A Codebase Is an Organism (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://meltingasphalt.com/a-codebase-is-an-organism/ <comment><USER2> Catabolism is another aspect of thinking about code as an organic entity that I find useful. Anabolic (growth) processes and catabolic (teardown) processes always accompany each other in biological systems. Too often we neglect to continually tear down and remove unused aspects of our systems.

Both anabolism and catabolism are always operating, though at different rates depending on the environment and needs of the organism. The funny thing is that catabolic processes will happily tear down important parts of the system, forcing them to be anabolicly rebuilt. Things like bone and muscle mass. This seems wasted, but it has an extremely important purpose: uncontrolled anabolism is cancer.

I think the analogy to code is obvious. We've all seen codebases that have gotten out of hand (gotten cancer), and part of the reason they got that way is because the growth pressures had no countervailing teardown pressure. The market provides selective pressure in nasty ways: codebases and systems with cancer slow and die, and are replaced by younger codebases without uncontrolled growth.

How do we break that cycle? By encouraging catabolic activity culturally within our companies and codebases. Cleanup is incredibly valuable. Functionality that isn't being heavily used and is complicating implementation of new work should absolutely be on the chopping block. We don't have to be quite as aggressive as biological systems, but we shouldn't take their example lightly either.

This also provides insight into when cleanup doesn't matter: when the survival horizon of the organism is sufficiently short that cancer frankly doesn't matter. Startups shouldn't worry too much until they have product market fit. Once it's clear they'll be around for years more though, catabolic work will help ensure future health.

<comment><USER3> username checks out. that's a really thought provoking analogy. there's definitely something to be gained in the process of tearing down and building back up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been waiting for a long time for people to start using the title "robopsychologist" in earnest. Especially for people who are called out to debug an unfamiliar system, in 'the wild' (ie. in production). You have to calm the system down, find out what it thinks is going on, gently correct any misconceptions, and guide it towards a better understanding of the world that lets it behave the way you need it to.

<comment><USER5> It's commentary like this that makes me come back here and also I wish hacker news had a few more features, like being able to follow people who make interesting comments.

<comment><USER6> You could always start a bookmarks folder for 'HNers I find Interesting' and save their profile to that. I bet there's a way to write a script that goes through them, checks for posts since the last update and display them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > two modules will tend to grow ever more dependent on each other unless > separated by hard ('physical') boundaries

This is especially true in monorepos. Code resuse has it's benefits, but left unchecked the dependency graph can turn into a huge highly-connected glob. Modules end up accidentally importing code they have no business importing because of sneaky transitive dependencies. The blast radius of even small simple changes becomes enormous, and testing/debugging becomes more and more complex.

A great way to keep this in check is to have apply code isolation in the test environment. When you checkout the entire repo for a build or test, its easy for these kinds of dependencies to grow unnoticed. But if you require build/test targets to explicitly declare what code they depend on (and only make that code present when running them), changes to the dependency structure must be explicitly acknowledged in code review. This is one of the core principles behind build tools like Bazel.

<comment><USER8> Even in monorepos, calls into a module should go through a versioned interface.

<comment><USER9> In general I agree, because it allows gradual migration of users... but in essentially every case I've seen, removing versioned interfaces is billed as the _primary feature_ of monorepos.

<comment><USER8> I just realized monorepos are analogous to a flat network, everything can reach everything else, or that main memory is flat/linear/same cost for each read/write (not true, but it is the abstraction we believe).

I now believe that monorepos can only work well when there is a mechanical tool for ensuring correctness and that refactorings can be done atomically across the whole tree. Infact, it might be necessary to _only_ commit the refactoring operation to the tree and the source itself. That the whole tree is a blockchain of tree edit operations.

<comment><USER10> > monorepos can only work well when there is a mechanical tool for ensuring > correctness and that refactorings can be done atomically across the whole > tree

Isn't a compiler such a tool? I use a statically typed language, and if I would try to do this:

> everything can reach everything else

then there'll be compilation errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A codebase is an orgasm. People working on it get excited when it is starting, and when it's done, they become very tired of it.

<comment><USER5> Unless they really feel love for their users?

Ugh, too far :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Two things: mods can we get the title updated to reflect the publish year of 2014?

The second is that the codeswarm link in the article is dead. This project on github is the closest thing I can find to any remnant of the project: [https://github.com/rictic/code_swarm](https://github.com/rictic/code_swarm)

<comment><USER13> Check out gource, which does something similar [https://gource.io/](https://gource.io/) (git history visualization)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not just code bases, but it is useful to think of large planet scale systems in organic terms.

[https://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/6972614229/large- computer-...](https://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/6972614229/large-computer- systems-are-organic)

<comment><USER15> Might as well just ask the question: What is Life? And then realize that scale of space or time is irrelevant.

A galaxy could be thinking like a brain, except thoughts travel light years, are mainly dictated by GR (Light and Gravity), and take eons to actually occur.

I think it's clear that the only meaningful nature of scale in time and space for life is just the one we artificially put on it, because of our conscious experience.

LOTR and other fantasy explore this with the idea of trees having much wisdom having lived so long.

<comment><USER16> I once saw a comment similar to yours on HN, and there was a very good reply that critiqued the idea. I'll do my best to replicate something along the same lines.

If we look at the total potential lifetime "clock cycles" of a system, and compare that number to systems that we know are considered intelligent and capable of thinking, it might shed light on the plausibility.

It takes information 100,000 years to cross the galaxy, and the universe is 14 billion years old (the galaxy is younger, but not enough to matter for this), so roughly a maximum number of 100,000 round trips could have possibly occurred in this "galactic brain".

Let's use a very conservative metric, such as how long it takes a human to blink in response to stimuli (about 100 ms), for our "human clock cycle". If a human lives for 80 years, that is about 2.5 billion seconds, or 25 billion clock cycles.

This is roughly 7 orders of magnitude (10s of millions) more than in the galactic brain. This gives the a very loose impression that a such system would probably have not have enough information flow or feedback loop cycles to "think" anything interesting.

Of course, this a very rough heuristic, but I think it is interesting and useful. The idea of unexpected or strange "thinking systems" is very cool and we should continue to explore it, but there are certainly some hard constraints defining the space of such systems.

<comment><USER15> That's a good point. I don't have time to double-check your numbers but I will assume they are correct.

My only rebuttal (if I'm to take an opposing position), would be that different organisms have different clock-cycles, an example would be organic life, hummingbird metabolism versus elephant or whale metabolism. I don't know if their brains are also faster, but since their reaction speeds do seem to be connected to their metabolic rate, it's probably the case.

Considering architecture, the way intelligence is being created through Machine Learning is through cellular units that carry large amounts of information digitally instead of oscillating analog signalling. In fact, I found that when building cellular automata, black-white automatas are elegant in theoretics, but when it comes to what will deliver the most complex/intelligent dynamics on a GPU, it is using each cell/pixel as a complex number, floating point, or vector of such types. The GPU can do so much with single units, so it makes sense to use its full potential.

It's possible that the encoding/signalling of galaxies is similar. Clock speed only has to be as fast as things you _can_ react to. Can a galaxy move fast enough to dodge an asteroid? Likely not.

It'd probably be enlightening to know more about how the brains of larger, slower animals such as elephants or whales operate. Their "clock speeds" might shed some light on what kind of parameter ranges life operates within.

