The American Police State - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/The-American-Police-State/142965/ <comment><USER2> > _Men like him lived a paradox. The penal system was supposed to shape them > up. But its tentacles had become so invasive that the opposite happened. > Goffman argues that the system encourages young men to act shady— "I got to > move like a shadow," one of Mike's friends told her—because a stable public > routine could land them back behind bars._

> _Take work. Once, after Mike was released on parole to a halfway house, he > found employment at a Taco Bell. But he soon grew fed up with his crowded > house and decided to sleep at his girlfriend 's. That resulted in a parole > violation. When Mike went back to the Taco Bell to pick up his paycheck, two > parole officers arrested him. He had to spend another year upstate._

This passage described a poor black man in Philadelphia -- the tip of the iceberg in the story. Today I happened to read about Toronto's mayor and couldn't help compare the two.

Toronto's mayor is on video smoking crack, is drunk and disorderly in public, shoves (assaults?) a grandmother, more, and _isn 't even removed from office,_ let alone arrested.

How can anyone have faith in such a system with such gross inequalities? The differences in cities and countries pale in comparison to the differences in treatment between the two people.

EDIT: a couple comments point out the differences between the U.S. and Canada police forces. Fair enough, but as different as Toronto and Philadelphia may be and as different as Canada and the U.S. may be, I can't imagine those differences are lost on the men jailed for smaller infractions, asking "What does it take for a rich, white guy to have to go to jail? ... Why should I bother trying to stay out if nothing I can do can keep me out?" I'm sure we could just look at police on Philadelphia's Main Line, maybe ten minutes away, to find similar effects to avoid the U.S./Canada comparison.

<comment><USER3> >>How can anyone have faith in such a system with such gross inequalities?

The system is working as designed and as intended.

I think people need to rid themselves of this romantic notion that the government serves "the people" and cops in particular are supposed to protect the innocent. Both of them are ridiculously childish beliefs. The reality is much harsher. Adam Smith laid it out more than two centuries ago in his book Wealth of Nations:

 _" Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."_

<comment><USER4> > I think people need to rid themselves of this romantic notion that the > government serves "the people" and cops in particular are supposed to > protect the innocent. Both of them are ridiculously childish beliefs. The > reality is much harsher.

That may be so. But if we don't stick to these ideals and try to enforce them again, and again, and again we'll end up for sure in a much worse situation.

<comment><USER5> What ideals? The institutions' roles? The government's structure and architecture? The people working for the government? The policies being passed?

The ideals you reference are vague. Do you mean Democracy? Surely you don't think hierarchical/technocratic institutions legitimized in the use of force is a necessary arm of Democracy or Liberty?

The idea that any of these institutions commit any morals good is hilarious. There are people, and there is power. Some people commit acts of moral good with power (Some Police, Most Firefighters, Most Medics, Some Teachers, Some Doctors, Some Lawyers, etc..) but many abuse that power to dangerous levels.

But sure. Let's assume the people at the absolute top fight for our interests. I would much rather have a discussion on power/authority, and what the absolute minimum is we need to function.

<comment><USER4> > What ideals? The institutions' roles?

Yes, the Institutions' roles.

> Do you mean Democracy? Surely you don't think hierarchical/technocratic > institutions legitimized in the use of force is a necessary arm of Democracy > or Liberty?

Are you referring to the US democracy or the democracy I have in my european country ? What are you really talking about ?

> [..] But sure. Let's assume the people at the absolute top fight for our > interests.

Not what I said. Don't make it look like I mistake people who abuse ideals for those ideals, thank you.

edit: Do you really think life was so much better before humans came up with some institutions to rule themselves ? The outback isn't that far.

PS: of course ideals are vague. We aren't some machines that would just need the right code to run as an "ideal" society.

<comment><USER5> Ultimately, the whole thing comes down to trust.

My point was that power corrupts, and that centralizing that power will only serve to expediate the process.

That said, if you trust your government, then the whole thing is awesome. Central planning leads to tough decisions being made to benefit the collective as a whole.

The problem with this is that I see this collective force being used to subvert the populace putting it's time/money into it. I know you're probably coming from a different perspective, but I'm talking about Western Politics in general.

I understand the goal of trying to make government work, but I just can't see people having any effect on the government's decisions in Britain and the US at present time.

Again, I'm mostly speaking in economical terms. The people do get social progress from time to time with protest and reform. But all economic policy since the labour uprisings of the 20's/30's/40's, the upper most classes have been tearing down all of what our (again general Western politics) ancestors fought for.

<comment><USER4> Ah, I now understand your outlook on these matters a bit clearer. I do agree with all your points, our governments are failing and betraying us.

Frankly, it would take me thousands of words to express my opinion on the subject but in the end it would just amounts to "I don't know if it can be fixed or if humane nature will prevent us forever to live together".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In 2003 I was pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt; I was in Saratoga NY; I had just moved out of my apartment.. having gone to school in Troy, NY and I was working as a "quality assurance analyist" looking for bugs in some lotus software. My license plates were from TX because I never registered in NY; I probably was supposed to, I just never did.

The cop pulled me over and was immediately convinced I was running drugs from Canada to TX. I had been across the border somewhat recenctly, maybe he could see that(?). I had no previous convictions other than a speeding ticket. My car was dirty and filled with crap; but I was pretty clean cut and just came out of an office job like 3 minutes earlier.

I did in fact have a couple pipes and a couple grams of mid grade bud; and I was dumb and didn't insist on my rights and essentially "let" him search my car. I made my mistake when he found the little jar and I got cocky; as NY had recently decriminalized.. so I just told him to give me the ticket and leave me alone.

He promptly arrested me for "driving while ability impaired"; impounded my car, nicked my license, I spent the night in jail, was humiliated, I still can't go back to Canada; I had been detained for 3 hours by the time I was given a 'sobriety' test; I was literally in the police station by then.. reflecting on it, it was clear I was being fucked with; walking a line with my arms spread out, bent ninety degrees at the waist, told to turn around without lifting my feet.

I hired the only lawyer I could afford, who basically did nothing but show up for me; paid him 500 bucks and about that in fines; but it has haunted me ever since.. and I was literally 100% sober in every way. I have never trusted cops since then as a whole; though I have personally come to know a couple that have eased my deep hatred somewhat.

My story here I know isn't directly related to the article; but it was an extreme abuse of power by a cop exerting his authority over what was genuinely a punk-kid; and I just wasn't in a position to do anything about it, both financially and because I didn't know then what I know now.

<comment><USER7> > I have personally come to know a couple that have eased my deep hatred > somewhat.

I have quite the opposite experience if you wish. I was never personally abused or treated unfairly by the cops during a stop. But, I still distrust cops. If anything because of the ones I met in an informal settings. In my extended family and network of acquaintances there are 3 cops. And 2 of them physically abuse their wives and kids, are very brutal and scary. In fact if I didn't know they are cops they could just as well fit the profile of street thugs.

<comment><USER8> Just to throw another anecdotal counterpoint your way: I also know several cops (detectives and a Sergeant, actually), and they are the definition of good people. the conversations I have with them generally either revolve around the stuff they're doing with their kids (and me trying to get them to some of the youth programs I help with), and them dealing with the frustration of not being able to do enough.

not all cops are good, maybe most of them aren't good. But they definitely aren't all bad, and the good ones hate the bad ones at least as bad as you and I do.

<comment><USER9> The good ones might hate the bad ones but theres nothing they can do, or nothing theyll do. Look at that stop and frisk video from new york, they interview a "good" cop, he admits theres lots of wrong things but hey, thats how things are, thats what makes the "good" cops as bad as the other. In the end theyre just dogs for the states and are trained to follow orders.

<comment><USER10> They're people who have been trained to be afraid of normal citizens and feel an obligation to protect those who understand their stresses and burdens from those who don't.

You want sympathy from a cop? You want to get the good cops to push out the bad ones? Show them that you understand what they go through. Show them that you're not exceptional in that respect. Show them that they have nothing to fear from you and yours. Show them that you'll back them up if they do the right thing.

It's like hackers. They're all spoiled white neckbeards living in their parents' basements slobbily eating pizza, right? Just like all the cops are donut-munching bullies cruising around in their cars banging on doors because it's funny, right?

<comment><USER11> I don't understand how LEOs have been trained to be afraid of normal citizens? Do you perhaps mean criminals when you say citizens? I'm struggling to think of any reason a LEO would be afraid of a normal citizen, or any instance in recent memory of a normal citizen's complaint compromising a LEOs position/lively hood.

