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Comment by matsemann | Hacker News Reader

The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement. You're "hip" or "rich" or whatever you want it to signal. Airpods are advertising themselves by people wearing them and influencing others to buy them. That's what driving the sales.

No one will be wearing this in public. And if anything, the person in the office using this first will look dorky. So I can't see it having the same appeal/free advertising.

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> The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement. You're "hip" or "rich" or whatever you want it to signal. That's what driving the sales.

Exactly the opposite is true among the people I know. People feel like dorks wearing AirPods in public, but often find themselves doing it anyway because they're convenient. (I know this, because it still comes up in conversation all the time.)

Not sure this tells us anything much about the Vision Pro, though--except, perhaps, that some people will happily use the product even if it looks dorky, if the user experience is on point.

Precisely. I prefer the AirPods Pro because they’re even smaller and are less visible. I use them because they’re mine blowingly convenient and nice. They’re one of those few products that really brings joy. I wear them constantly both on the go, and at home.

But why did so many end up on exactly that model, when there are so many other brands? Because they're vastly superior, or because we're social animals and seeing lots of other people wearing them signals that they're a safe bet and will keep you in the in-group?

My point here is that the visibility of them on others help drive the sales. "If so many wears them, they obviously can't be bad". For this headset, you will not get that same kind of influences from others.

I agree with the point that seeing people using AirPods serves as a sort of social endorsement of the product. (Which is fairly different from your original assertion that "The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement.") Though I think the much stronger endorsement comes from talking to people you know and trust. The problem with merely "ambient" signaling (as in, you see people wearing them on public transit, etc.) is that you don't know anything about the preferences of the people you see wearing them. I see (or at least used to see) lots of people wearing Beats too, but I only ever heard bad thing about them from people I know and trust and, therefore, never considered trying a pair.

Vision Pro may not benefit from the latter (weaker) form of social endorsement, but it should be able to generate plenty of the former (stronger) kind.

Do you own a pair of AirPods? My Gen2 AirPod Pros are what I consider to be the best purchase I have made in the last 10 years. The small package and ANC is fantastic. Before purchasing AirPods I would walk around with ATH M50X (Great headphones; not fashionable) and these have replaced that.

> The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement. You're "hip" or "rich" or whatever you want it to signal. That's what driving the sales.

Exactly the opposite is true among the people I know, FWIW. People feel like dorks wearing AirPods in public, but often find themselves doing it anyway because they're convenient. (I know this, because it still comes up in conversation all the time.)

I don't know about that. My AirPods just work in a way that no other wireless headphones do with my iPhone. Using them is delightful. I still rock a Gen 1 pair which would no longer be "cool"

Ok.. please you probably can "build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software."

How is the old dropbox dismissal relevant for my comment..?

What I'm saying is that airpods are advertising themselves by people wearing them and influencing others to buy them. This headset will not have that effect.

Well, not the same, but people like to bash anything Apple. The Apple naysayers. usually they are heavy windows/linux users (there’s not much else)

I bought the AirPods because I wanted exactly that. Sadly the batteries died in 1.5 years, so I’m boycotting the AirPods for now.

Nobody I know bought AirPods because they look cool or because they want to show off they’re rich. AirPods are very affordable.. they just work really really well. Why is that so hard to believe?

And yes, people are more aware of items which are visible.. but that’s a different story.

WRT the vision pro, sure you won’t walk around outside with them, but if they work as advertised, they don’t have to.

The M1 air didn’t sell a gazillion times because of its looks. In fact, you couldn’t tell it from the older models, so that point simply is not valid.

People talk, people ask opinions, if the majority of the opinion from experience is positive yes it will result in more sales.

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