EDIT: one more thing I thought of is that it's very possible that the living stage of the larger structures of our universe is simply young, adolescent in nature. Perhaps we are living at a time when the intelligent behemoths among us, or rather, that we are apart of, are of their first generation. I agree though, it's more unlikely to be seeing the head or tail of a distribution than somewhere in the middle. But we should not rule out young, large intelligences.

<comment><USER16> > My only rebuttal (if I'm to take an opposing position), would be that > different organisms have different clock-cycles, an example would be organic > life, hummingbird metabolism versus elephant or whale metabolism. I don't > know if their brains are also faster, but since their reaction speeds do > seem to be connected to their metabolic rate, it's probably the case.

That's a fair point. I think the comparison would have a somewhat similar conclusion, perhaps not as dramatic though.

Either way, "clock speed" / "number of clock of cycles" is only one way to analyze such a system.

Another important aspect of an intelligent system is the computational complexity of each node in the system and their ability send "messages" back and forth. For a brain, we could look at the neuron. My limited understanding is that neurons are actually pretty complex from an information processing standpoint, despite the implied simplicity we see with artificial analogs such as the neural nets used in machine learning.

I can't imagine what sort of naturally occurring entity would be able to function as an analogous "node" of a galactic brain, or even what sort of messages could be used do to do complex information processing. Stars don't look like they could fulfill the role. In terms of "information processing" I don't think they really do much.

Anyways, it is all very interesting. It is probably possible to have a much larger and very different "thinking system" than what we find on Earth, although I'm not sure what it would look like. Bu I am skeptical that such a system could span the enormous distances between stars.

By the way, you should check out book The Black Cloud [1]! It is a fun science fiction story that explores this idea.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> framing failing fast or not as a conflict of interest between computer and codebase is an interesting one. I've often seen it as a conflict of interest between the user and the developer: users want the code to muddle through ("PHP style"), but devs want highly visible obvious failures early so they are easily identified and fixed.

How do people balance this? The "state of the art" still seems to be things like "have asserts turned on in the debug build" but a holistic approach where the application has different runtime contracts with regards to failures based upon who is using the app seems somewhat underutilized — I've done it piecemeal with application feature flags but has anything like this been done at the platform/language/framework level?

</comment><comment><USER18> A codebase is a mechanical approximation of a set of human intentions. It's a model of an organic phenomenon.

<comment><USER19> A code bases _that manages a data store_ is not a model, it is a phenomenon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > In this way, building software isn't at all like assembling a car. In terms > of managing growth, it's more like raising a child or tending a garden.

I knew it! I always thought maintaining my project was like doing a bonsai tree!

(Disclaimer: I have zero experiences of bonsai.)

<comment><USER19> Bonsai stay small as they age. Sadly, software programs do not.

<comment><USER21> because the gardener trims them both above and below ground.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not even just the source code. Our system, even with the source code static, has constantly changing characteristics.

We integrate with dozens of 3rd party APIs, making over 10M external HTTP calls per day. That leads to a lot of variability in runtime characteristics.

<comment><USER23> This is true for us too. The behavior of ours is due to how airline fare rules are filed which creates all sorts of silly things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Always liked the garden metaphor [https://blog.codinghorror.com/tending-your- software-garden/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/tending-your-software-garden/)

</comment><comment><USER19> A production system is like the TARDIS.

You don't program the system, you negotiate with it.</comment>


How to Surge Sales Growth with Simple Prospecting Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.yesware.com/blog/sales-prospecting-tools/ <comment><USER2> LeadBoxer would be a great tool to add to this list. It makes it so that forms become shorter, but have even more information about leads than before: [https://www.leadboxer.com/](https://www.leadboxer.com/)</comment>


5 Ways Developers Waste More Than 20% of Their Work Week - <AUTHOR> http://blog.takipi.com/5-ways-developers-waste-more-than-20-of-their-work-week/ <comment><USER2> Clickbait headline? Debugging and diagnosing production errors may take more time than we want it to, but it is hardly a waste. Quite the opposite, actually. Locating and fixing errors is an essential part of what it means to be a software or systems engineer and I doubt there is any consensus on what percentage of the week it should take. The right answer probably varies tremendously based on the type of system involved.</comment>


Why apple isn't, or at least shouldn't be, building a tablet. - <AUTHOR> http://www.gibsonandlily.com/blogs/78

<comment><USER2> I think the author missed a big potential market in which an Apple tablet could be very competitive. In between smartphones and netbooks there are e-readers that don't quite hit the mark. Sony and Amazon have their entries, but an Apple tablet with multitouch could blow them both away. We've heard the rumors of deals with texbook publishers, which if true would offer plenty of "look at me" opportunities on college and grad school campuses everywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a good point.

I think the problem with the idea of Apple building an ereader is still in the e-ink...

Apple likes things that are snappy, and clean...the current crop of e-readers do not fit that criteria...

That said, if Apple _DID_ make a tablet a book reader that came with a decent web browser, a good MP3 player, and a keyboard that wasn't _completely_ worthless, and did it for under $500, I would buy.

I don't think that will ever happen... :(.</comment></comment>


Solvate is simple outsourcing for startups - <AUTHOR> http://venturehacks.com/articles/solvate

<comment><USER2> I know the founder of this startup. She is awesome. I think their methodology is smart when it comes to temporary talent. I would rather hire someone connected to me via linked in rather than a random off elance or craigslist.

<comment><USER3> I bet it's better than elance or craigslist, but how is it different than a more traditional staffing agency? I've talked with other companies with models similar to this, where you ask for semi-skilled talent, and they provide it for a cost. Then they handle all the junk associated with employing somebody.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So they're a staffing agency?</comment>


How much Equity to Co-Founder? - <AUTHOR>

Co-Founder has experience,wants to invest 10k,for no work and 50% of company!Angel or Devil?<p>Im developing software for real estate and vacation rentals,hotels.I have experience in the industry,but no cash. Potential Co-Founder has successful software,wants to be part but wants 50% of company and invest $10k and do no work. I think he is crazy.But i want him on board. How do you measure potential value of a company at this early stage to negotiate equity in proportion to investment? <comment><USER2> Every situation is unique. It depends on the connections, previous experience, and how much work will they put in the project. Just for reference, YC invest ~$20K for ~%7 equity. So, 50% for $10K appears to be a lot.

[http://ycombinator.com/apply.HTML](http://ycombinator.com/apply.HTML)

> _3\. We decide who to fund after each day of interviews. Yes decisions will > include the amount we 'll invest and the percent of the company we'd want > for it. We usually invest $11,000 + $3000n, where n is the number of > participating founders, up to 3 (i.e. 2 founders get $17,000, 3 or more get > $20,000), in return for between 2% and 10% of the company. The average is > 7%._

Another thing. What does "Potential Co-Founder has successful software" means? He has another software company? Had he programmed that software? Is the developer still working there and happy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Gus!Yes,its clearly way out of porpotion, that i have no doubts about. I was just wondering how the value of a start up company should ideally be calculated, so that one´s proposal is well informed, rather than throwing numbers in the air :)

Re your 2nd question, he doesn´t have a software company, he outsourced development to create his application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You start at 50/50 But you don't give out all the shares.

You create a company with 1M shares. You give him 10k and you 5k for the work you've done, and 5k over the course of how much time you negotiate it should take to get going. Then you say, "I would earn $50k a year" (or what ever number) so I get 25 shares an hour. If he puts in Dollars he gets shares at $1 a piece.

