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Comment by LeifCarrotson | Hacker News Reader

I think it's at least in part because everyone understands (or thinks they understand) 0-60 times for cars.

But when you start talking about multi-level caches single-level cell memory and the shingled magnetic recording debacle and get down to 02031 1T00 SanDisk Flash vs 60523 1T00 SanDisk Flash chips and continuous writing performance of more than 12 GB, eyes begin to glaze over. For most consumers, it's a black box, the implementation details are unknowable and irrelevant.

People would be ticked off if the Corvette had an undersized radiator that caused it to go into limp-home mode any time you took it to the track, we're starting into slightly esoteric "car guy" details. But enough people know what a radiator is and care about cooling system performance that car manufacturers listen. Very few consumers understand the workings of an SSD; manufacturers are under a lot less pressure as a result.

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> eyes begin to glaze over

This argument is not especially helpful as a defense against a claim of fraud. It does nothing to explain why you'd give reviewers devices with different performance than the devices you sell.

Technically, you're correct, which is the best kind of correct. Yes, fraudulent activity is fraud. But what we really care about is whether it's noticed, acted on, and eventually prosecuted for.

Pragmatically, when you have enough complexity that explaining the fraud is difficult, it's still fraud but they're likely to get away with it.

I find it trivial to imagine someone (who's actually invested in the problem, and not just trying to make you go away) peering at you and asking "OK, so this one has 02031 etched on one of the components on the PCB, and this reviewer says it should be 60523, and you want a full refund because you consider that fraudulent? Does the box say which kind it's supposed to contain? No? Fine, I see that when you copy this enormous disk image, um, it looks like it's working? Sure, I can wait another 40 seconds. OK, yes, I see that the speed has dropped from about 2000 to about to 390. And you're saying they committed fraud because it's not supposed to drop? It is, but only to 660? Are you sure your disk isn't just filling up? Maybe you need to run Windows Update or defragment your hard drive...it just finished, was that delay really that bad? How often are you copying a file this big anyways?"

The point is that navigating the above conversation, much less winning it in a courtroom or having it so often that massive numbers of people boycott a manufacturer, is an enormous hurdle. Until it's more easily surmountable, it's immensely profitable for manufacturers to commit this sort of fraud.

> Pragmatically, when you have enough complexity that explaining the fraud is difficult, it's still fraud but they're likely to get away with it.

This is why you have subpoenas and discovery. It seems likely that an internal email chain exists discussing intent to deceive. Even for unsophisticated jurors, that's enough of a smoking gun to make it an open & shut case.

I think you're overstating it. People do recognize and hate when they're given a bum deal and it has nothing to do with getting into esoteric details.

You are going to get into the same debate had decades ago about hard drive size. Base 2 for techs vs base 10 for average consumers.

I hate to break it to you but this is EXACTLY what happens with a C7 generation Corvette. The C7 generation base Stingray, GrandSport and Z06 models do well enough to wow in magazine and vlog reviews but when owners got their cars and started taking them to track days they realized they started over heating after not many laps in under 30 mins.

They are obviously performance oriented machines but mostly designed for every day use on the street. They may have big brakes, great suspension and a pretty great engine but the cooling system included is not equipped to handle a track for more than 30 minutes. Within the first month of deliveries people were freaking out. After 30 mins the car would go into limp mode and you were lucky if you got on the track at all again that day.

But guess what? The reviewers never experienced this.

You don’t need to understand the workings of a car to get that 0-60 in 10s is worse than 0-60 in 5s.

Likewise, you don’t need to understand the workings of an SSD to get that 10s to copy 1GB of data is worse than 5s to copy 1GB of data.

Implementation details are irrelevant here.

But that's not the case here, it's still 5s to copy 1GB of data unless the cache fills up, which many people won't normally do.

So the parent post's analogy with an undersized radiator is still appropriate, you need to understand the whole system to know what its impact on you will be - you can get one good 0-60 run, then need to let the car cool down at idle for 15 minutes before you try it again.

> But when you start talking about multi-level caches...

No, this is not the point.

The average buyer knows very little about cars or buildings but is protected by regulation.

Consumers should not need to be expert to be protected.

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