Your comment might make sense, and the attitude you suggest might be appropriate, if police ever took the initiative to take care of the abuses within their own departments. Unfortunately time and time again its been shown not to happen. When it takes people like Frank Cerpico to get anything done (at great risk to themselves) the sort of attitude you propose doesn't really cut the mustard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Yet Alex vehemently resisted being taken to the hospital. Police crowd the emergency room, running the names of young black men through their database_

Seems to me that the hospitals that _let_ this happen in their ERs have forgotten their mission -- to heal people. They may have come up with some rationalization that says it is not a technical violation of doctor-patient confidentiality, but it sure as shit is a violation of the intent of that precept which is if you can't trust your doctor you won't get medical treatment.

As a comparison, after the PATRIOT Act was passed librarian associations stood up to the surveillance state by starting to redesign their computerized lending systems to be resistant to national-security-letter searches. Instead of keeping a lending history, as soon as a book is returned all records of it being borrowed are purged. That privacy is important for exactly the same reason, a borrowing history can be very revealing - medical books, law books, financial books, they can reveal quite a bit of personal information and if people feel like they are being watched, they simply won't borrow the books they need. You'd think doctors would stand up for their patients at least as much as librarians.

[http://www.ila.org/advocacy- files/pdf/Confidentiality_Best_P...](http://www.ila.org/advocacy- files/pdf/Confidentiality_Best_Practices.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER13> >"In modern history," Goffman writes, "only the forced labor camps of the former U.S.S.R. under Stalin approached these levels of penal confinement."

That's actually a pretty offensive comparison. Stalin's regime resulted in an untold number of completely innocent people being worked to death. There was no due process, no hope of any humane treatment. Just terror and dumb luck that kept people from being picked out of a crowd.

Maybe my views are biased by growing up in Russia, but such rhetoric seems to use horrors of the past to advance a particular agenda, that has little to do with the horrors themselves. It also denies the respect and dignity to those innocents that died.

The very introduction admits that there were drugs and guns in the apartment, so crimes happened and unfortunately, people are being prosecuted with somewhat questionable methods. But how is this the same as NKVD coming for you in the middle of the night and you are never heard of again?

<comment><USER14> >"There was no due process"

If you have an unjust law on the books, you can have all the due process you want while being arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, and jailed, and that doesn't help you one whit.

<comment><USER15> Actually, that was exactly the case in the Eastern Block. All those laws for "crimes against the state" were on the book. Most of the GULAG prisoners were in fact jailed after a "due process". And I think it's the same now with the US. Tons of laws that you can never be sure you are not breaking. Tons of laws that everyone is breaking (copyright law, anyone?) etc. Every empire will collapse eventually. Under its own weight.

<comment><USER13> The laws were on the book, but the due process, as understood in the western societies, includes the presumption of innocence and proof of the crime.

For most victims of the GULAG, the charges were false, confessions obtained with force, and witness testimony made up. Essentially, if I don't like somebody, I just make an anonymous report to NKVD, and 99% chance is that they'll disappear. That doesn't sound like the due process we all know in the US...

<comment><USER14> You're missing the point. If the crime on the books is "criticizing the government," you can have all your procedural due process safeguards of presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But I'll still get you convicted and thrown in prison for the rest of your life, Gulag-style.

Again, folks: it's necessary to ensure that criminal laws on the books are just and reasonable (see malum prohibitum vs. malum in se) and that due process is followed when enforcing those laws. Due process when enforcing a law that's unjust leads to unjust results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> And a keystone of this madness is the War on Drugs. End it, and the police will have a _lot_ less to do...

<comment><USER12> Even if the War on Drugs was cancelled today, we'd still be dealing with the criminal effects for decades. When prohibition was repealed, all the criminals who had been bootlegging didn't decide to start living straight lives, they switched to other criminal enterprises. Prohibition was a big part of how the mafia got a foothold in the US.

Its even plausible that massive decriminalization would lead to more work for the police. I'd like to think it would be more productive work though, instead of just hassling easy targets like so many do now.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, the criminals will become bankers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Alice Goffman might be one of the bravest women of our generation. She's a true revolutionary.

<comment><USER18> I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, she was very brave for wilfully going into that sort of an environment, and a very intelligent person. But remember that there are thousands who live in a similar manner in just that city alone - people who have been living in these environments for their entire lives, and who come to much of the same conclusions that she has, only without academic language or a parent's name. After a run-in with law enforcement that left me with a bitter taste (I was arrested for a crime I wasn't guilty of), and seeing first hand many of the horrors of the justice system I had only heard or read about, I asked a friend of mine who had spent a decent amount of time in jail what he thought the justice system believed it doing for him by sentencing him. He responded that jail time was never about changing the people inside, it was about how everyone else felt outside. This is arguably the entire premise of Goffman's work: the police crack down on frankly minor charges in predominantly black areas has nothing to do with actual safety or reform for those individuals. "But after braving violence and intimidation to get this story, Goffman now faces a different challenge. How can she keep the focus on black poverty, and not her own biography?" Indeed. No, Alice Goffman is neither the "one of the bravest women of our generation" nor a "revolutionary," she's an academic who is well-off enough to get in the paper and sell books. Who knows, maybe her book could be the "Silent Spring" of the prison-industrial complex, but don't deify her like that - it belittles the people who actually do get coerced, imprisoned, and killed for living their lives.

<comment><USER19> Honestly I'm sure it's great and all that but these conclusions are hardly earth shattering. They are basic conclusions educated and uneducated but streetwise people have held for years anyway. Nothing groundbreaking. Sorry to say but the story is what is interesting, not the revelation of the war on drugs or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > "What her research shows is that these institutions may be self-defeating > and may carry very significant social costs," Western says. "And so the > whole effort to improve public safety through criminal-justice supervision > and through incarceration may have significantly backfired, and may in many > ways have contributed to the ongoing poverty and shortage of opportunities > that we see there. That's a fairly new story."

Everybody with half a brain has known this forever.

<comment><USER21> So what do we do? It's all good and well that we've made this observation, but what do we do about it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Kind of ironic that the article talks about how she is annoyed that the story is focusing on her.

At which point the article basically starts focusing on her.

</comment><comment><USER23> On a similar topic, I would highly recommend the book The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault. [http://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Punish-The-Birth- Prison/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Punish-The-Birth- Prison/dp/0679752552)

</comment><comment><USER24> I hold a degree in Sociology but I lack the teary eyed outlook on life which seems a requirement if one if going to make a name for themselves in the field of Sociology in this era. For that reason I also earned a degree in engineering and opted for a steady income instead. But, like so many other sociology majors, I read nearly everything Erving Goffman ever published. For a time I was a nearly complete fanatic of his work and style. Unfortunately, Alice Goffman's writing lacks the depth of her father's studies; indeed American Police State is just another Martinique Hotel handwringer complete with all the hopelessnes and despair as the subtext. Why can't sociology majors ever concentrate on the individuals who grow up in ghettos and get on with life? Surely they must represent the majority.

I believe that as long as sociologists continue to write in the Martinique Hotel manner an undue number of tears will be shed without any real work being done. In physics such a machine would be one-hundred percent entropic, i.e. fuel in, nothing out. Or, in the case of Alice Goffman's piece, tears in, nothing out. It is time for a new generation of sociology majors to concentrate on the winners and do research on them to see what makes them different, i.e. such as making the right decisions before acting.

Pitiless in Seattle

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a pretty misleading title. As to its actual subject, best of luck with the book.

edit: Just pointing out the clickbait aspect. It's hyperbole, not the technical usage.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not to make light of this serious subject, but this isn't what a Police State is. A Police State refers to use of the police for political ends. Like arresting dissidents or placing armed guards next to voting booths. It does not refer to overly aggressive enforcement and certainly not to the enforcement of laws some people don't like. Drug prohibition was a response to public outcry and we live in a democracy.

<comment><USER27> It is argued in one of the comments (on the link) that this is a response to the civil rights movement of the '60s - if you can't legally exclude the Minority Ethnic community from voting, lock them all up instead.

I'm not saying that's a true analysis, but it's certainly one way to make this story seriously political. Even if you just make it about stopping poor people voting, instead of some other subdivision, it's still leaks out of the "law and order" debate.

<comment><USER26> That's a roundabout argument and I don't think you can prove any criminal intent about that. Unless you can prove that the political process encourages the targeting of minorities, then it's just an enforcement issue. And not every state will ban you from voting for a non-violent offense.

<comment><USER27> It doesn't have to be "criminal" on the part of the law makers/enforcers to be a political issue - your bar is too high there. cf "institutionally racist"[1].

On the point of who bans you from voting, I think that's hardly the point - the types of crimes that are common in these communities are felonies.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I can't help wondering what the black women in the neighborhood thought of Miss Goffman.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's quite possible the purpose of the criminal justice system is to remove the young male (and dare I say black?) population from the breeding cycle.

Is that a falsifiable hypothesis?