Tweak the math, but you should get the idea. You invest sweat, he invests money. You have pre-negotiated each, and left room for other investors to buy in.

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm i don´t know...to give 50% i think you must bring something seriously substantial to the table (not 10k!!), no matter how tweek the numbers the investment still needs to stack up...i think equity you give should be related to the level of investment, but also value of the business. However in early stages, my key question is, how do you value the business to then have more or less decent number to work with?

<comment><USER3> You didn't understand. You start at "equal" not 50%.

That's why in my explanation not all the shares are given out.

The reserve lets you both work to add equity, you can work together and stay equal, or one of you can do more to change the ratio.</comment></comment></comment>


Netflix Will Be the Exclusive US TV Home of Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar - <AUTHOR> https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/get-ready-for-summer-on-netflix-us <comment><USER2> Netflix is now behaving like a channel, rather than a library. Originally, they had a huge library from which you could choose. Now, they announce "Here are some of the great and varied selection of films coming to our U.S. service in the next few months". Some of those films are decades old. Gradually, their back catalog has shrunk.

<comment><USER3> To some extent this is inevitable and I think ultimately it will be to their detriment. One of the things that struck me during my recent "cut the cable" exercise was that while the offerings on Amazon Prime video were significantly less to my liking than those on NetFlix, if it wasn't on prime I could "buy" it or "rent" it from the same interface almost regardless of what it was. On NetFlix things vanish and then you no longer have access, period. So its fine "in the now" but want to watch an old episode of some show that used to be there and now its off the list.

I suspect that one of the things that Netflix cannot afford using AWS is to have content available that not enough people watch. They end up paying the storage charges with no revenue.

<comment><USER4> > I suspect that one of the things that Netflix cannot afford using AWS is to > have content available that not enough people watch. They end up paying the > storage charges with no revenue.

That is incredibly wrong.

Conservatively speaking, the average film can be stored with 1gb. The Library of Congress has 1.7 million videos (the largest film collection in the world).[0]

1.7PB could be stored on S3 for $54k a month which is, while not insignificant, is almost certainly insignificant compared to Netflix's streaming costs.

[0] [https://www.loc.gov/about/fascinating- facts/](https://www.loc.gov/about/fascinating-facts/)

<comment><USER5> The average film, at 1080p, is in my personal experience closer to 10GB+. 1GB maybe be enough, say, for a single TV episode.

<comment><USER4> The average film is not in 1080p though. Many of those 1.7 million films are old independent films.

Also, I've never gotten close to 10GB for even 1080p films.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's like a conspiracy to annoy the hell out of the average consumer. I'm not sure why Netflix would be proud of this.

How about we also get Spotify, iTunes and Google Play to step up the exclusives on their music services so I can never have a single place to go to listen to music.

<comment><USER7> Cable is the worst. I shouldn't have to pay for channels I don't want. It should be à la carte.

Streaming services are the worst. I shouldn't have to subscribe to a half dozen different services. Someone should sell a bundle that gives me access to all of them for a lower price.

<comment><USER8> Unpopular, but without cable subsidizing costs of various networks through packages, we wouldn't have tons of cable channels that grew up to be great, like AMC and FX. The one exception to this is the ESPN subsidy, which is insane. If ESPN could actually be opted out of cable bills would be fairly cheap.

<comment><USER9> Disagree. The big players are leeching money that COULD go to small players if we got to choose where our money went. And then the cable companies throw you a few 'small' channels so you feel like the little guy wins occasionally.

Instead we have all those channels in a perpetual race to the bottom to attract just enough eyeballs to be worth "keeping on the payroll" of the bundle.

The racing footage I _used_ to be able to get on Speedvision (on the rare occasion where my local provider HAD Speedvision!) was worth far more to me than the $0.20 they got from my subscription.

I for one, welcome our a-la-carte overlords, where my dollars go to the content I want.

<comment><USER10> I don't think it is so clear that putting your dollars where you want gets you more topical programming than putting up with opaque bundles.

(Say there's $30 on average of revenue in the cable bundle with only $15 of it being desired spending on average. The channels get a lot more revenue with the opaque bundles, and they are still competing to some extent for the revenue.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is reminiscent of 'patented' in consumer literature.

In my mind, exclusive content is great for a business and bad for the consumer but for some reason people think its a good idea to market it to consumers. If you said Netflix has popular XYZ shows and they stopped being available elsewhere, it would avoid people realizing that Netflix is now playing the same games as the cable mafia did/does and instead people would just be happy that they could watch things fully on demand with all the conveniences of netflix.

<comment><USER12> > for some reason people think its a good idea to market it to consumers.

I'm skeptical of the assertion that most people care, at all. Outside of specific circles (overrepresented on HN), I know vanishingly few people who are willing (able?) to tie company's actions to their market-level consequences.

Marketing this seems like a no brainer: allowing consumers to think this feature isn't exclusive to you just means that they're more comfortable switching to or picking your competitors. Being clear about exclusivity means that you're shifted well up the "must-have" spectrum for many consumers.

<comment><USER11> totally agreed that US consumers != typical HN reader. and also agreed on it being possible the good outweighs the bad from a user acquisition standpoint.

"I'm skeptical of the assertion that most people care, at all" \- agreed BUT - do you think them advertising exclusiveness is something people care about? because if only a few people remember its exclusive (and wouldn't otherwise have picked up netflix) then it could be that the effect of the consumers paying attention and being annoyed is greater than those converted by exclusiveness

<comment><USER12> > do you think them advertising exclusiveness is something people care about?

I absolutely do. Lucasfilm, Disney, Pixar, and Marvel are probably top of the list for studios with actual (and powerful) brand recognition. (By contrast, most movie goers probably couldn't tell you which specific movies Miramax or Universal or whatever make).

People see this and it translates as "if I want to stream The Avengers or Frozen or Star Wars or Iron Man or [etc], I better get Netflix". It's hard to think of a set of movies with better brand recognition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the culmination of some very old news, when Netflix outbid Starz in 2012 for Disney's "pay TV" rights:

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/04/netflix- outbid...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/04/netflix-outbids-pay- tv-for-rights-to-disney-movies/1746037/)

Why September if the deal started in 2016? It covers movies that premiere in 2016 or later, and September is nine months after the January 29 release of The Finest Hours[1], the first Disney movie expected to be exclusive to Netflix.

[1] — I earlier opined that Zootopia would kick it off, but The Finest Hours was Disney's first 2016 release and since 7-9 months is the typical wait for a pay-TV window, it seems Disney movies will be on Netflix 9 months after release.

</comment><comment><USER14> In other words they made a deal with just Disney, which happens to own those other three studios.

<comment><USER15> And they'll probably own Netflix soon too.

<comment><USER16> What? netflix's market cap is ~25% of what disney is worth, I would be shocked to see disney or really any company make such a large acquisition without it really just being a merger.

<comment><USER17> What? I get Netflix is valuable but to say they would merge with Disney really seems delusional to me. Disney which owns ABC, ESPN, other tv channels, movie studios, merchandise.

You can look at stock price sure but Disney revenue has been going up by billions year over year and I don't see that changing much, even if ESPN starts to shrink, because of the valuable movie IP they have.

Some of the recent chip maker mergers come to mind but that's a different market - when does a company merge with a company that by revenue is ~10x smaller and by net income 2 orders of magnitude smaller?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > From September onwards, Netflix will become the exclusive US pay TV home of > the latest films from Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar.

