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> Meanwhile the alternative is mobile apps and an icon on your homescreen, an effect that makes Apple and Google rich for taking a % of the revenue from those a

> Meanwhile the alternative is mobile apps and an icon on your homescreen, an effect that makes Apple and Google rich for taking a % of the revenue from those apps, and one of the largest job programs ever for software engineers. Not to mention that you suffer the same problem in the App Store when you go searching for the Faceboook app. They have to bid for ads against competitors that want to show up when users try to find Facebook in the app store. Though at least it's only the one time and then it's installed, unlike users who don't add .com to their URL bar and search for Facebook every time instead.

jrockway 3y ago
Something I think about a lot is what the world would look like without advertising, i.e., you'd have to make every decision on its merits, and never rely on bought opinions. Like imagine you walk into a grocery store, and every shelf is lined with plain cardboard boxes with the name of the product on it ("chocolate-covered breakfast cereal") and a nutrition label. You walk in and there is nothing other than the merits of the product itself to guide your purchasing decision. Nothing else would influence you. Would that world be better than today's explosion of colors and brands and talking heads and size 100 font "NEW FORMULA!!!"? In today's world, if you're not sure what to buy, you just pick the thing with the most colorful box or whatever you heard about on TV, and you probably end up with something that's fine. (Occasionally, the thing you heard about on TV is actually good, and you wouldn't have thought to buy it otherwise. It's almost a win-win though I am somewhat hesitant to use that term to describe advertising on HN ;) Advertising is that; you don't care what brand of light switch you buy, you just want a light switch, so there is a race to convince someone you trust to recommend their brand to you. They pay someone money, you buy a light switch, it switches your lights, you're happy, they're happy, and this random third party ad company is happy. Multiple people are bidding against each other for this recommendation, and so advertising ends up costing a lot. (You, of course, pay the cost, not the company doing the advertising. But if everyone is doing it, it's not like you can choose.) That's the app store thing; Apple prides itself on how every iPhone app is the greatest thing ever created, and because sometimes that's true, you trust them. Well, what if they just approve everything and let people pay for recommendations? Now you have ads in the app store. Someone looking for a random app gets a random app. They're probably happy with their $0.99 purchase. They never think about it again and move on with their life, and Apple's execs get a cooler yacht, and some random software engineer also got 10 cents or whatever. This all seems a little wrong -- ideas and products should only be popular because of their merit in the global marketplace of ideas -- but is it actually? It's really just making a lot of money from making decisions that aren't worth making. It does sound really dystopian... don't think about anything, just CONSUME what we say to consume... but is researching light switches so that the true best light switch maker gets your money actually better than spending an hour playing with your dog or whatever? I don't know. It's difficult. I should think about it less.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Funny you use light switches as an example because I have indeed spent some hours looking at light switch options. Decided not to blow a bunch of money on smarthome stuff (yet…), but for anyone who likes to tinker with that kind of thing the Inovelli switches look pretty fun. Time well spent? Who knows. But I know more about smart light switches than I used to!
  - jrockway 3y ago
    Something else I think about a lot. I have Lutron Caseta but would probably choose something Z-wave if I were starting from scratch today. Proprietary stuff is generally not as flexible as the more open-ecosystem stuff, but Caseta works perfectly with Home Assistant. The worst part of smart lights is how I've forgotten the tactile sensation when flipping a light switch. Sometimes I see regular light switches outside of my house and play with them, which probably makes me look like a psychopath with a mental age of 6. But so clicky!
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      Caseta is definitely the non-tinkerer's premium option, I have family members who have used it for years with no complaints. I don't like their weird button pads, but more recently they also come in a normal looking rocker version. Don't know how tactile it feels but I would bet nicer than the original Caseta controls. https://www.casetawireless.com/us/en/product/diva-smart-dimmer/homeowner https://www.casetawireless.com/us/en/product/diva-smart-dimm... Inovelli makes a Z-wave version (red series) as well as a Zigbee (blue series) which is supposed to support Thread/Matter eventually. Among other things, they can operate either as a switch to turn off a circuit, or in "smart bulb mode" where the circuit stays powered and on/off commands are sent to the bulb.
      - jrockway 3y ago
        Yeah, I have the rocker switches ("Diva") and they are not particularly tactile. To me the worst feature is that they aren't instant off when you press the off side of the rocker; there is like a 500ms ramp down time. This has no negative effect on my life, of course, but it does bug me. I bought this system before I knew that anything hacker-friendly even existed, so I'm always slightly disappointed, but at the same time... they work really well and I wouldn't replace them at this time. Also, no neutral wire required, which is quite convenient for my older electrical system. (My apartment was apparently completely remodeled in 2017. The electrical system is original to the 1950s building, though. Weird stuff. I'm very jealous of the smarthome YouTubers in their brand-new house with 200A electrical service and those blue plastic wall boxes.)

