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> it’s not accurate or fair to call Tony’s products useless I'll cede that point. Having an arrow on your Twitter profile is of some use to someone, and just b

> it’s not accurate or fair to call Tony’s products useless I'll cede that point. Having an arrow on your Twitter profile is of some use to someone, and just because I've never had a problem with iPhone screen capture "press two buttons" doesn't mean some people need to click through an app, a nd the teletype style of GPT3 doesn't bother me but I guess some people need faster response. I know snark is against the rules. Technically they aren't "useless" but they are single-task gadgets like you'd find for your kitchen drawer on QVC at night. The people that make the "banana slicer" probably made a ton of money and by your definition a "banana slicer" isn't useless because someone bought it.

dahart 3y ago
> Obviously having an arrow on your Twitter profile is of some use to someone One of the reasons your upper comment isn’t fair is because the story was about how he pivoted the product away from just showing the arrow & circle progress bar, and moved toward something more complex that does analytics reporting, and that’s when he actually started making money on it. > I guess by your definition a “banana slicer” isn’t useless because someone bought it. That was half of my definition. The other half, I think, probably agreed with yours, and points out that banana slicers are useless and we have an economy that is built on banana slicers. So, anyway, what is your definition of useful?
- demondemidi 3y ago
  > So, anyway, what is your definition of useful? That's a good question. The naive definition would be something that someone uses to fulfill a purpose. I don't think a Bratz Doll on a Keychain in the store is useful, but my 5 year old niece will get a solid week of entertainment out of it. Sure that is useful, but do we want to compare it to a SawStop or iPhone? All of them are useful, but to different degrees, different people, and across varying lifespans. You can argue that anything is useful if it is "used", but let's not pretend there isn't a spectrum here.

dahart 3y ago

> Obviously having an arrow on your Twitter profile is of some use to someone One of the reasons your upper comment isn’t fair is because the story was about how he pivoted the product away from just showing the arrow & circle progress bar, and moved toward something more complex that does analytics reporting, and that’s when he actually started making money on it. > I guess by your definition a “banana slicer” isn’t useless because someone bought it. That was half of my definition. The other half, I think, probably agreed with yours, and points out that banana slicers are useless and we have an economy that is built on banana slicers. So, anyway, what is your definition of useful?

demondemidi 3y ago
> So, anyway, what is your definition of useful? That's a good question. The naive definition would be something that someone uses to fulfill a purpose. I don't think a Bratz Doll on a Keychain in the store is useful, but my 5 year old niece will get a solid week of entertainment out of it. Sure that is useful, but do we want to compare it to a SawStop or iPhone? All of them are useful, but to different degrees, different people, and across varying lifespans. You can argue that anything is useful if it is "used", but let's not pretend there isn't a spectrum here.