Does that mean we will have to pay to watch them? Makes sense from a market standpoint since they are likely to be highly sought after but this _pay per movie_ looks like new turf for netflix.

Perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising given the ongoing spat between Amazon and Disney. Sad to see we are at a place where competition is high but rarely makes the best decisions for users.

<comment><USER19> I would think "Pay TV" refers to monthly subscription TV, as opposed to free over the air TV, and a generic term for cable/satellite. Pay per movie is usually called pay per view.

I would have assumed the US pay TV Home of the latest films from Disney and its subsidiaries would be the Disney Channel?

<comment><USER20> You'd think but even historically that's been pretty rare. It's so family focused that a large amount of content isn't appropriate for their audience. I thought Freeform (formerly ABC Family) was going to get some of it, but I guess guaranteed revenue from Netflix is worth it in a world of declining cable subscriptions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I reïnstalled Plex after 5 months of Netflix... I think the "not coöperation" of content creators is killing it all.

I'm not paying for 3-4 streaming services with all exclusive rights, nor i'm willing to constantly change apps for finding the right movie.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is probably why they started blocking proxies all over the world in the last couple of months, after years of not caring.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Netflix will become the exclusive US pay TV home of the latest films from > Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar

What does that even mean? Can someone who understands the lingo clarify this for me? Does that mean I'll have to pay per-view to see Disney content on Netflix?

<comment><USER24> "Netflix will become the only place in the US that you can give money ($8/mo for streaming-only, for example) to see Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar films. Not Comcast, Not Starz, Not HBO. ONLY Netflix. Woo! Go us! (They may still appear for free on Disney-owned-ABC over-the-air stations, but don't count on it.)"

<comment><USER25> You will still be able to buy and rent these films of iTunes or Google Play, just not on subscription packages from HBO, Amazon, Hulu, etc.

<comment><USER24> Right. Because "Digital Downloads" and "Digital Rental" are different from "Streaming TV".

...somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Demonstrates the error of the "long tail" fad some years back. Dazzled by the prospect of everything being available online, pundits failed to grasp the value of content and the ensuing turf wars. Netflix was the prime example, hoping to carry every movie for a trivial flat fee; didn't work out that way. Closest we've got is the likes of iTunes, with a broad spectrum available $1-7 rental (vs the unfulfilled promise of Netflix, $8/month).

<comment><USER27> That's cause the movie/television television industry is valued at 150 billion dollars a year where as the music industry is 15 [1]. Multiply the music industry price standard by their relative sizes and you'd get a $100 dollars a month which is about the cost of your top cable prescription for having access to just about everything [2].

Did you think they were going to get the same value for 1/10 the cost?

[1]: first google search result :/

[2]: more googling

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> There are two words OP omitted in the title from the quote in the article that make the scope of the statement seem bigger than it is: "Netflix will become the exclusive US pay TV home of the latest films from Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar."

</comment><comment><USER29> I know that companies want to set up exclusives and other things so consumers will feel "forced" to buy entire services just to obtain the killer apps (or movies, or games, or whatever). In reality, I am sick and tired of being expected to pay for stuff I don't want just to get what I do want. I have been buying far less over time, and I have been discovering how little I care about movies and TV shows after all. Oh hey, it's sunny outside! Oh look, there's so much more to do in life!

Media companies have refused to learn from the $0.99 iTunes store years ago: people don't want _albums_ anymore, they want _songs_. They _do_ want your TV show, they just want to download it from anywhere they damn well please. They _do_ want your game, they just don't want to have to buy an entire new console to get it. And so on. If you're supposed to be in the business of selling X then _sell it_ ; don't conjure up scheme after scheme to try to force consumers to get other crap. And definitely don't complain when they see through it all and refuse to give you a dime.

<comment><USER30> iTunes and Amazon sells shows a la carte. What's the problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I find it funny that when exclusivity is ever brought up it's talked about like some kind of conspiracy to take money from customers. It isn't a conspiracy and there aren't men in boardrooms laughing menacingly while smoking cigars. The truth is this is just the result of how the system works. That is capitalism and normal competition.

If all the streaming services offer the same content then none of them are special. And if one service ends up offering something you can only get from them then they have a leg up on the competition. Soon other services start trying to compete by getting exclusive content and eventually anyone who doesn't play the game is pushed out.

If we're serious about hating exclusive and if we want to move away from them then you need to talk about the system that causes it to happen.

</comment><comment><USER32> Exclusive releases are sickening. I wonder when creators will start releasing their films through all distributors evenly?

<comment><USER33> It's easy to see why it's like that. For example, there's a market (a country) with 5 players. Each offers you 500 Euros for a run of your long-forgotten movie. That's 2500 Euros if you got them all to buy it. One of them says they will buy it, as an exclusive, for 5000 Euros. It's as simple as that. I work in this sector (not the business side though) and that's what I see each day. To add onto that, sometimes it's even that one (from our example here) offers you 2000 for exclusive, and that's what you take because others won't buy it, or one or two will. You get the idea.

<comment><USER32> I see, if it works that way, it's not good for both end users and creators.

Why doesn't it work like this for example?

Distributor gradually sells the film, and gets percentage of each sale (and the rest goes to creators). Then creators benefit from using as many distributors as possible, because it will maximize profit in the long run. If they are just paid once by the distributor, then sure, they can't rely on potentially growing amount of sales over time.

In case of games it works like I said above. And in case of music it can work that way too. So why not for films?

<comment><USER33> There are various distribution methods and even new ones being explored. It's a layered issue with a lot of caveats. I'll try to explain the problematics of it.

What you have described essentially exists now with video-on-demand (tied with IPTVs usually) that have, essentially, displaced brick and mortar video rentals. It's more of a case of you getting percentage out of them then they out of you. That's due in part because of large user bases and monopolies. If you want viewers to rent or buy your stuff you have to go to the larger players, and they are aware of that.

There's another issue at play here, in contrast with games. Films and television programmes have a life cycle that is usually tied to initial theatrical or television run and that is decoupled from its life in rental and buying later on. Both business lives of a movies don't even have to be tackled by the same business entity/owner. In order for a film or series to live through direct sales it needs marketing or very strong brand recognition (and even then marketing). Most films do not have that. Most rights holders hold more than one film too. For a successful rental/vod/buying there needs to be marketing effort and in order to mitigate that industry has devised film channels and specialised channels that run stuff you might be a part of. That way, all of marketing is concentrated on channel's programming and stuff is pushed onto that. Trouble is, those channels do not like if stuff is also available on vod that isn't theirs. Another trouble is that rights holders do not like to sell one movie at a time, it's not viable. Usually, what happens, is that rights holders know they have a strong movie and package several weak ones with it in order to push sales for those as well. It's also common for a channel to seek for a particular title and they get pushed other content in a package to them, or they want a package, etc. Various permutations of that exists.

What happens with vod is that sales are, for the most content, dead. Dumping your catalogue onto a vod renders your sales with channels dead as well. So, it's a bit of a conundrum from which side to tackle the issue at all.