<comment><USER30> Well, they _do_ breed just fine even in the current system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Bad conversion strategy for the publisher. I was on Amazon ready to buy. Maybe don't publicize this until it's available to the public (book comes out in April next year)

</comment><comment><USER32> Right. Okay, Upstartuppers, let's play _Reconstruction of the Bottom Line_.

> Men like him lived a paradox. The penal system was supposed to shape them > up. But its tentacles had become so invasive that the opposite happened. > Goffman argues that the system encourages young men to act shady—"I got to > move like a shadow," one of Mike's friends told her—because a stable public > routine could land them back behind bars.

If an African American man walked into your startup, given some negligible* felony history and a "shady look", but showed you an SPA he built in prison, how would the "culture fit" measure factor in your decision procedure to hire him?

*: And [if] you do hire him, do you poke and prod for social metadata until you discover this feature of his personality?

<comment><USER33> Depends on the felony. Selling drugs? Fine by me. Theft, fraud, or something involving dishonesty or harming people against their will? Not a chance.

I probably will subject him to extra scrutiny given that different criminal behaviors tend to be correlated, i.e. P(dishonest|drug dealer) > P(dishonest).

In contrast, if they have a postmodernist epistemiology [1] (or even worse, an inconsistent one), they've got no shot. A die hard frequentist would also have a hard time compared to an honest drug dealer.

[1] [http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/regiftedxmas12.html](http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/regiftedxmas12.html)

<comment><USER34> Thanks for that link, I've found explaining that difference to people to be difficult sometimes. There is some helpful stuff in there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Yeah, this is what happens when people defer to government authority as a consequence of looking to government to solve all their problems. This leftist shift will only make the situation worse.

<comment><USER3> Hilarious.

Would you rather leave this to capitalist corporations or the free market? I mean, maybe we should just have lots of Blackwaters running around performing "protection" services for the highest bidder.

<comment><USER36> > _" capitalist corporations"_

"Capitalist corporations" are the direct result of corporate states serving corporate law. The irony in your comment is strong. Blackwater and its derivations became powerful specifically because of [the many] having their labor (e.g. taxation) and choice (e.g. systemic control) forcefully deferred to [the few] of _the state (in its singular, arbitrary version of existence)_. The rest of the US military is already nearly _wholly_ dependent on so-called private interests. Realistically, there is no difference between private and public entities on this same platform. Either an entity is accountable to such oligarchical 'control' or it is not.

> _Free market_

Like most terms that become distorted and perverted through political propaganda, a "free market" can have wildly different meanings. You may find that you support a freer market.

A free market as some people define it is one in which groups of trade (businesses) are _less powerful_ because "corporations" would not exist in law. People would exist. Business would exist. Legal buffers from responsibility of actions would not exist. Those buffers currently afford the largest corporations of today the luxury of exploiting people and land through the use of government -- not only protecting directors from their violent actions but also increasing the platform where police/military force serves their corporate law. In a free market where abstract entities are not state- protected, all actions fall under the same domain of scrutiny. Frameworks of law as far as business is concerned would be relegated to protecting people _from_ direct contractual fraud or abuse, only to the extent financial or physical damage is _actually_ taking place. Therefore, egregious economic fines and prison sentences for non-violent actions that disobey corporate law would be a token of more brutal eras. Systems of this sort are often paired with models that give people, the public, more direct control over the flow of their own labor/money, thereby making it harder for abusive or surreptitious entities (e.g. every war/surveillance company) to gain vast power through the current top-heavy, centralized money pools of a government's taxation. A transition to more human freedom such as this isn't possible overnight; but it is worth aspiring to in the evolution of governmental systems. That's humanist.

Other people define a "free market" as a system in which corporations are still greatly protected yet even less susceptible to recourse by people. That's problematic.

<comment><USER37> There are few comments without links that are worth reading. I think this is definitely one of them.

<comment><USER36> Thank you. I truly appreciate your kind words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This submission is not "Hacker News".

<comment><USER39> It is how HN is now. It is not up voted because because they want America to improve, it is upvoted because they want to pretend America is failing. I can sort of understand the attitude as Europe should really have more power in the world but don't for reasons that are unclear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Did I accidentally stumble onto /r/politics on reddit or what? A bunch of first worlders complaining about "police state" in their first world country. Give me a break.</comment>


How  Shogun (YC W18) Got to 1000 Positive Reviews in the Shopify App Store - <AUTHOR> https://getshogun.com/blog/shogun-1000-positive-shopify-app-store-reviews/ <comment><USER2> > "Our support team asks for reviews only if they sense that the customer is > having a positive experience. We also utilize canned responses/snippets to > increase efficiency here."

Hmmmmm .... Not sure how I feel about that. But I'm sure that's what everybody does so I appreciate their honesty I suppose?

<comment><AUTHOR> What's unsaid here is that the vast majority of the support interactions are with customers having a positive experience.

Also, we've been able to turn negative experiences like bugs into positive experiences surprisingly often, e.g., by fixing them really quickly.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely, I can respect that! Didn't mean to take it out of that context.

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries! Thanks for sharing your perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What on earth is the Shopify App Store?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's Shopify's (NYSE: SHOP) app ecosystem: [https://apps.shopify.com/](https://apps.shopify.com/)</comment></comment>


Don't Pay to Acquire Your First Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.kapwing.com/blog/dont-pay-to-acquire-your-first-users/ <comment><USER2> I don't necessarily agree with the author. Her suggestions for how to get early users are all good ones, and by all means, do them all if you can! Except producthunt -- that one's a rigged vote with its own secret influencers. Google around, you'd be surprised how deep the rabbit hole goes!

But back to my point: there's nothing wrong with trying some Google or Facebook ads. Don't spend too much up front! Google will try to get you to broadly target a bunch of generic words. You should resist that pressure and use their keyword research tool to home in on specific phrases that your potential customers often search for.

Once you have your phrases, just put in $500 and see what happens. If you pick up a handful of customers who pay you $1000 over the next 6 months, then you're golden! Put in $5,000 next time and see if you can turn it into $10,000. Honestly, this kind of thing works for some businesses and people end up dumping as much as they can into ads. Don't ignore this strategy just because it's not as "sincere" or "personal" or something.

[Edit] Fixed author pronoun.

<comment><USER3> I think you're being unfair to product hunt. I've launched two sites on there - one was the product of the day (www.uploader.win) and the other one in top 5 and I don't know anyone there.

I even created my profile on the same day and yet it was so well received. Got a lot of paying users as well. Maybe there are some people who try to game the system (just like there are people on HN too) but I wouldn't make them generalization since my experience has been very good on PH.

<comment><USER2> Here are a few citations for what I'm talking about[1][2]. My objection is not that some people try to game the system, but that the system was secretly rigged from the start. There is a group of curators -- VCs, startup advisers, journalists, important founders and the like -- who get to jump the queue and post directly onto the top of the front page of ProductHunt. The majority of front-page posts came from these curators, and the "upcoming" section is nothing more than a pool from which they can hand-pick submissions. It's a bit like Slashdot pretending to be Hacker News.

According to [1], many founders have taken on "advisers" with curator privileges, giving them a little bit of equity in return for the publicity.

Hacker News is _nothing_ like that. Although your social group can help you promote things here, there's no startup adviser that I can give 0.5% ownership to in return for bypassing the voting queue.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10739875](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10739875)

[2] [https://www.recode.net/2015/6/18/11563670/product-hunt- the-s...](https://www.recode.net/2015/6/18/11563670/product-hunt-the-startup- kingmaker-faces-charges-of-elitism)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm tired and it's late but I just want to say that the author makes a fair number of unsubstantiated claims and assertions.

1\. That "organic" users are somehow more real than users acquired by paid acquisition. 2\. That ads are super duper simple and you just turn them on then bam users are there. Plenty of companies in fact spend quite a lot on ads and get almost nothing. 3\. That the channels she mentions are in fact "organic" I want to know, truly, what the super secret learnings are that one gets from gaming google rankings rather than simply buying a Google ad or spamming Facebook groups rather than buying a Facebook ad.

By all means, do customer discovery, but pretending that hanging kitschy neighborhood signs instead of running Google ads is somehow more authentic is just arrogance not really backed up by anything other than feelings. Plenty of profitable and sustainable businesses run on ads. Other companies ads aren't right for. Just try stuff and see what works.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't want to be too critical because I (naively) agree with the idea, but all of the suggestions in the blog post cost time/money. I'm especially thinking about start ups that have a large technical component and have limited resources. You've got that thing in the back of your head where you are going, "I need to spend time marketing. Or I need to spend time writing code. Or I need to spend time making real sales. Or I need to spend time gathering requirements from potential users. Etc, etc".

