Hacker News Reader

Comment by shawabawa3 | Hacker News Reader

This just seems like a blatant submarine article [1] - anyone who upvoted want to share what they found interesting about it?

  [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

View on HN

I haven't upvoted but found it mildly interesting. Point that I found interesting were mostly:

* one company dominates the market for zippers by essentially capturing the middle ground of "good product with a wide range of options, reasonably priced and flawless execution"

* the example of a company dominating the market with what seems to counter the trend of outsourcing, producing everything in house, which means keeping the knowledge in and full control over the quality. A bit like Apple in that regard.

It's more like a lightweight snack for my brain than a full meal, useless but interesting knowlege, but I also read Now I Know. May or may not be a submarine, but made me check the zippers on my hoodie (YKK :)

Yeah. I found it neat that this company dominates the industry by making a quality product, not by acquiring and enforcing a centuries-long monopoly on an idea.

I upvoted. I didn't know that stuff and found it interesting. There's something inspiring about a company dominating for years by dedicating to quality engineering rather than marketing bs. It didn't seem that 'submarine', given they "declined to speak to [the author] for this story". Though you never know.

Well, that might be a new twist: We fake being independent :)

I've always been curious about why almost everything seems to have a YKK zipper on it. Now, after decades of idly wondering about it, I know.

There's reasonable skepticism, and there's paranoia. YKK owns half the market and doesn't market to end-users. It doesn't engage in that whole sphere of PR, much less this form. If this were a PR piece, the reporter might have actually managed to talk to someone from the company. (Submarining doesn't usually involve outright journalistic fraud.)

It's just an interesting puff-piece. I was curious and voted it up because I've always seen "YKK zippers" mentioned on any vaguely rugged piece of luggage.

I began reading the article and looked down at the zipper on my hoodie. I've never looked at my zipper brand before. Lo and behold, YKK. The article pointed out something that I've taken for granted pretty much my entire life.

I find it fascinating. I had wondered about the YKK on zippers but never bothered to look it up.

It's actually a pretty well-written article. And in a way, it reveals to us "the hidden order of things", or at least a nano-scale slice of it.

submarine article yet satisfyingly informative: now that's a win-win :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com