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Comment by zdw | Hacker News Reader

"Lets create a conference where the swag is easily resellable items worth more than the conference admission. Nobody will figure out how to arbitrage that..."

I've heard great things about I/O, but the device giveaways seem to always turn registration into a circus...

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To be honest, that was really annoying.

I've become a minimalist in regards to personal property, and the last thing I need is another gadget -- I'm already busily cutting down on what I own, to the point where my fiancee is getting a little annoyed.

It's just more cognitive load to manage that much stuff.

Is a Galaxy Tab bundled in with the admission that much of a draw for people, or is this more a way to offload inventory?

It isn't just about one gadget, at past IOs attendees have walked away with like 4+ gadgets depending upon the talks they registered for, with the resale value of those gadgets far exceeding the ticket price to get in, especially when the gadgets are new on the market and hard to find.

For the organizers, giving away gadgets makes some sense in that if you're doing a deep dive into how to code for XYZ, it is nice if you know everyone in attendance has a default configured XYZ.

I've tried to register for IO in the past and never made it past the always-overloaded servers... this year, I didn't even bother... I'm sorry for those who tried and didn't make it but glad I didn't waste my time.

Anyway, if the conference is still selling out in 20 minutes, I guess this means they can bump the price by another $500 or so next year and see how it goes.

I think the gadget gifts is more about making sure developers have the hardware to develop for. If I don't have an Android device there is next to zero chance I will write a Android app.

But there are enough Android developers that I/O seems better targeted at existing devs who already have the devices.

To an extent. Last year not many people had tablets or Chromebooks and the gadgets are usually top of the line or running an OS that is no consumer ready devices are running yet.

If I don't have an Android device there is next to zero chance I will write a Android app.

If you can't stomach the minimal cost of Android devices, you also aren't going to write an Android app. Barriers to entry have seldom been a problem (just look at Apple -- they neither give out free iPads or iPhones, or the Mac computer stack necessary to develop for it).

And things are getting worse by the year! The registration lottery system they did was frustrating but I see no other way of handling it. But they definitely need to rethink the swag thing, or I/O will become irrelevant soon (if not already so).

Are there any number about the percentage of attendees only interested in the gadgets and not in the talks/workshops?

I remember people complain every year during registration, but then during the conf it never surfaces.

I think that might be in part because the people that attend solely for the gadgets probably only show up to pick up the freebies, so you aren't likely to run into them at the talks.

In my group of friends alone, I know of at least 10 people (non-developers with no interest to start) that got tickets last year, went up to I/O as a SF vacation, stopped by Moscone to pick up the freebies, then sold them off to pay for the trip and then some. While I, as a developer with an Android app published, didn't manage to get tickets last year nor this year.

They should've at least done that coding contest that was initially rumored. At least it would've brought in only developers that might actually use those devices to make apps.

I think this is one of the reasons the price doubled this year.

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