It's easy to think about founder-effort as being nominally zero cost, but there is always a cost of lost opportunity. Choosing what to do is important. If you have cash that you can spend that will make one of the things on your TODO list disappear, that's a pretty sweet thing.

It's always going to be a judgement call as to what to spend time vs money on. In my (again naive) way of thinking, you should probably take a hard look at yourself (and any other partners you have) and decide what your "value-add" is. If you could make a unicorn simply by spending money, then everyone would do it. It's the people who make the difference and so you need to be realistic about where you are going to make that difference. Prioritise the areas where you are needed (and are able to make a difference) and spend money on the areas where it matters less.

<comment><USER6> A huge part (some say 80%) of your work on a product/startup should be marketing, getting to know your market and customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kapwing adds a giant watermark to the videos to help acquire users. This won't work for products that aren't video meme makers.

Side note: I've seen articles from Kapwing on here recently. It seems they're following formulas to get on HN. It reminds me of TripleByte, and in the past, Mattermark. Please don't take the bait.

<comment><USER8> Sure but is it really all that different from a free trial or a limited free version?

<comment><USER9> Most free trials aren't visible to other people.

<comment><USER10> Gives me an idea for a free trial where you unlock the software every day by sharing on social media. I think a lot of mobile games already do something along these lines to gain extra lives etc.

Marketing people: You didn't see this comment. Move along.

<comment> yoz-y Building up on your idea I might actually do that. I have trouble reaching out to new customers and ads are not an option, but maybe I could add a trial version that only becomes available once you shared the app link on some social media. (And of course by sharing I mean you were catapulted to a website of your choice, if you don't share anything I have no way of knowing)

<comment><USER11> Share the name of the product so that I can avoid it in advance. I consider such marketing techniques abusive.

<comment> yoz-y Sure thing: [https://eventail.app](https://eventail.app)

What in particular do you dislike in such a model? I get that a pestering to share is bad and dislike it myself, but this idea is far from it.

<comment><USER11> What I dislike is poisoning of social signals. Sharing something to your social media friends implies you believe it may interest them; doing so in exchange for a reward is an abuse of this mechanism, a violation of trust your friends may have in your posts.

I get that at this point, one app isn't making it much worse, just like farting into a dumpster fire isn't making things significantly worse either. But intent matters. You could say that it's a naively idealistic stance, but then again, the problems of social media weren't caused by a conspiracy of few evil actors - they're caused by hundreds of thousands of small sleazy actors doing their small seedy things.

<comment> yoz-y I see your point. Just giving a share option somewhere near is better. I'll ruminate on it a bit and try to think of a better way to motivate people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm literally heads down in the weeds on this now growing a new startup I'm working on.

Just hit 10k users! [https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

I would agree with 60% of what the author is trying to say.

First, devils advocate.

If your app is actually making money it's totally reasonable to buy ads to grow.

If you spend $100 on ads and make $500 in revenue that's probably a pretty solid deal (assuming your costs are reasonable).

In that case - go for it.

Additionally, there are a lot of channels that you can work with which might need cash to get you bootstrapped.

For example, if you find a really great blog or mailing list it might make sense to just throw down $500 for an ad to the author to mention your product (and disclose of course).

The reason why is that these niche communities can be VERY VERY valuable.

They don't scale but getting your first 10k years is really helpful.

The other things mentioned in the article take a LOT of time. Befriending influencers? Yeah. That can take a while!

...

but I think the spirit is right. If you're lazy and only depend on ads - you're in a world of pain. Most of what you have to do is understand how the ecosystem around your company works.

That just takes a ton of time and the only way to do that is to have legs on the ground feeling it out.

Which sites have traffic? What are some growth loops you can use?

A LOT of startups have found some REALLY cool and interesting growth 'hacks' that you wouldn't really think of unless you're in the weeds for months at a time.

Startups like Duolingo, Dropbox, etc don't just happen. They take time and effort and continual iteration.

<comment><USER13> Congrats on 10k users. Did you reach out to niche blogs to get your product listed? A quick search shows that you bought the domain in September last year, so I'm trying to figure out how you got 10k users in 4-5 months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Paid advertising might test if your solution works for a very specific user, > but it doesn't tell you that the unit economics will work at scale.

Paid channels like Facebook & Google have incredibly diverse audiences with any number of sub-populations you can target, and there's nothing special about organic traffic that inherently makes it unbiased and special.

> In contrast, the customer acquisition cost is zero for organic channels.

It just seems free because you can't measure the effects of other channels on direct and branded search (unless you're not doing any paid) or your accountant got creative and put the social media, PR, influencer, and affiliate spend in "Brand Marketing" so it doesn't count towards your customer acquisition cost under "Paid Marketing". You're spending money one way or another regardless of where you're putting it in the books.

> Instead, embrace the hustle and find ways to sell, distribute, and persuade > without cash

Your time is money, and is probably worth more than the ad spend you're trying to get out of. Burning cash on salary while you try to hunt down "free" customers can be misleadingly expensive.

Free traffic is great, and I'd like to get as much of it as possible, but it's very hard to build a business on something you have little direct influence over.

<comment><USER15> Yes, spending your own time is only for poor people.

<comment><USER14> This business is VC funded, not a couple of kids spending some summer job savings to bootstrap a website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Paying is the easiest way to acquire a user. If you can't retain, that's a product problem. There is no need to rule out paying to acquire a user. What author probably meant is that you don't spend on marketing unless ROI is proven. That's a whole lot different than saying "don't pay to acquire first users."

</comment><comment><USER17> I disagree with the author's statement "We did not spend any money to acquire our first user." she then listed a ton of efforts with real costs. She spent money. She just didn't spend money on generic search result ads.

</comment><comment><USER18> > Most companies never get paid acquisition channels to work...

Is this true? Or is it one of those truisms where there are exceptions but you shouldn't assume you'll be one of them.

<comment><USER19> Of course this is not true. If paid channels didn't work, then companies wouldn't consistently deploy marketing budget into these channels.

I think what the author was trying to convey is that new companies have trouble coming with a paid acquisition strategy with a low cost/positve return over investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My product isn't yet at a point where it has a market fit but I came up with a small excel file that goes in the same direction as my product. I can offer that for free and it starts to pull in organic traffic from google, bing and other places like forums where I suggest my free tool as a solution for someone's problem.

My tip for most SaaS out there: If your "keyword + excel/pdf/template" is an easy target, then think about creating a free sub-product with a decent landing-page for it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Schmeh. You should do EVERYTHING in the early stages, because you simply do not know what will work and what won't. You have assumptions, but ego can get in the way here. Paid users are not always less valuable (talking LTV here) than organic. There are a bunch of really important things you can learn by doing paid ads early on, specifically around potential audience demographics, messaging, site behavior, conversion funnels, CAC, etc. Don't listen to marketers, just do everything and learn a bunch.

</comment><comment><USER21> The thing is not all products and apps are marketable organically. But I to agree with the spirit of what their saying.

My recommendation would be to modify your product in such a way that it has an organic marketing angle, I think that can make a real difference.

</comment><comment><USER22> > _because we grew it without marketing expenses, we could bootstrap and live > out of our savings while we got our first customers_

It's nice to avoid spending on marketing, but here it seems like they just made the product free — which means they incurred platform costs (AWS or whatever) in lieu of marketing spend. Not really a victory.

> _advertising distances you from the problem_

Except when it helps you learn about your target markets by seeing what keywords perform better than others. It's definitelu important to talk to customers, as the author advocates, but you can also learn about your customers by seeing what advertising channels/focuses work better than others.

</comment><comment><USER23> Holy crap. There is just so much wrong and arrogant in this piece that I don't know where to start. She talks about all of the users her company got; how many of them are paying customers? Depending on your business, it's easy to get a bunch of "users," but it's very hard to get a bunch of paying users. If my product were free, I would have tens of thousands of users, (my niche is pretty narrow, a TAM of 200k people in the US and about 3 million worldwide.) But those users are worth exactly nothing if you can't convince them to pay. So I am not impressed with squirting a bunch of free users — if you have 5 million free users, maybe then I would be impressed, but anything less than that, unless it's a paid product, they're actually costing you a whole lot more than they are worth. Unless you are ad-supported, but even then, less than 5 million isn't at all impressive (to me.)

