ego at the door.
- dpio 3y agoWell, actually you forgot the “not really” guys too!
- hderms 3y agoyes, there are so many frustrating communication archetypes I feel like there should be a compendium/dictionary of them. Unfortunately, most of them seem ego-driven, so it takes a lot typically for people to grow out of them.
- calimariae 3y agoWait, gold-plated cables aren't bullshit?
- ilyt 3y agoI think what he meant was that the only higher-speed rated cables they had also happened to be gold plated, which triggered the know-it-all consumers
- horsawlarway 3y agoAnd frankly - the know-it-all customers are still right... In the large majority of use-cases, the cheap cable is going to do fine. In the small minority of cases it won't... choosing to buy the newer spec cable from a company that's promoting obvious bullshit (like gold contacts) just screams "I'm getting scammed". If the only version of the new spec HDMI cable you carry is a needlessly upmarket and expensive version of the cable... assume they're slinking off to amazon for good reason... to go buy the cheap version of the right spec cable online.
- LeifCarrotson 3y agoHDMI has several versions with compatible connectors. Later versions of the spec use some previously-unused pins, if you buy a cable without those wires connected (pre-1.4) you won't get Ethernet over HDMI or the audio return channel. Also, just like Cat 3 phone cable, Cat 5/5e/6 optionally-shielded Ethernet cables, the data lines can be designed for different clock rates. An ancient cable wired into the walls of your early-2000s home theater may legitimately not support your new 4k HDR gear.
- ilyt 3y agoOh man you'd hate trying to sell customer an USB-C cable then.
- Chris2048 3y agoAre electronics store salespeople not also "vaguely informed"?
- gregmac 3y agoI didn't realize there was anyone that thought the box store $15 cables were actually good-enough? My understanding of them was (and assume still is) they sold two classes of cable: high-spec, brand-name "gold-plated", and dogshit-quality maybe just meets minimum-spec garbage. Both were way overpriced (aka: high-margin), and this is the entire business model: sell the TV at razor-thin margin, then make all the profit on over-priced cables. Their $15 cable should really be $2, if that. Their $150 alternative should actually be maybe $30. Elsewhere you could pay $15-20 to get a high-end cable that was somewhere between 90 and 110% the quality. This is what I told to my friends/family. I've definitely had people try to sell me cables but I've just politely declined and can't recall anyone being pushy about it. And you must admit the "gold plated" thing was insane for a while. At the time when toslink was the rage, you could buy gold-plated fiber-optic cables. I also remember seeing an in-store display comparing cables their high-end HDMI cable to an alternative.. which of course was maybe-24awg dogshit composite cable. It's just so sleazy.
- ivalm 3y agoLess about home vs gold plated more of there are different hdmi spec. HDMI 1.0 doesn’t support 4k@60Hz, HDMI 2 does, while hdmi 2.1 is 4k@240 Hz. The port looks the same. I’m sure a home store branded hdmi 2.1 is ok, just have to make sure the standard is the one you want.
- spotplay 3y agoI just ordered a HDMI 2.1 AOC cable yesterday. Isn't it only 4k@60 without DSC?
- paulmd 3y agoIt depends. HDMI did a USB, and depending on the exact source and sink devices the capabilities may range between what you think of as HDMI 2.1 and “literally the same as 2.0”. The 2.1 standard supersedes the 2.0 standard, hdmi is not issuing any more 2.0 certs, so any device with that capability level is now 2.1 automatically even with no hardware changes. And every feature is optional, from VRR and 10b to hdr brightness and color profiles. Notably M1 macs are only 4K60 HDMI 2.1, but there are many others, not just an apple thing at all. Always check the specific features you care about on your devices!