Those are just my initial thoughts on what I see each day in that space. It has a lot of intricate details layered below and above that, but it all boils down to the fact that channels render money for your entire catalogue and vod only for a select few titles. If you want to sell your entire catalogue, you go through channels since they buy those great titles of yours as well as packaged crap ones. VOD is a harsh mistress that loves only the pretty ones and you still have to tackle marketing for that by yourself and accept whatever the gods of the vod platform will give you.

tl;dr; conundrum

<comment><USER32> Thanks for the detailed explanation. But what is inherently different in films as in art form that dictates such convoluted distribution methods? Higher cost of production? Games also can have big budgets (admittedly usually not as big though), and there is some similarity with life cycle too. I.e. there is the initial rapid sales period, when some new game comes out. That's usually when developers get the huge chunk of their sales, and try to recover the cost of production. And also, during this period the biggest effort goes into marketing.

Then there is the period of gradual sales, i.e. people who don't buy the game because it's new / hyped, but because they like the genre, discovered it years later and so on (assuming it's a good game, and not some junk that gets forgotten for good as soon as it comes out). Over time such sales can be even significant, but they don't directly contribute to critical expenses recovery.

So for games both use cases are commonly addressed through similar distributors, yet for films this somehow poses a problem.

<comment><USER33> That front business scenario is pretty much the same. You have an initial run (with marketing and different venues) and that's it. Difference is in the life after it. It's not uncommon for different companies to buy rights to older films and then do business on top of that.

You're forgetting a key factor here. Unlike games sales channels, films and tv shows also have programme channels which are willing to pay for running your old shows. And, unlike vod/direct sales, they tend to generate money for all of your catalogue. You kind of have that with games through those bundles every now and then. Issue is that, with game analogy, those bundle sellers (who upfront the marketing for your old stuff) aren't willing to have your stuff if it's on steam as well. Also, they don't pay from what they sell, but a fixed fee for each run.

So, it kind of is like games and isn't at the same time. Namely due to tv channels which generate the most money for that after life. Also, take into account that most rights holders have a catalogue of items which has dead weight in them which they try to capitalise on. Hence package deals and channels wanting or being forced into getting them in order to get hot items. That's, I presume, reason why you see, in games, distributor bundles as well. Business ideas have converged already, apart from tv channels where there's no analogy in games. I'm still waiting to see what will become of widespread and free platforms like youtube where, I am sure, there will be sponsored screenings of certain parts, if not whole, catalogues as well.

<comment><USER32> Interesting. Bundles do appear even if games are sold through competitors. For instance, while Humble Bundle were probably the pioneer of it, you can now often see bundles of discounted games sold on GOG, usually either from some single publisher, or themed in certain way (those games already should exist in their catalog, but that bundle offering is usually a special sale event). Most of the time those same games are also available through Steam, so there is no exclusivity involved.

Regarding TV channels - I think they are slowly declining and eventually will die out completely, because they aren't really a flexible method, that's why you don't see anything similar in games which is a newer industry and has less legacy baggage to deal with.

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure where it will lead, but exclusivity is not good for consumers. This all boils down to trademarks and regionalities. Not something we've seen much of in games since consoles. TV has been around for some time now and TV Stations needed (still need) licenses from local governments and it's not a global play, until as of recent. Rights and global market are still feeling each other out. Music kind of went through the same process via Apple's iTunes, but it's also kind of a different business. With music you have other streams of revenue as well - live performance, different rights to it (song, performance, etc.), etc.

With TV channels going away, my instinct was the same - being oriented more towards "I'll watch what I want and when I want" and different outlets that enabled that have been booming (youtube, torrents, netflix-like platforms, etc). However, TV is bringing in more business than ever. It seems that it's not a zero-sum game between those two. In fact, it seems those two aren't even competing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> oh well. back to buying old dvds whenever they go on sale. As long as you don't buy anything recent some of the prices are dirt cheap.

It's still more expensive than monthly netflix but at least I own it rather than having anxiety over losing access to it.

<comment><USER35> Disney movies never get cheap. They have done really well for themselves in their ability to maintain prices even for movies that are decades old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is I think the point where I am starting to get a little afraid of Netflix instead of rooting for them. They are becoming a monopoly that is going to be tough to displace. While they were producing their own original content, it was awesome. Now it seems like you'll basically be either subscribing to Netflix or torrenting content, but you won't have a third option. Having said that, this is a brilliant move on their part.

</comment><comment><USER37> Yes. The article is as notable for the dreariness of the movies available before September as it is for the exclusive content available in September. The message seems to be, "If you can tolerate three months of Adam Sandler, obscure indie documentaries, a couple of oldies from 2001, and unheard-of Netflix originals, you get to watch Disney! And that's your only option!" Thanks Netflix.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is big news but I'm not sure how big it will impact consumers because of Disney Anywhere i.e. When you buy any Disney movie from any platform and link it to DisneyAnywhere, it's available to watch on any major service e.g. Apple, Amazon, Vudu, Google

One thing people aren't mentioning is that this is 'pay TV'. So Netflix is starting to sell short term rentals?

<comment><USER10> I think the 'pay TV' just refers to the specific monthly payment for Netflix. It's setting it up as a competitor with HBO but not bundled channels with hidden payments like the Disney Channel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> That seems like a pretty low-key announcement for what sounds like a blockbuster (no pun) deal?

If I were Disney, I'd create my own service. HBO claims such a thing is hard but I don't buy it. Charge $50-100 for some ever-changing sub-set of the library. Profit. Still provides plenty of room to cut deals with all the movie services and maintain some artificial scarcity.

<comment><USER40> I hate the idea of having to subscribe to a dozen different services for different content I may or may not want, but I guess it's more along the line of paying for only what you want.

<comment><USER39> Me, too. But Disney is pretty unique, especially for kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Somewhat OT question:

I'd like to watch Avengers: Age of Ultron, but as far as I can tell there is no way to rent it digitally. You can only purchase. If you want to rent it you have to rent a physical disc from RedBox.

Yet I can rent Deadpool and many other Marvel properties.

Does anyone know why Ultron seems to be singled out?

<comment><USER42> This SciFi StackExchange answer has a good explanation:

[http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/90394](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/90394)

Essentially, Fox owns the rights for X-Men and Deadpool is an X-Men universe character. Fox and Disney have different views on rental and sale windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's a brilliant deal from business standpoint; from consumer's standpoint, not so much.

<comment><USER44> more accessible than having to get Starz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Like others have said, Netflix is acting like a channel. Unfortunately, Americans love exclusives. When people talk about Playstation v. XBOX, they're not talking about the UI or controllers anymore, but the exclusives. Exclusives are bad for the content and for the consumers. Content tied to a platform that loses, moonlights or just fades away also fades away. I know a friend that really wanted to play an oldschool Buffy XBOX 1 game and would pay for it, but it was only released on the XBOX. Other titles from the period released on PC still exist in markets, but Microsoft obsoleted not only the console, but the content. Maybe Microsoft will make it so you can _buy it again in HD_ on the XBOX TWO, but it really wasn't that popular so most old content is now dead until someone illegally emulates it. Bad for content, bad for consumers, but unfortunately good for business.

What I want from a content delivery service is for them to deliver content, not produce it and not cultivate exclusives. Their business-model changes when they wear three or four hats and who they're serving also tends to change. I like to keep it simple. If you make your service convenient and the content you sell convincing enough, I'll shop there. Just like any store. You don't have to be the only store in town that can sell pickles as long as your store is in a convenient location, you take cash and have a value-priced variety of products. You can bypass all that if you convince all pickle-manufacturers to only sell to your store though. People shouldn't applaud this.