I tried the hanging up fliers bit 6 years ago. I also tried to build thought leadership and similar nonsense. For my little company, we are just now getting high rankings in Google for relevant keywords, but that took literally years of relentless blogging on highly focused quality content directed specifically at our potential customers. As far as product hunt? I can guarantee you not a single customer of mine has ever heard about Product Hunt let alone used it to find solutions to their problems. My business deals with mental health practitioners and they sure as hell aren't looking for our solution on product hunt. The author mentions startup directories. That's about as dumb as expecting a Tech Crunch article to get you customers. Our customers don't read Tech Crunch. Most potential customers of products don't read it either. We were even featured in a Wired Magazine feature in 2012 and that didn't get us customers either because our customers don't read Wired or, if they do, it isn't much. We literally got more leads from a Readers Digest mention than from Wired. We were in a Forbes article about top health startups and years later, we still get leads from that. But counting on that as a customer acquisition channel? That'd be crazy. As far as getting friendly with bloggers — that could help except all the bloggers that matter are already friendly with the competition as well. And, in the mental health practitioner space, there aren't a great many bloggers that actually have an audience. You know what does work? Content marketing and paid search. Paid ads on industry organization websites work very well too. Professional conferences work to some extent as well. But paid search (not just on Google, but sites like Capterra) works extremely well, especially if you are clever with the long tail.

If you are making some kind of trendy toy for the technorati or a non-specific audience of "the general public," then perhaps some of her tactics might work, but for reaching actual people in your niche that are willing to pay, content marketing, paid search and paid ads in industry-relevant places work far better than some high school student council election style promotion. I intend to be harsh because in the 9 years I've been running this business, almost everything she says is wrong (at least in my anecdotal case.) Paid ads absolutely work, but like anything else, you have to be smart and disciplined. Paid ads can just as easily be a money pit, but if you know anything at all about your customers and your product is worth something, you should be able to find success with initial customers using paid advertising (and not just online.) If I were to raise another funding round, I'd devote almost all of it to content marketing and paid ads because they absolutely work. It costs us about $200 to acquire a customer with an LTV of $750. There is a direct correlation for us with ad spend and customer acquisition. It's just mathematics at this point. Figuring out the product-market fit and knowing your customer extremely well — those are the hard parts. Once you figure that out, the rest is just about executing and measuring.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hard disagree here as an app entrepreneur. My goal is to test product positioning, functionality, and pricing as quickly as possible. I want to get close to an 80% LTV/CAC on a very early version to be confident that I can eventually turn a profit on the product.

I'm not doing VC backed and don't care about exponential growth. I'm just delivering apps that meet existing demand in the marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think you really have to do it all. I'm paying for ads and that bring in users. I'm posting on message boards to get users. I do cold outreach via email, etc.

I must say I have actually launched today on Product Hunt and that's bringing in a big chunk of visitors already. But still have to see if they'll convert to paying users at some point.

</comment><comment><USER26> Online advertising can be very good for quick hypothesis testing, getting alpha users, and can help you figure out your customer acquisition cost. These can help you move quickly. I don't see the problem if you have the budget as it doesn't need to be either or.

</comment><comment><USER27> Not sure there is a hard and fast rule on this one. It sure worked out for Paypal.

<comment><USER28> Those were not their first 10,000 users.

<comment><USER27> If I remember correctly it was at least their first 100,000 users. Every person who signed up got $20 and $20 more for each referral; that's paying to acquire your first users directly. Was eventually trimmed down to $10, then $5 before being dropped altogether around 1,000,000 users or so I think. And advertising mostly took care of itself via word of mouth. Of course, that's ridiculously out of reach for a lot of startups, but it is definitely paying to acquire your first users.

<comment><USER28> If you can get 10k grassroots users, you can make the argument for raising capital to scale the company through marketing. If you can't get any grassroots users by giving away the product for free and you need to pay to acquire them it might not be a great idea to raise capital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> No dating site ever started without buying first "fake" customers.

</comment><comment><USER30> The link is broken to the "longer article on this topic" link (looks like a markdown issue).

</comment><comment><USER31> What will happen to the head of growth and google ads?

</comment><comment><USER32> I remember Kapwing, they got lucky with the media and probably through paying some influencers and journalists like many startups under the table but who knows, congratulations anyway

<comment><USER33> When other successful companies/people teach others how to be successful, I'm always reminded of:

[https://xkcd.com/1827/](https://xkcd.com/1827/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > During our call, the founder - whose startup is backed by a top-tier VC - > said to me "I assume that you acquired your first users through paid > marketing." Really? Is this an assumption nowadays?

WOAH, a top-tier VC AND they did something you don't consider to be a best practice!? HERESY! Flagrantly discrediting the meritocracy you think might be necessary to get in the presence of - let alone the PORTFOLIO of - a top tier VC!

Also, that company is still right. Yes, this is an assumption nowadays. Congratulations on getting some funding after doing it your way.</comment>


New Project Management Software Beta Im Working On - <AUTHOR> http://www.groupthinq.com <comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback is welcome.</comment>


Apple Watch: Initial Thoughts and Observations - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2014/09/apple_watch <comment><USER2> _My impression of Android Wear is that it's best thought of as a wrist-worn terminal for your Android phone and for Google's cloud-based services. An extension for your phone, not a sibling device. Android Wear devices are almost useless other than for telling time when out of Bluetooth range from your phone. I don't think that's a device that many people want; it's a solution in search of a problem._

I don't see how the overall point doesn't equally apply to the Apple Watch. Playing music via Bluetooth only and an interface to a nascent payment system don't really change the fact this is still the iPhone's $350+ wrist buddy for the vast majority of its uses.

<comment><USER3> > don't see how the overall point doesn't equally apply to the Apple Watch.

This is something that nobody seems to want to acknowledge in (for lack of a better word) the Apple fanclub.

If you look at the features of the Apple watch, they are basically the same as every other smartwatch released by Samsung and motorola (except for the NFC/Apple Pay stuff, which I am genuinly excited for).

People are trying really hard to differentiate Apple Watch from the Android watches, but it all sounds so absurd because they are so similar (apart from the home screen zoom-UI). Even Apple made their watch square!

And we know that Android Wear kind of sucks. So if they're not that different, Apple Watch will probably not be that great.

The "digital crown" input mechanism is interesting. The Watch seems to have a crisp (tiny) screen. And the wrist bands look cool. But unless there's going to be some crazy battery in there, there's nothing revolutionary about this, and its functionally the same as the 6 watches that Samsung has released, and will probably be almost as underwhelming.

<comment><USER4> Ars Technica recently did a comparison of (what we know of) the Watch software, and the Android Wear software:

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/smartwatch-wars-the- app...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/smartwatch-wars-the-apple-watch- versus-android-wear-in-screenshots/#image-1)

Android Wear looks very primitive in comparison.

<comment><USER3> Kind of interesting to see Apple on the more information-dense side of the UI, I actually think that most of the Android Wear shots look cleaner (though maybe there's too little information), but I digress.

I'm still a bit confused on the ease of use of Apple's UI ,namely the Zoom UI. I'll have to try it to understand.

The fact that this comparison even exists shows that Apple's attempt is not "revolutionary" in any sense of the word: Every Wear screen was duplicated on the Watch. The functionality is the same.

But the main issues with smartwatches are still battery life, size, and general uselessness without the phone. These points were not tackled. So Apple Watch could be a local maximum for this style of watch, but it's not the second coming unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Gruber bends over backwards and twists himself in knots trying to explain why he isn't disappointed after considering the expectations he set before the event. I don't see anything different in the AppleWatch functionality compared to what he criticized Android Wear for earlier this year

<comment><USER6> I thought he was pretty clear when he said

> If it actually doesn't do much more, or allow much more, than what they > demonstrated on stage last week, I am indeed going to be deeply > disappointed, and I'll be concerned about the entire direction of the > company as a whole. But I get the impression that they've only shown us the > tip of the functional iceberg, simply because they wanted to reveal the > hardware — particularly the digital crown — on their own terms. The software > they can keep secret longer, because it doesn't enter the hands of the Asian > supply chain.

He thinks Apple is holding some details close to the vest and he has a plausible reason for why. Say what you will about Gruber's Apple partisanship, but he's always been great at reading between the lines of Apple's publicity events.

<comment><USER5> That's wishful thinking from Gruber so he can withhold judgement/criticism. Apple clearly demonstrated the fundamental functionality of their Watch and the hardware does determine the software — they have a hardware button dedicated to one particular feature ffs. Any additional functionality via WatchKit will at best be supplemental. It'd take a while for iOS developers to get to grips with the new paradigm.

Furthermore, in his haste to differentiate Apple from the competition

> My impression of Android Wear is that it's best thought of as a wrist-worn > terminal for your Android phone and for Google's cloud-based services. An > extension for your phone, not a sibling device. Android Wear devices are > almost useless other than for telling time when out of Bluetooth range from > your phone. I don't think that's a device that many people want; it's a > solution in search of a problem. Call me biased if you want, but I think > Android Wear is simply the result of the rest of the industry trying to get > out in front of Apple, out of fear of how far behind they were when the > iPhone dropped in 2007. On the surface, they do look like the same basic > thing: small color LCD touchscreens on your wrist. But all Android Wear > devices are larger and clunkier than the larger 42mm Apple Watch, and none > of them are even close to the smaller 38mm one. Is there anyone who would > dispute that Apple Watch is far more appealing to women than any other > smartwatch on the market?

