4 ms·

Important to note here that Dan has been for years asking people to understand this comment in the context of the time and circumstances it was written. It's no

by tptacek 5mo ago

Important to note here that Dan has been for years asking people to understand this comment in the context of the time and circumstances it was written. It's not a dunk on Dropbox. It's not the "less space than a Nomad" iPod comment on Slashdot. It was helpful and constructive criticism for Houston's YC application --- very specifically the application itself. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=infamous%20dropbox%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

matsemann 5mo ago
The "viral" point was a good one, and which they solved quite cleverly: as a student I got 10 GB for free, but additional 10 GB for each recruited person. Everyone at campus was on a recruiting spree for a while, to bulk up free storage. Of course, that doesn't make them money. But millions of users that then had all their files there and kept using it when no longer students (so paying), and recommended it to their places of work etc.
dingaling 5mo ago
> "less space than a Nomad" I actually thought that was a valid comment, more so than the Dropbox one. The contemporaneous iPod _was_ technically and acoustically inferior to the Nomad. The iPod "won" on account of fashion, style and marketing. Yes, the Slashdot comment was naive in underestimating or ignoring the power of Apple, but objectively it wasn't wrong. Apple released an inferior product and used out-of-band techniques to sell it.
- tptacek 5mo ago
  It's a category error to compare the two comments at all.
  - jgon 5mo ago
    You literally compared them in your comment.
    - tptacek 5mo ago
      Yes, by pointing out that they are not similar conceptually.
- Paianni 5mo ago
  TBF, iPod design was very neat and the nano's were very thin for the time.
- mistersquid 5mo ago
  > The contemporaneous iPod _was_ technically and acoustically inferior to the Nomad. You're cherry-picking your "technicals". The click wheel hardware and software implementation (especially the UI response time) was (and still is) revolutionary. iPod won on the technical merits; just not the ones you're focusing.
  - ToucanLoucan 5mo ago
    The anti-Apple crowd on here loves to crow about how Apple only wins on marketing. Look I find the ads cringe as fuck too, but let's not pretend that the hardware isn't much, much better than average. Better than all? No certainly not, Apple's build quality loses out to plenty of much more premium products. But it generally sits head and shoulders above the average build quality of any given product category, which seems to be the niche they most aim for: "the upmarket version of the common offering." That ones that immediately come to mind are Macbooks and iPads.
    - Aaargh20318 5mo ago
      The thing with Apple products is that they may not be the best at every single spec but they usually have the best overall package. You can find a laptop that is better in one aspect, but it will be worse in others.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
  You have to mention the music store. Prior to that, there were few legal ways to get music to put onto the devices.
FergusArgyll 5mo ago
The first Bitcoin thread is great https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852
- Mistletoe 5mo ago
  The lesson I learn repeatedly on the internet is that most people don’t have a single clue what they are talking about.
kristianc 5mo ago
There is probably something here about human psychology where we underestimate the switching costs of things we have already, and are wired to look at things through the lens of the world we have now. Absolutely no-one is concerned today about what happens when you dip out of connectivity because fast mobile connectivity was not abundant in 2007 (the iPhone was only released that year), which obviates the "this will never replace a USB" criticism. Mobile made a whole new class of businesses possible.

by tptacek 5mo ago

matsemann 5mo ago

The "viral" point was a good one, and which they solved quite cleverly: as a student I got 10 GB for free, but additional 10 GB for each recruited person. Everyone at campus was on a recruiting spree for a while, to bulk up free storage. Of course, that doesn't make them money. But millions of users that then had all their files there and kept using it when no longer students (so paying), and recommended it to their places of work etc.

dingaling 5mo ago

> "less space than a Nomad" I actually thought that was a valid comment, more so than the Dropbox one. The contemporaneous iPod _was_ technically and acoustically inferior to the Nomad. The iPod "won" on account of fashion, style and marketing. Yes, the Slashdot comment was naive in underestimating or ignoring the power of Apple, but objectively it wasn't wrong. Apple released an inferior product and used out-of-band techniques to sell it.

tptacek 5mo ago
It's a category error to compare the two comments at all.
- jgon 5mo ago
  You literally compared them in your comment.
  - tptacek 5mo ago
    Yes, by pointing out that they are not similar conceptually.
Paianni 5mo ago
TBF, iPod design was very neat and the nano's were very thin for the time.
mistersquid 5mo ago
> The contemporaneous iPod _was_ technically and acoustically inferior to the Nomad. You're cherry-picking your "technicals". The click wheel hardware and software implementation (especially the UI response time) was (and still is) revolutionary. iPod won on the technical merits; just not the ones you're focusing.
- ToucanLoucan 5mo ago
  The anti-Apple crowd on here loves to crow about how Apple only wins on marketing. Look I find the ads cringe as fuck too, but let's not pretend that the hardware isn't much, much better than average. Better than all? No certainly not, Apple's build quality loses out to plenty of much more premium products. But it generally sits head and shoulders above the average build quality of any given product category, which seems to be the niche they most aim for: "the upmarket version of the common offering." That ones that immediately come to mind are Macbooks and iPads.
  - Aaargh20318 5mo ago
    The thing with Apple products is that they may not be the best at every single spec but they usually have the best overall package. You can find a laptop that is better in one aspect, but it will be worse in others.
0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
You have to mention the music store. Prior to that, there were few legal ways to get music to put onto the devices.

FergusArgyll 5mo ago

The first Bitcoin thread is great https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852

Mistletoe 5mo ago
The lesson I learn repeatedly on the internet is that most people don’t have a single clue what they are talking about.

kristianc 5mo ago

There is probably something here about human psychology where we underestimate the switching costs of things we have already, and are wired to look at things through the lens of the world we have now. Absolutely no-one is concerned today about what happens when you dip out of connectivity because fast mobile connectivity was not abundant in 2007 (the iPhone was only released that year), which obviates the "this will never replace a USB" criticism. Mobile made a whole new class of businesses possible.