The subscription model makes this more difficult because you become dependent on the store and not the product-producer. Ownership is more ambiguous and who gets paid and how much becomes the storefront's decision as they gain adoption (see Amazon). I wrote more about what I think would be great at an airplane level on another post[0]. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. It might take a MtGox level Steam shuttering for people to start valuing ownership again.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11623806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11623806)

</comment><comment><USER46> At least until these brands have the tech stack to vertically integrate and do it on their own, or until they get preferential treatment on another digital supplier, or better terms (like vevo).

</comment><comment><USER47> Seems unaccessible, archived copy: [http://archive.is/Zqo56](http://archive.is/Zqo56)

<comment><USER48> This summer: [A bunch of films you've already seen]

From September onwards, Netflix will become the exclusive US pay TV home of the latest films from Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was the title I wanted, but alas I was limited to 80 characters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Hi Netflix, can you be the exclusive US TV Home of Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar in France too? It would be nice, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER50> Exclusive rights is only good for the two people that made the deal.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd be thrilled if this meant I could rent any of the recent Marvel movies. Prime and Google video seem to be pushing the buy option exclusively for new movies these days.

</comment><comment><USER52> Interesting to see how all these film industries will compete on the home living room space.

</comment><comment><USER53> If you're upset about exclusivity in this deal I don't understand. These movies won't be on Hulu or Prime after this deal, but _they aren 't there currently_. A whole bunch of movies are going to become more available for more people.

<comment><USER12> > If you're upset about exclusivity in this deal I don't understand.

I don't personally care a whole lot but it's not difficult at all to understand why. The fact that they weren't on any services earlier left the possibility open for them to come to an arbitrary amount of services. Given how ubiquitous streaming services are becoming, one could reasonably consider this somewhat inevitable. The announcement of the exclusivity deal has collapsed the possibility space so now it's certain that they won't be coming to the other services (for the lifetime of the deal).

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> translated as... "they are asking more money for their content than we can give them from monthly subscription fees alone... we'll have to force advertisements".

</comment><comment><USER55> We'll bring the Netflix, you bring the chill (AC).

</comment><comment><USER56> Hey look, more reasons to pirate media due to a lack of options for receiving it.

<comment><USER57> Netflix is easier to use and safer than pirating. Seriously, for the price of a chipotle (steak) burrito a month you have access to their entire online library. You'd pay more than that to go see one movie a month at the theater.

Pirating content is morally wrong. If you actually disagreed with the media industry, you would not consume their products instead of stealing access to them.

Disregard me if you live in a place where you don't have legal channels of media consumption available...

<comment><USER58> > _Pirating content is morally wrong._

I don't know. Through piracy, especially poor people in developing countries have had access to a lot of software, books, education, even medicine, that they simply could not have been able to afford otherwise.

<comment><USER57> Piracy of expensive software by individuals in developing countries could prevent local software companies from starting up and supplying that need or could stunt the growth of open source alternatives.

I think arguing against education and books is harder, but generally I will stand by my statement that stealing is wrong.

<comment><USER59> If you're interested in debate, you should make an argument defending your position. Otherwise, it makes for very boring conversation.

If you do make an argument, I'd advise you to leave the whole "stealing" part aside. It's really only a weak shortcut to proving the immorality of content piracy, and it's better to avoid such tricks and show the full argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Amazon is taking my money for newer films. Bizarre that nflx hasn't followed suit. Price points are 4.99-6.99 for (ha) HD and a dollar less for SD.

And if I can rant for a bit, why is there no amazon channel on Apple TV?!

</comment><comment><USER61>
        family favorite franchises such as Back
        to The Future & Lethal Weapon.

When did a movie that depicts a PTSD-afflicted Vietnam vet being tortured by electric shock become a "family favorite," and what does that say about us as a culture?

<comment><USER62> It says that we live in a society where some kids watched Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, and worked hard to grow up and protect others from the bad things in this world. Bad things that you don't have to worry about because others stand to keep you safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> ...meanwhile 90% of the world keeps torrenting because Netflix (or most of the content ON Netflix) is not available in their country - or the content becomes available 3 years after release.

And trying to Pay for Netflix by using a VPN (which costs extra $) to stream from the US is obviously cheating and has to be banned as well.

/flabbergasted

<comment><USER64> >..meanwhile 90% of the world keeps torrenting because Netflix

I bet the real number is closer to 0% than 90%.</comment></comment>


Amazon.com criticising new iPad on homepage - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/?iPad

<comment><USER2> There's so much about this which is disingenuous. I'm not surprised by this, but it's worth pointing out some of the tricks Amazon are employing here:

1\. Much More for Much Less. Much More is obviously the kindle fire HD, and Much Less is the iPad Mini. Heck, if you remove the 'f' of 'for' you get to the central point here which is to turn the choice into 'Much More or Much Less'.

2\. Kindle Fire HD branding is used (sexy typeface, orange gradient), iPad mini has some weird typeface which a cynic might argue has been deliberately spaced to make it look antiquated and unprofessional.

3\. The Kindle Fire is "stunning" and the iPad Mini is "standard".

4\. Just because the iPad Mini display is high definition and has 30% more pixels than the iPad Mini, it doesn't mean that the iPad Mini is a "low resolution" display.

5\. Because the iPad Mini has a bigger screen in the same overall form factor, they make the same point a different way ("30% more pixels than the Mini" => "216 pixels per inch"). If the Kindle had a bigger screen but lower PPI they'd put the screen size in here.

6\. "Watch HD movies and TV" "No HD movies or TV". The phrasing here is very clever. To a technically competent individual it parses as "no HD content on iPad Mini, only standard definition". But the "and TV"/"or TV" phrasing means that an average consumer might assume that you can't get any TV shows on iPad Mini.

7\. The screen of the Kindle Fire is odd looking. The iPad Mini behind it is on its default home screen. I'm guessing that the Kindle Fire has deliberately been shown all in black (with the bg the same colour as the bezel) because it makes it unclear where the bezel ends and the screen begins. (I don't know if this is the default setting of the Kindle Fire HD or not).

8\. The iPad Mini has been photoshopped horribly. For a start I have no idea which iOS that is, but it's not the one which ships with the iPad Mini or the one which Apple are using in any of their promotional shots. If you overlay one of Apple's promotional shots on top and adjust the size and opacity, you'll see that the iPad Mini has been warped so that the icons seem slightly smaller and the positioning is off.

8\. Ultra-fast MIMO Wi-Fi vs. A BLANK SPACE. Not even trashing the fact that there is Wifi in the iPad but it's not as fast. It looks like they just gave up at this point.

Again, I'm not blaming Amazon for any of this. It's just interesting to see how much thought has gone into basically attempting to deceive consumers.

<comment><USER3> I recently read an article on HN wherein a user posted asking all of us to be 'civil'. This is the reason why HN isn't so civil. You like a product, you try to support as if you created it and as if the company cares for you, while in reality the company doesn't care about you and you're just doing free marketing for them.

Not to say that you can't defend what you like, but most of what you've written here is very very subjective. One could argue otherwise too, and which is what is happening right here - You're adding subjectivity to your claims and provoking a 'fanboy' war. This is unacceptable.

For example, if I were to counter you, I would then say the entire of Apple's presentations and Marketing is just plain BS. For example they frequently market saying "The world's best Operating System (referring to Mac OS)" or "The fastest phone ever" etc. while these are not true. The iPhone for instance, still runs on a dual core processor. How the fuck can it be the 'fastest' while high-performance quadcore chips were long released even before this phone came into existence?