The new Sony Smart watch(1) already has more functionality (gps, waterproof, longer estimated battery, transreflective screen visible in sunlight) than the specs of the AppleWatch while the Asus ZenWatch(2) matches it in feminine looks (if not in expensive materials). Both will be out before the AppleWatch and likely for lower prices than the cheap entry-level AppleWatch. AndroidWear OEMs are iterating faster with a wider range of options. Gruber is comparing actual shipping products (Moto360) to promised unreleased products from Apple, indeed he's hoping Apple exceeds their promises. That's his bias showing

(1) [http://www.sonymobile.com/global- en/products/smartwear/smart...](http://www.sonymobile.com/global- en/products/smartwear/smartwatch-3-swr50/) (2) [http://www.asus.com/Phones/ASUS_ZenWatch_WI500Q/](http://www.asus.com/Phones/ASUS_ZenWatch_WI500Q/)

<comment><USER7> " Android Wear devices are almost useless other than for telling time when out of Bluetooth range from your phone"

Yeah. This is the part that gets me.

Gruber is willing to withhold judgement and assume apple has not shown off everything.

But android wear makers, you see, they've shown everything in _their presentation_. No android wear manufacturers are planning anything different than what was shown at I/O.

<comment><USER6> > But android wear makers, you see, they've shown everything in their > presentation. No android wear manufacturers are planning anything different > than what was shown at I/O.

Most tech companies over-promise and under-deliver. Apple has a tendency to do the opposite (if you ignore they hyperbole). I'm sure most Android Wear manufacturers are _planning_ beyond what they've actually announced, but I would be amazed if we see anything new before the new year.

<comment><USER7> " I'm sure most Android Wear manufacturers are planning beyond what they've actually announced, but I would be amazed if we see anything new before the new year."

So around the same timeframe that apple will actually release something? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The combination of solid gold and the obsolescence period of wearable electronics is uncharted territory.

<comment><USER9> Agreed, I don't see any decent percentage of even the high end market investing that much in a watch that will be largely obsolete in 2 years tops. You buy a Rolex to have it for years and pass it down. A $5000 watch that no one will want in 2 years is not a wise investment.

<comment><USER10> Even if the electronics are obsolete, you've still got a chunk of gold hanging off your wrist. Gruber mentions this, and raises the possibility of trade-ins. They do it with phones, and it makes sense for watches made of solid gold.

<comment><USER11> The only way you could make this work would be to make the electronics swappable out of the chassis, to give the object some sort of historical permanence for the owner.

Of course, if you could do that though, then you're not really in the smartwatch business, since it would mean anyone could make compatible wrist- bands.

Conversely - that might not be a bad business to be in.

<comment><USER10> Well if it comes down to the bands, you just _know_ there will be knockoffs. As for the enclosure itself, Apple seems really proud of their manufacturing process for these things. If the guts of the thing are swappable (even if only by Apple), it might be tough for anybody else to come up with a comparable knockoff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's a fun sport for Apple watchers, aficionados and detractors alike: has Apple jumped the shark yet in the post-Steve era?

(The game's a bit Candyland-esque; we always arrive at "yes": if Apple's strategy is inflexible post-Steve, they're doomed, if they make any changes, they are also doomed.)

Let's play anyway.

The big, flashing, worrying sign of changed-for-the-worse Apple isn't any hullaboloo about Warhol and luxury, it's that Apple didn't show us a product!

All they have is a fancy looking piece of hardware and a bunch of tech demos with a UI that clearly isn't cohesive or thought out enough to work in the real world.

And then, on top of that, they bragged a bit about how many features the Watch was going to have.

This is real "danger Will Robinson" territory for Apple, in the traditional Gruber understanding of what makes Apple great: focussing on actual products with a a well-thought out core rather than a lard of features or pie-in-the- sky tech demos.

Gruber buries the lead a bit on this dramatic change. He doesn't get around to mentioning it until deep into the article, and then rather wavily dismisses the change with this bizarre explanation:

He suggests that Apple decided to demo a non-product because they couldn't keep the hardware secret long enough for the software to catch up.

If that's true, that means, what, Apple views secret-unveilings as its core principle?

But I think more likely is that Gruber mind is just going through reflexive contortions of justification here, and the truth is simpler: Apple is slowly losing the focus that for a brief few years really did make it unique among tech companies.

Certainly hope to end up eating crow on this, though. :)

<comment><USER13> Much like the iPhone announcement then.

<comment><USER14> Ugh, I am not sure if you are being sarcastic but it in fact is exactly unlike the original iPhone announcement. The OG iPhone solved a long standing problem that no one else had managed to solve elegantly. It did few things and it did them better than anything else before it.

Apple Watch - well your turn to tell me how it is anything like the iPhone - Apple actually did not tell us what problem it is solving - why competitors' watches are horrible, why I need the Apple Watch etc. That's the worrying thing about this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have no interest in the exclusive "I make more money than you" objects so let's talk about that digital crown instead.

I think Apple messed up here. I might be proven wrong after millions of people are joyfully spinning their little digital crowns between their thumb and forefinger a couple of years from now, but I would wager a small sum that I'm not wrong.

Would it not have been better to put a touch-sensitive pad along the whole side of the Apple Watch and/or give it the same pressure sensitivity as the front screen? Or if they chose a circular watch, give it a spinning band around the whole face of the watch. Much bigger controller, much more comfortable and better precision.

Perhaps there's some use case where the digital crown is a preferable method of input (setting a very exact numerical value for example), but I have a feeling those use-cases will be few and far between, and even then, the set-up to use the crown will require some form of touch and/or voice input.

<comment><USER16> > put a touch-sensitive pad along the whole side of the Apple Watch

That's exactly what I thought when I first saw it explained. Coming from the iPod and all this touch sensitive stuff (and then the "hard tap" being introduced here) a physical thingamabob to fiddle with seems really odd.

<comment><USER17> What about a cold weather? You can still turn the crown in gloves when it is freezing.

<comment><USER16> My Note 3 works just fine with gloves on (there's a screen sensitivity mode intended just for that use-case)...and I'm not talking about using it with the pen.

Touchscreen tech has advanced quite a bit since the old days.

The demos of the watch show a mixed use-case. The crown for some things, the screen to complete the task. So unless they're supporting similar screen tech as what Samsung is featuring now, the glove use-case doesn't matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "The iPad/iPhone is soooo egalitarian!"

"Is Apple losing the egalitarianism it never had? No, it had Macs, it was never egalitarian!"

Why was this in the article at all then? Using an analogy that in the end the author itself destroys is bad writing, or at worst extra reading for the reader for no gain. In his own article he never considers Apple egalitarian, yet he is asking a hypothetical question as though Apple was considered egalitarian to begin with.

PS. I'd have to disagree with even the statement that iPhone is "egalitarian" I would argue, there are tons of people in the world that buy Android because it's good enough, and cannot afford the cachet of Apple.

<comment><USER16> Gruber deserves a prize of some sort of most concentrated example of cognitive dissonance ever put into writing for this post. It's really one of the worst of the worst I've seen.

<comment><USER19> I am no Gruber fan and I am no Apple fanboi, but I think his points are dead on in this post. He is hedging his bets, repeatedly, but given that we know so little about the Apple Watch, that seems reasonable. At any rate, the main point of the article being that the iWatch is not a play into the Wearables market, but rather a move into the much more lucrative luxury watch market. Given how bloated that market is and the value that the Apple name bestows on its products, I think that it's a reasonable assumption. That being said, his "Apple is not a technology company" line is weak. That's like trying to argue that WalMart isn't in the retail business, but rather distribution. You see... they do distribution better than any other company in their space (which is retail) therefore they are in distribution.

<comment><USER16> I respectfully disagree with your generous assessment of this post.

I think if he had basically said something more like "IMHO, Apple Watch looks better to me than any of the Android devices out there" I'd be fine. But all this weird egalitarian bullshit, and backpedaling on his previous claims of disappointment was impossibly tiring.

But I do agree that If there's a real point to made in his conjecture of where Apple is going with their prices, it's not only pushing upscale, but in a more Apple-y way, pulling upscale down. Meaning, bringing luxury items and buying habits into the mass market.

Loads of people can afford a $500 watch, they just don't buy them because

a) They don't need watches anymore

b) If they do, there's a $20 watch at Ross/Marshalls that looks good enough and will get the job done.