jrockway 3y ago

Something I think about a lot is what the world would look like without advertising, i.e., you'd have to make every decision on its merits, and never rely on bought opinions. Like imagine you walk into a grocery store, and every shelf is lined with plain cardboard boxes with the name of the product on it ("chocolate-covered breakfast cereal") and a nutrition label. You walk in and there is nothing other than the merits of the product itself to guide your purchasing decision. Nothing else would influence you. Would that world be better than today's explosion of colors and brands and talking heads and size 100 font "NEW FORMULA!!!"? In today's world, if you're not sure what to buy, you just pick the thing with the most colorful box or whatever you heard about on TV, and you probably end up with something that's fine. (Occasionally, the thing you heard about on TV is actually good, and you wouldn't have thought to buy it otherwise. It's almost a win-win though I am somewhat hesitant to use that term to describe advertising on HN ;) Advertising is that; you don't care what brand of light switch you buy, you just want a light switch, so there is a race to convince someone you trust to recommend their brand to you. They pay someone money, you buy a light switch, it switches your lights, you're happy, they're happy, and this random third party ad company is happy. Multiple people are bidding against each other for this recommendation, and so advertising ends up costing a lot. (You, of course, pay the cost, not the company doing the advertising. But if everyone is doing it, it's not like you can choose.) That's the app store thing; Apple prides itself on how every iPhone app is the greatest thing ever created, and because sometimes that's true, you trust them. Well, what if they just approve everything and let people pay for recommendations? Now you have ads in the app store. Someone looking for a random app gets a random app. They're probably happy with their $0.99 purchase. They never think about it again and move on with their life, and Apple's execs get a cooler yacht, and some random software engineer also got 10 cents or whatever. This all seems a little wrong -- ideas and products should only be popular because of their merit in the global marketplace of ideas -- but is it actually? It's really just making a lot of money from making decisions that aren't worth making. It does sound really dystopian... don't think about anything, just CONSUME what we say to consume... but is researching light switches so that the true best light switch maker gets your money actually better than spending an hour playing with your dog or whatever? I don't know. It's difficult. I should think about it less.

wlesieutre 3y ago
Funny you use light switches as an example because I have indeed spent some hours looking at light switch options. Decided not to blow a bunch of money on smarthome stuff (yet…), but for anyone who likes to tinker with that kind of thing the Inovelli switches look pretty fun. Time well spent? Who knows. But I know more about smart light switches than I used to!
- jrockway 3y ago
  Something else I think about a lot. I have Lutron Caseta but would probably choose something Z-wave if I were starting from scratch today. Proprietary stuff is generally not as flexible as the more open-ecosystem stuff, but Caseta works perfectly with Home Assistant. The worst part of smart lights is how I've forgotten the tactile sensation when flipping a light switch. Sometimes I see regular light switches outside of my house and play with them, which probably makes me look like a psychopath with a mental age of 6. But so clicky!
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Caseta is definitely the non-tinkerer's premium option, I have family members who have used it for years with no complaints. I don't like their weird button pads, but more recently they also come in a normal looking rocker version. Don't know how tactile it feels but I would bet nicer than the original Caseta controls. https://www.casetawireless.com/us/en/product/diva-smart-dimmer/homeowner https://www.casetawireless.com/us/en/product/diva-smart-dimm... Inovelli makes a Z-wave version (red series) as well as a Zigbee (blue series) which is supposed to support Thread/Matter eventually. Among other things, they can operate either as a switch to turn off a circuit, or in "smart bulb mode" where the circuit stays powered and on/off commands are sent to the bulb.
    - jrockway 3y ago
      Yeah, I have the rocker switches ("Diva") and they are not particularly tactile. To me the worst feature is that they aren't instant off when you press the off side of the rocker; there is like a 500ms ramp down time. This has no negative effect on my life, of course, but it does bug me. I bought this system before I knew that anything hacker-friendly even existed, so I'm always slightly disappointed, but at the same time... they work really well and I wouldn't replace them at this time. Also, no neutral wire required, which is quite convenient for my older electrical system. (My apartment was apparently completely remodeled in 2017. The electrical system is original to the 1950s building, though. Weird stuff. I'm very jealous of the smarthome YouTubers in their brand-new house with 200A electrical service and those blue plastic wall boxes.)