Where were you during Apple's presentations? I never saw you arguing "Hey that's not true, this is disingenuous" while they marketed their products in a similar fashion.

So may I kindly request you to cut the crap and stop the bias and avoid provoking people into such techno-wars?

Thanks

<comment><USER4> You know, your whole post coud be rewritten as:

 _A lot of what you have written here is quite subjective, and in fact you could mount a case that Apple's marketing team do the same sort if things as has been demonstrated by Amazon._

There is no need to flame the original poster. Please reconsider whether the last three sentences were necessary to contribute to the conversation here at HN. In my opinion, they were needlessly inflammatory.

<comment><USER3> I agree, my apologies. I do realize it was a bit harsh, but his comment was very biased and I just couldn't stand it. I will follow your approach next time. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The iPad Mini's far from impressive DPI is no doubt the result of Apple not wanting to introduce another resolution into the iOS ecosystem (the Mini's resolution previously appeared on iPad 1 and 2). I don't think they were cutting costs with this panel, rather, you are seeing the non-resolution- independent iOS chickens coming home to roost as software limitations begin to hold back hardware innovation.

Apple needs to bite the bullet and implement true resolution independence in iOS and OS X otherwise every new device form factor (or Retina display, in OS X's case) is going to make things more and more painful.

<comment><USER6> If I had to guess, I would say that the resolution dependence has been a major contributing factor to the high UI/UX quality in iOS applications. Yes, there are other aspects to consider, but this single design decision has a lot of benefits to developers.

<comment><USER5> It's definitely a major contributor to the simple fact that iOS apps, on average, look a whole lot better than Android apps. That being said, it's a burden on Apple hardware designers that will only increase with time.

It's a tough decision if there is an elegant solution out there, I can only hope that Apple is already working on it.

<comment><USER7> Windows 8 modern-style UI applications are (largely) resolution independent, and they look pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When you're a Microsoft, an Apple or a Google you have the money to create something truly epic - and none of them have.

The Surface has great design, as do all of Apple's products. However the Surface, while having the potential for great software, comes with something not quite finished. So while it's eminently usable as it is, it falls short of greatness.

The iPad Mini, similarly, has the quality one expects from Apple, and yet the features, such as the display resolution and lack of GPS, give it a feel of mediocrity. And iOS itself feels a little long in the tooth these days. Not what you'd expect from Apple.

Google of course have an OS that outsells any other. And yet that's plagued by patent infringements, operators and manufacturers that aren't incentivised to update the OS, and the subsequent slew of (real or perceived) security holes. Android could be truly open, but isn't.

All three companies have the resources to create something earth-shatteringly innovative, usable and beautiful. And yet they don't. Nokia with the 920 is the only one that seems to get close. This really surprises me, given the importance we're placing on the mobile market.

<comment><USER9> I think they are all _epic_ in their own way.

Especially in the case of the Surface - it's the first version of the product! The original iOS and Android devices all had crappy or non-existant app stores when they were launched, and were plagued with problems and limitations.

Similarly, for the right use-cases iPad Mini and the Nexus tablets are _epic_ , and many people adore them.

<comment><USER10> What's so great about Surface besides its design and build material? I don't mean to knock on those. I think they are great, but that doesn't equal that the product overall is great. Windows RT is performing very poorly on an _high-end_ ARM chip (don't want to imagine how it would perform on an older dual core ARM chip, or god forbid a single core one) compared to the true mobile operating systems like Android and iOS, and its app store is virtually non-existent. Office on it is also an exercise in frustration.

The price is also too high for what it offers. Even if the build of materials is exactly the same as the iPad 4 (I think it's lower), that doesn't mean it should cost exactly the same as an iPad 4. Because it offers lower _value_ than an iPad (think ecosystem, brand, etc). I also don't think it's acceptable for a $500+ product to have such a low resolution anymore. And don't tell me it has an "extra 16 GB". It doesn't. It only has 17 free GB of storage.

<comment><USER11> You should go play with one in person. It is a really neat tablet experience. Spec for spec it may not appear that competitive, but the user experience is really slick. Snapping apps side by side (have your music on a small pane, and another app on the larger one), the app switching model, side swipes to pull up menus, and the look and feel of Metro are all really refreshing takes on a touch os.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I believe that what Gizmodo says is actually true and something that Apple "forgot" to mention when comparing(highlight the "good" things while omitting all the other things) the Nexus 7 with their new iPad so I do not blame Amazon for pointing it out to a wider public. If Apple wants to play this game, they must be ready to get fought back.

EDIT: also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? the Retina might be still the only great feature of iDevices and they have removed it? Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? To make it cheaper? It is not. This things make me really dislike Apple.

<comment><USER13> I suspect Mini "2" will have Retina.

<comment><USER14> yeah, so all the idiots ran to the next apple store to replace their one year old iPad mini FINALLY!!11 with a Retina one. I HUGE INNOVATION IN DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY!

I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else...

<comment><USER15> > I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from > time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else...

You're already using Unix. Mac OS X is a certified Unix system.

<comment><USER14> yeah, i know that already. I meant a more Linux oriented OS. So to save time i wrote unix instead of mentioning all those popular unix distributions.

<comment><USER16> Linux isn't a UNIX distribution. It's Linux. Linux can be described as 'UNIX like'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not a bad idea. The low dpi screen of the iPad mini really is a glaring flaw when you consider the price.

And because of that price, there's going to be a long future for Android tablets in the sub-$250 range, now that Google and Amazon have proven you can make and sell a worthy device for that kind of money.

<comment><USER18> They've proven that you can sell at that price, but not that you can make money at that price. Time will tell.

<comment><USER19> Their profit isn't from the hardware sale, but from the media/apps thereafter.

<comment><USER20> Their profit isn't.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us-amazon- results-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us-amazon-results- idUSBRE89O1IE20121025)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oh yeah, another pro Android/Amazon/Google anti-Apple comment/article/submission. This is not getting tired, not one little bit. This specific point has been covered recently as well. While this points out select bits where 'on paper' the Kindle HD is 'better' its not the entire story is it? Nothing there about build quality or durability for instance, or the ecosystem or UI/UX or that the user can most probably update the OS (compared to Android where updates are few and far between and tend to never come if you are talking about Samsung)

I loved my Nexus 7, right up until it broke (for the 4th time). This time round the screen split from corner to corner previous times the screen developed faults and once the screen actually came loose from the body. It cost 209 quid in the UK (including delivery) and I wished to hell I waited off to get the iPad mini because apart from the beautiful responsive UI/UX, applications, app store and iTunes store its probably like most Apple devices in that its built like a tank.

Sometimes its not just about figures.

<comment><USER22> "Sometimes its not just about figures."

Neither is it about your anecdotes. This isn't an anti-Apple submission so much as the news of Amazon's first real direct marketing attack on Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> They left out the bullet point about the remote wipe feature. I hear that's a Kindle specialty.

<comment><USER24> Ha, that's a good point! I'm curious, though: is it possible to do that on a Kindle Fire? I had thought that was only possible on a regular (Black and White) Kindle

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a shame that they have resorted to direct attacks, but given Apple's comments about "all 7" tablets" I can't really blame them.

I do wish they would all just shut up and concentrate on the value of their own products though.

</comment><comment><USER25> Discussed previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710114>

</comment><comment><USER26> My experience shopping on Amazon - a bit like browsing in a vast, chaotic and disorganized third-world marketplace - is not one I'd like extended to my computing platform.