I think Apple is going to build a market for smart watches in a way that Google and Android can't because of their superior marketing and built in buying market. In 5 years, the thought of _not_ owning a smartwatch will seem odd, but now the entire market will be in the $500 on up space instead of fighting it out at the lower price points.

After all, Apple has built entire markets on things that we got along just fine without, mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, why not watches?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No doubt the most insightful essay on Apple's wrist computer/watch so far, and HN allows it to be flagged to the bottom of the 2nd page.

HN is broken.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think Gruber's argument that this is Apple's first move into the mainstream, non-tech product scene is correct. The Mark Newson news was a huge indicator. They need two world-class designers to design electronics when Jony has already been killing it for years?

An interesting thought for the future:

Having two devices on a human gives you much richer spatial information, including accurate bearing and rotation speed plus measuring the difference in movement on the top and lower half of the body. Short term, this is great for fitness. Long term, this works well in a house with multiple other Apple products acting as sensors inside a home.

</comment><comment><USER22> I can't wait to see the watches Casio and Nixon release next year.

</comment><comment><USER23> What a slippery balance. Apple typically makes products people replace once every 2 or 3 years. A watch has never fit this time frame of refresh. In-fact the whole attraction to a time piece is that it just works forever and is timeless. I wonder if anyone in the future will be wearing their grandparents iWatch. I highly doubt it. so the large price points, are going to likely fail.

</comment><comment><USER24> If true, I'll be a bit disappointed. I would prefer that Apple continue having good success in the "accessible luxury" category and, if anything, go a even more accessible. It's mission should be to get it's terrific products in more hands. Not the opposite. It's outsized margins are no longer so important.

</comment><comment><USER25> What I found interesting was no mention of "Bozo" Kevin Lynch being in charge of the Apple Watch development. Is he still a bad hire after seeing the debut of the Watch?

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch- bozo](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/19/lynch-bozo)

</comment><comment><USER26> And yet it is still square and ugly because of it.

<comment><USER27> I actually like some square and rectangle watch designs, but in this case I dislike the particular overall shape of the Apple Watch.

It has something to do with the combination of the thickness, and the specific rounding of the corners and sides, that I find off-putting aesthetically.

I want to wear a watch, not a gadget. So I want the technology to be submissive to the watch. When you look at what is on my wrist, I want you to see a watch, not an iPhone mini-mini posing as a watch. We're still a decade away from this being possible.

<comment><USER28> The best thing about Apple selling this watch now is that it puts them on track to make one half as thick a few years later that really _will_ be aesthetically competitive. Within the decade, smartwatches will undoubtedly be _thinner_ than mechanical watches, but they've gotta start somewhere.

Though I do have to admit that going into this thing, my guess was that they'd be using a new color e-ink display to save battery life, not a "raise your arm to turn it on" sensor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does it have a speaker? Let's make this the must have speaker like the iPad camera. (Never use either)

<comment><USER30> Yes it has a speaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> IT'S A F@#&ING KNOB! Just because you're Apple doesn't give you the right to call it a "digital crown".

<comment><USER32> As your comment rightfully deserves due to language and general non- contribution, you've been down-voted into oblivion. Nevertheless, educating the uninformed is a public service, so here goes: amongst professionals and connoisseurs in the watch industry, the "knob" is called a "crown", so they have every right to call it that; they didn't just make it up.

<comment><USER31> To defend my position: They're not calling it a "crown", they're calling it a "digital crown", and digital knobs are common place objects that already have a name.

If I build a car with a joystick instead of a steering wheel and call it a "digital steering wheel" everyone would say, "No, somebody invented that already, it's called a 'joystick'"... they would not say "I am going to educate the uninformed and tell them that among car connoisseurs, a joystick is called a steering wheel."

<comment><USER32> FWIW, I am surprised to discover that I am having this argument with someone whose work I've read and admire.

<comment><USER31> Haha it does amaze me that a single sentence criticism on the nomenclature of a detail on an Apple accessory has gotten any attention at all... I guess I shouldn't be surprised in the case of Apple.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Munich shooting: Several killed at shopping mall, report says - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/22/europe/germany-munich-shooting/index.html <comment><USER2> Why is the news hidden/flagged? A terror attack is ongoing in Munich right now. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12145252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12145252)

Edit: and Nizza terror attacks and Turkish events recently? They were on HN. Double-standard? All the flagging and downvoting is getting more and more on HN - how does this help the community?

I would like to remind you that the 9/11 reporting on Slashdot during the attack was outstanding. All other news websites couldn't handle the traffic and were offline. A relative of mine was up in the tower during the attack and survived - and we followed the reporting via CNN and stayed in contact later via email as the telephone network was down.

<comment><USER3> Because it's off-topic.

Just because something is important doesn't mean it belongs on this site.

When something gets flagged, it doesn't mean it was _bad_ , it just means it doesn't belong _here_.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best toolchain for image-heavy, static websites? - <AUTHOR> Recently, I've taken on several contracts to build portfolio websites for people in the graphic design and architecture sectors. Currently I'm using Jekyll to generate the sites themselves and hosting them on a shared VPS like GoDaddy, but I'm finding it really difficult to optimize all the images they are sending over (bulk resizing + compression).
I'm curious to hear what tools people use to solve similar challenges in addition what hosting solutions that could allow me to better cache + serve these images.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> This is an area where Node shines. I'm tackling this now through Gulp and ImageOptim and It's the most reliable solution I've found. _Tip : As I (and most people) tend to mess with Gulp files, I 've isolated the task to process the images from the other frontend optimisations._

</comment><comment><USER3> Ruby plays pretty nicely with ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick. Those two are my go-to tools for bulk images processing.

As far as serving up static content goes, Nginx is the best.</comment>


JamLegend - the browser based Guitar Hero - <AUTHOR> http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/09/21/first-impressions-jamlegend-it-rocks

<comment><USER2> _No need to buy any fancy controller, your keyboard will do just fine._

There are lots of Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution clones in Flash, and while this one seems especially well made I still feel the whole thing is silly when you're just using your keyboard.

The physicality of playing is what makes these games fun and memorable: it's tapping your feet forward and left on a DDR pad or hitting sticks on actual drum pads or raising your guitar controller at a crazy solo.

Whenever I play these Flash versions (or even the Tap Tap iPhone game) I just think _Hmm, I'm tapping my fingers in a pattern that matches these okay songs the developers found for free on the internet. And I can't move because my keyboard has to sit on my desk. This really isn't that fun._

I'm tempted to say the pattern matching mechanic is just an excuse to achieve the essence of the game, which is making people move. But that's probably not right because I recall PaRappa the Rapper on the Playstation was just pushing buttons and it did well.

So I don't know what it is that pushes a game beyond rote pattern matching into something fun, but to me these Flash clones don't have it.

<comment><USER3> One weakness common to all the Flash clones I've seen is that the song you're playing along to sounds the same whether you hit the notes or not, unlike in Guitar Hero. Whether the improvement in gameplay would be worth the extra investment needed I'm not sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> JamLegend is SUPER fun. Wow, these guys are in for a great launch when they go public beta.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if anyone's patented "A method for achieving a high score by hitting a toggle or combination of toggles on one machine when a scrolling icon reaches a specified point on a second machine."</comment>


Live Stream: Blue Origin New Shepard In-Flight Escape Test - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqUIX3Z4r3k <comment><USER2> Skip to 1:05:00 if you just want to see the launch and the in-flight escape test.</comment>


The fundamental attribution error (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/256 <comment><USER2> The point about mental health is really interesting and important. It's clearly overdetermined, but the different ways of attributing these issues, I think, is understated.

I recently read Mark Fisher's _Capitalist Realism_ , and one of his theses is that in the neoliberal era we've essentially "privatized" mental health, treating it individually/biologically rather than systemically:

> I want to argue that it is necessary to reframe the growing problem of > stress (and distress) in capitalist societies. Instead of treating it as > incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, > instead, that is, of accepting the vast _privatization of stress_ that has > taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become > acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are > ill?

</comment><comment><USER3> He's the north coast synthesis guy? I just tried his modules yesterday, and now I'm reading an old article by him. Small world!

</comment><comment><USER4> We all live different lives, with different responses. To some, scoping their depression as an illness is wildly helpful, as it moves the topic away from some intrinsic failure. To others, it's a cheap trick, avoiding the real issue. Some people live completely functional lives with bipolar disorder, without ever being diagnosed. Others would probably be better off talking about it with someone.

