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I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little simil

I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it. Only this Company. Yeah not that Company. See I figured all this out; see how smart I am? Now and then on a lazy sunday morning with a cuppa in hand and the business news in my lap, I sink into this level of naval grazing. But I'd never have the time or motive to publish my drivel. Thousands of hours are going to be wasted reading this shit, and to what end? Clearly many people gained lots of value from this article, or it wouldn't be at the top of HN. Could one of you please explain what the value was? What did you gain from reading the article?

sscalia 12y ago
Did you really post this just now?
Bud 12y ago
I don't feel like addressing your question directly, but it is ironic that the criticism of Gruber is coming from a user named "markdown", which is something Gruber invented. :)
- sscalia 12y ago
  I wanted to point that out too. Heh. hi five
- markdown 12y ago
  hehe nice! I am Mark, and any accounts I use for things I do in my downtime are called markdown. Work related accounts have the username markup.
pinaceae 12y ago
because this is about competing eco-systems and if you make your living writing software that runs in those eco-systems ("apps"), the health and capabilities of said systems is critical. iOS/OSX vs. Android/Chrome vs. Windows8/WP8 if you're just a consumer, then yes, not so interesting, but then this whole forum might not be for you.
- markdown 12y ago
  Completely understandable. My point isn't so much that the subject matter is relevant; just that his conclusions are obvious and have been for ages. Put another way, did reading his essay cause you to change your mind about what you should be working on?
seiji 12y ago
I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. It's a thoughtful and timely analysis about the most important company currently in existence which many people routinely fail to understand or simply dismiss out of hand due to preexisting prejudice or misplaced nerd allegiance.
- vacri 12y ago
  "the most important company currently in existence" ... "misplaced nerd allegiance" Having the most liquid assets does not mean that the company is the most important company. If Apple disappeared tomorrow, the world would go on without a hiccough. They are glitzy and glamourous and yes, influential, but there are more important companies out there - particularly in transport or essential services. Edit: Updated for the benefit of eridius. The point does not change at all.
  - eridius 12y ago
    What op said: > the most important company What you said: > the most fundamentally necessary company You just changed the entire argument right there, and yet blithely went on as if your counterpoint had any relevance to the original assertion. "The most important company" could be taken a lot of ways, and I highly doubt op was intending that to mean "fundamentally necessary".
    - vacri 12y ago
      Actually, speaking of changing meanings, the OP said "the most important company in existence", which is a different claim to the one you're trimming it down to. Next time you're admonishing someone for changing the argument, don't do it yourself.
      - eridius 12y ago
        You're just being pedantic. Adding the words "in existence" to my quotation would have changed nothing at all about my argument. I left it off precisely because it wasn't relevant to the point I was making, which was that you were attacking a very obvious straw man.
mantrax5 12y ago
I actually upvoted the post for the comedy value.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 12y ago
>I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. It's a post about how companies operate, and especially about the largest companies in tech, and their methodologies and unique takes on the market. HN is a social news site about startups and technology, built by a seed accelerator investing in tech startups. That is, by and for the very people that would be interested in the above article. You might "not get it", but all the HN readers that voted it to the top of the front page clearly do. >Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it. Only this Company. Yeah not that Company. See I figured all this out; see how smart I am? The same BS mocking method can be used to trivialize all topics ("Yeah, so the monkey that's better equiped to live gets to reproduce and so its genes are propagating, and future monkeys tend to have its features, big deal"). I don't get the "see I figured all this out; see how smart I am?" from the article. I do get it from your comment. There's an "I'm clearly above the herd on HN who voted for this. It's trivial, I can write 20 articles like this before breakfast" vibe. TFA is clearly an insightful piece about how different big players operate. This "Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it", is basically high-level market analysis. And it's hard to do well. Even if a lot of us know those things instictively, it's not easy to put it in words well. And it's amazing how many analysts and pundits get those things wrong (one can argue that this article gets the facts wrong too. But you didn't do that. You just trivialized it, as if what it says is something obvious, which is a different thing).

sscalia 12y ago

Did you really post this just now?

Bud 12y ago

I don't feel like addressing your question directly, but it is ironic that the criticism of Gruber is coming from a user named "markdown", which is something Gruber invented. :)

sscalia 12y ago
I wanted to point that out too. Heh. hi five
markdown 12y ago
hehe nice! I am Mark, and any accounts I use for things I do in my downtime are called markdown. Work related accounts have the username markup.

pinaceae 12y ago

because this is about competing eco-systems and if you make your living writing software that runs in those eco-systems ("apps"), the health and capabilities of said systems is critical. iOS/OSX vs. Android/Chrome vs. Windows8/WP8 if you're just a consumer, then yes, not so interesting, but then this whole forum might not be for you.

markdown 12y ago
Completely understandable. My point isn't so much that the subject matter is relevant; just that his conclusions are obvious and have been for ages. Put another way, did reading his essay cause you to change your mind about what you should be working on?

seiji 12y ago

I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. It's a thoughtful and timely analysis about the most important company currently in existence which many people routinely fail to understand or simply dismiss out of hand due to preexisting prejudice or misplaced nerd allegiance.

vacri 12y ago
"the most important company currently in existence" ... "misplaced nerd allegiance" Having the most liquid assets does not mean that the company is the most important company. If Apple disappeared tomorrow, the world would go on without a hiccough. They are glitzy and glamourous and yes, influential, but there are more important companies out there - particularly in transport or essential services. Edit: Updated for the benefit of eridius. The point does not change at all.
- eridius 12y ago
  What op said: > the most important company What you said: > the most fundamentally necessary company You just changed the entire argument right there, and yet blithely went on as if your counterpoint had any relevance to the original assertion. "The most important company" could be taken a lot of ways, and I highly doubt op was intending that to mean "fundamentally necessary".
  - vacri 12y ago
    Actually, speaking of changing meanings, the OP said "the most important company in existence", which is a different claim to the one you're trimming it down to. Next time you're admonishing someone for changing the argument, don't do it yourself.
    - eridius 12y ago
      You're just being pedantic. Adding the words "in existence" to my quotation would have changed nothing at all about my argument. I left it off precisely because it wasn't relevant to the point I was making, which was that you were attacking a very obvious straw man.

mantrax5 12y ago

I actually upvoted the post for the comedy value.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

coldtea 12y ago

>I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. It's a post about how companies operate, and especially about the largest companies in tech, and their methodologies and unique takes on the market. HN is a social news site about startups and technology, built by a seed accelerator investing in tech startups. That is, by and for the very people that would be interested in the above article. You might "not get it", but all the HN readers that voted it to the top of the front page clearly do. >Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it. Only this Company. Yeah not that Company. See I figured all this out; see how smart I am? The same BS mocking method can be used to trivialize all topics ("Yeah, so the monkey that's better equiped to live gets to reproduce and so its genes are propagating, and future monkeys tend to have its features, big deal"). I don't get the "see I figured all this out; see how smart I am?" from the article. I do get it from your comment. There's an "I'm clearly above the herd on HN who voted for this. It's trivial, I can write 20 articles like this before breakfast" vibe. TFA is clearly an insightful piece about how different big players operate. This "Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it", is basically high-level market analysis. And it's hard to do well. Even if a lot of us know those things instictively, it's not easy to put it in words well. And it's amazing how many analysts and pundits get those things wrong (one can argue that this article gets the facts wrong too. But you didn't do that. You just trivialized it, as if what it says is something obvious, which is a different thing).