Amazon and others can tout narrow features as much as they want, but I still prefer the better-managed end-to-end experience Apple provides in their ecosystems.

<comment><USER27> Ever use the app store?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The Fire HD seems to have an easier to sell homescreen too. While the iPad has these small icons with flowers and such (even in their official marketing) the Kindle's homescreen presents a plethora of stuff to appeal to the mass market: feature films, popular books, popular magazines, angry birds (I'm not sure about the US, but Angry Birds seems to have quite a long lasting appeal especially among young teenagers), Facebook, Skype, TV.

While the iPad can do all of this, the Kindle immediately demonstrates this to the consumer. I can see it doing really well against the iPad mini with that sort of imagery being shown to customers.

</comment><comment><USER29> Having owned both, I am sticking with the iPad. The Fire is good for the price but I constantly got the feeling that I was working to use the device. But that's just one man's opinion. I know others who swear by the Fire.

</comment><comment><USER30> The first 2 lines (display, PPI) and the price line are why I did not buy an iPad mini, which would have been my first tablet had it been priced at $200 or maybe even $249. So marketing is dead on, in my view.

Instead I bought an Apple-refurbished iPad 3, for $379, which is $79 more than the soon-to-be-shipped Kindle HD 8.9".

For $50 more than the Mac Mini I get a bigger and better display. And for $79 more than the Kindle HD 8.9 I get better apps and user experience.

EDIT: clarified what first 2 lines were

</comment><comment><USER31> So companies use marketing to spin their products? Selecting language and images that favours their stuff over the competition?

Let me get a pen and paper and write this down.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm becoming "that guy," it seems, but how is this relevant to Hacker News? This is little more than something which will stir up "fanboys" -- which by the way seems to have worked judging from the current top, and needlessly long, comment.

Summed up, this 'news' story boils down to: "Amazon advertises product." Queue hundreds of comments arguing about why the add is accurate or not; why product X is the worst, and shameful, and product Y is the best and wholesome.

Has anyone opened a news paper, magazine, turned on the radio or TV, or been on the internet? One company saying that it's product is better than the competition is kind of, well, _completely normal_ \-- Advertising 101, if I may be so bold. Why aren't we arguing to death about car commercials slamming their competition? Hell, what about Oxy-Clean, huh? Billy Mayes' talked a bunch of crap about Tide. Where is that discussion? Are people not ready to defend Tide's name as they are Apple/Amazon's?

People get so emotionally invested in certain products. It's completely silly.

Can we stop this inanity and go back to endlessly arguing about how worthless PHP is now?

</comment><comment><USER33> Here's their full comparison:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_366177422...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_366177422_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000846051&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-6-2&pf_rd_r=0SS0BG0JCHNJR5AMPVDE&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1409302382&pf_rd_i=B0083PWAPW)

Tell you one thing, apple.com's got them beat on URLs ..

<comment><USER34> "Create custom profiles for each child".

This is actually something that I do wish iOS would introduce. My daughter is not getting her own iPad any time soon, but I'd love to be able to lock down the apps/features that she's able to use on mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Does anyone know why iPad has single speaker?

<comment><USER36> Just want to add that this is one of my biggest gripes with the iPad. I have to position things behind my iPad to hear things sometimes. It's by far the worst part of the iPad.

<comment><USER37> I expect they will say it's because having two speakers so close together wouldn't give you a stereo experience (be distinguishable).

<cynical> That is until the next version where it becomes a feature...</cynical>

<comment><USER35> I think it should have one speaker at each of 3 corners at least.

Also it would be nice if they invented some cleaver way of directing sound towards the user because now when I use iPad I have to user my hand as a makeshift reflector to hear anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The URL for the "Shop now" link should have been:

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/>

instead of:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_kf_ipa...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_kf_ipad/184-2145246-1700130?ie=UTF8&nav_sdd=aps&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0KM1RNXMFDM1XNKE3J35&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1409304522&pf_rd_i=507846)

</comment><comment><USER39> They forgot to mention app numbers..

</comment><comment><USER40> And that is exactly the reason why vendors like to control the distribution / means of access to their products. e.g. Apple retail stores selling Apple products, Chrome as a browser to access Google products from desktop or Android from mobile, etc.

The goal is not having other companies in a position in which they can significantly affect your business if they choose to do so (e.g. indie developers and the Apple app store).

</comment><comment><USER41> So we're using the word "ballsy" now in promotional copy? Because it seems to me that the word could be construed by some to be sexist.

</comment><comment><USER42> They forgot one feature:

Your device can be locked at random and only by raising a major media storm you may regain access to your device and stuff you've bought.

I do not know if Apple has done this, can someone enlighten me?

</comment><comment><USER43> Have you seen their commercials? They have one where a whole family has Kindles for and drive home how much less it costs compared to a loner guy with an iPad. So not surprisingly they compare direct like this...

</comment><comment><USER44> Sorry, only eink kindles are being sold to Canada, and if I bring one in, software portion of device de-activates after 30+ days of being outside of the US, So thus no comparison unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER45> Somehow Amazon have upped the ante against Apple ever since Steve Jobs passed away. The keynote slides in which Bezos revealed the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Fire HD were so Apple like.

</comment><comment><USER46> If only the kindle fire shipped to countries where most people live.

<comment><USER47> The list of countries where Amazon has deals in place to distribute digital content (apart from eBooks) is pretty low:

[http://www.macstories.net/stories/mapping-the- entertainment-...](http://www.macstories.net/stories/mapping-the- entertainment-ecosystems-of-apple-microsoft-google-amazon/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> In the long run I am in complete agreement with Bezos on this. Content is what matters. Devices come and go but my relationship with an album or a book means something to me.

</comment><comment><USER49> If they talk about the competition, they're scared of the competition, and the more they talk, the more scared they are. That goes for Apple, Google, Amazon and all the rest.

</comment><comment><USER50> This bothered me at first, but then I thought to myself: anyone naive enough to believe the Kindle Fire HD is better than the iPad mini deserves to own a Kindle Fire HD.

<comment><USER51> I was just thinking the same about iOS device customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> My first impression is that Amazon is displaying the possible margin they could get with Kindle Fire HD. Maybe someone in AMZ is regretting pricing it that low.

</comment><comment><USER53> Doesn't matter how much better the specs on this device are. I'm uncomfortable using it to purchase content that can be revoked without warning or appeal[1] and nothing short of a popular article on Hacker News can reverse their decision (and only then as a PR issue).

I realize you're also "renting" content from Apple but the company doesn't have a history of abusing this and Amazon does.

1 - <http://digitaljournal.com/article/335484>

</comment><comment><USER39> Perhaps Apple will release an iPad mini with Retina Display sooner because of the peer pressure:)

</comment><comment><USER54> ipad/iphone has never been the best device hardware-wise. but they deliver a good experience despite having inferior hardware with better OS, apps, content etc.

</comment><comment><USER55> And [Special Offers] aren't available on the iPad either...

</comment><comment><USER56> Are Apple competing on hardware or software?

</comment><comment><USER57> Amazon doth protest too much, methinks.</comment>


Ask HN: How about a quick survey? - <AUTHOR> I put up a quick survey to get a better grip on product reality.  It's not long so if you have time here it is http://featuresurvey.dropnumber.com/ <comment><USER2> curious if you were going to share the results of the survey?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I would be happy too. And you can see results as they come in by clicking the link after your survey gets submitted.</comment></comment>