There's never going to be a penicillin for mental health. Or, to take the analogy a step further, even if we think we've found one, it's hard to say if it's not doing more harm than good in each case.</comment>


Introducing the Karmic Koala, our mascot for Ubuntu 9.10 - <AUTHOR> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-February/000536.html <comment><USER2> Nice to see they're finally searching for a new look (rather than brown).</comment>


Physicists create 'negative mass' - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-04-physicists-negative-mass.html <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14093860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14093860)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This seems like an awfully popular explanation, but the article seems legit enough.</comment>


GAS BLASTS WREAK HAVOC (1992) - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-01-18-9201050882-story.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting in the context of the Massachusetts gas explosion earlier this weelk</comment>


37signals to publish a new book - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1441-announcing-our-new-book-deal

<comment><USER3> Is it just me, or do we hear more from 37signals about "How to do it", than about their products?

<comment><USER4> What do you want to know?

<comment><USER3> Some cool stories about technology, scaling, performance, building products, improving products, new features, cool hacks, etc would be what I would find interesting.

It just seems that a lot of the "business advice" is a bit nothingy - Not just 37signals, but Seth Godin, etc. Often it seems like having a "life coach" who used to work at Hallmark telling you things you already know in a slightly sermonistic way.

<comment><USER4> We share this stuff on our blog almost every day. Keep an eye on Signal vs. Noise (<http://www.37signals.com/svn>) and the Product Blog (<http://productblog.37signals.com>) and you'll see all sorts of posts about building products, performance, improving, new features, tips and tricks, case studies, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did anyone else find the irony in calling a book _UnConform_ and getting it published by a _regular_ publisher, when the previous book was called _Getting Real_ ; and David/37s were in large part responsible for technical books being published in various incremental _beta_ stages?

<comment><USER6> Given that they were big fans of not publishing books the old fashioned way in the past, I'd be interested in understanding what made them change their minds.

<comment><USER7> Here,

 _Even though we had tremendous success self-publishing Getting Real, we decided that this time we wanted to write a best seller. We want to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies. We couldn't do this on our own, so we decided to work with a traditional publisher._

<comment><USER8> AKA Greed.

Not that I have a problem with it, but it flies in the face of the 'on-demand' self-publishing mantra that is preached daily on the web.

And people wonder why pop stars continue to sign with the major labels.

<comment><USER4> It's likely we could have made more money self-publishing than going with a traditional publisher. We made north of $400K self-publishing our first book -- and that was in 2006. Today we have a much larger audience, roughly 4x the customer base, a blog that is read by roughly 7x more people, etc. So if this was purely about greed, self-publishing would be the right way down that road. We'd make an awful lot and get to keep every penny to ourselves.

But we don't just want to reach the audience we can reach on our own. We want to reach a much broader audience. We want to reach every entrepreneur, small business owner, or small team member. We want to take our message mainstream. We believe working with a traditional publisher will give us a much better chance to reach these people. That's why we're working with a traditional publisher and that's why we believe we can sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies of this book.

<comment><USER8> I was not inferring that the money made would be direct.

If a new music artist signs with a major record label, it isn't because of the great % they are offering, it's the large exposure, which results in money down the road (from concerts, their 'second' deal etc.) Same with your book deal.

Making money isn't bad, I just feel it's a change in strategy from a company all about 'getting real'.

We (as hackers) all 'rage against the machine' when we're young and poor, but once we all have some success and wisdom most take the opportunity presented by 'the man'. Maybe I'm naive in thinking 37signals was different.

<comment><USER9> Did you simply just ignore Jason's point about reaching a broader audience? That seems like quite a legitimate reason to use an established publisher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This book will fail because Godin already has the market on made up words cornered.

</comment><comment><USER11> The byline should be "how to write a blog telling people how to startup, even though your startup has like 8 customers, until your blog is way more popular than your startup."

<comment><USER12> It's more likely to be "how to work four days a week at your decade-old profitable company while still having people insist on referring to you as a startup".

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm pretty familiar with their general messaging and way of doing things - <USER2> wonder if the book we'll offer anything new. I abandoned "Getting Real" after coming across countless points recycled from their blog.

<comment><USER14> My understanding was that essentially the entire "Getting Real" book was compiled from posts off their blog. This was no secret, and an easy to find out fact before deciding to buy the book or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I bet it'll be a good candidate for Squeezed Books if "Getting Real" was anything to go by.

</comment><comment><USER16> _Even though we had tremendous success self-publishing Getting Real, we decided that this time we wanted to write a best seller._

Is preemptively saying "I'm going to write a best seller" ambitious, or arrogant?

I think it's far more viable to say "We want to appeal to a larger audience and make a deeper impact" than saying "we want a book that's going to fly off the shelves", given the perception many people _already_ have about a company that runs around touting their own experiences as the golden standard for how web startups 'should' be run.

It'll probably be a good book, but I feel as if this will be recycled information haphazardly put together and marketed excessively.

In any case: Good luck breaching the wall of physical publications of business advice.

<comment><USER12> Read the sentence again. It is a justification of their choice as being a practical one, not a statement about the quality of the book. They're saying that while "Getting Real" is the 4th best seller on Lulu, that's kinda like the old joke about "What's better than winning a gold medal at the Special Olympics?" To even have a hope of reaching "real" best seller status _requires_ the resources of a traditional publisher, so that's what they did. Whether they actually achieve that status is another question, one which they make no claims about. That's why the next sentence reads "We want to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies." not "We _will_ sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Maybe they'll decide to unconform by foregoing the descriptive subtitle.

</comment><comment><USER18> The 37 Signals guys are brilliant!

This is great marketing for their products, and they are getting paid to do it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome! Another book that I'm not going to read.</comment>


Books I've read in 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://www.ruggero.info/books-ive-read-in-2012/329/

<comment><USER2> Not wanting to be negative or anything but I'm a bit puzzled why this post is here. There's only six books, the descriptions are sourced from Amazon and there's no comment as to whether the books are good or not.

At the very least some reviews would be helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love recommendation engines as much I love people making recommendations on good reads based on what they think it would be interesting.

I posted this link here just for the sake of discussing the books and maybe learning about new ones.

BTW which book would you like to know more about?

<comment><USER2> Ideally your thoughts/experiences with all of them but my first two preferences would be _Thinking With Type_ and _Understanding Color_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thinking with type gives you an in-depth view into what are the roots of modern typesetting. At first I was pretty amazed in finding out that Italy (which also happens to be the country where I am from) gave a strong contribution to type design during Renaissance. However my purpose of reading wasn't about history. It was about going less random when having to choose a font from a set for a presentation or a website. At least having in mind what are the basic rules to follow when mixing type and setting paragraphs. This is what the second and third part of the book deal with and I would say that the book helped me to get acquainted with that altought much of the experience comes with practice and further reading.

For what concerns the book about color the main reasons for reading it were that I wanted to know what color fit well together and even though I am at 75% of the book I would say that I am still not 100% satisfied with the book because it lacks a bit of exercises for the reader. So far I particularly appreciate the highlights at the end of each chapter and the part of the book dedicated to light

Since Illustrator is a great playground for color and type I thought to give it a try. As it appears a bit complicated at first sight I decided to If you already have some web design technical background this book flows very fast and I would recommend it together with vector tuts for getting your hands on illustrator in a fast way.

I have been eating a lot of information since I got online. I have 1000+ RSS feeds, 1000+ facebook pages and 500+ followed people on twitter, 1000+ subscription to newsletter which crowd my inbox. But what is really important to me? The Information Diet gives a framework for healthy information consumption by comparing information consumption to food consumption. The gist is that you should consume more information from the source and less from re- posting content factories which chase the synonyms just to get better SEO ranking. What I particularly didn't like about the book is that the author has been writing too much about American politics as an example. As a non-american I would have preferred more international topics. But I must admit that politics is a good example to get concept like self reinforcement of your own truth across.

In Gamification by Design I got some best practices for design patterns that make websites more stimulating for the user to participate. The best concept I got were: walk the user throught all the steps from beginner to master, useful stuff to do this are leaderboards and badges. The book however is a bit of advertisement for ruby on rails and badgeville.

Last but not least Enterprise Games: Using Game Mechanics to Build a Better Business has a lot of concepts which are probably already known to a web designer but not to a manager in a manufacturing enterprise but is still a good way to get started with gamification for people who don't have an extensive experience with online tools.

Hope you will find my comments useful. I'm now thinking of editing the post....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Since you are a designer, what do you think the top design books for non- designers are? I'm primarily concerned with understanding the basics and language to better communicate with others rather than be the primary designer.

<comment><USER4> Universal Principles of Design [http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles- Design-William-Li...](http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design- William-Lidwell/dp/1592530079)

<comment><USER5> I would recommend against this.

This is a book that gives you a collection of techniques. Without the knowledge of _why_ you should be using these techniques, you'll end up with weird designs that feel wrong intuitively but are correct technique-wise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be nice to read a review of the books...

<comment><AUTHOR> here you are :) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4966546></comment></comment>