malachismith

Yes, No, No.

It's a shakedown - and successful entrepreneurs need to start getting smarter about this shit. We've actually got something to lose now.

You're talking retrograde change (a change back to a prior state). But yes... the demographics obviously favor the Dems when it comes to Tech.

If you are resistent to change, it's hard to attract people who want to create change....

If, as the theory goes, the product structure mimics the organizational structure of the group that created the product - you could extend to situations like this. In which case, you would argue that until the GOP changes its (hierarchical and paternalistic) structure the tech advantage will continue.

Wow... no-one posting on Hacker News?!?!?! What WOULD we do?

So, basically, the suburbs are the problem?

Great start. Wish it were set up to be collaborative so we could suggest some of the missing elements.

Lifestylists. (Not people doing businesses around users' and customers' lifestyles, but people doing businesses FOR their own lifestyle). Also known as dilettantes.

OK. Would you do the work to make your product SUPPORT 2% of the market?

IE across ALL mobile devices currently represents less than 2% market share according to NetMarketShare. In other words, less than the Blackberry browser. Would you optimize YOUR product for that?

Reading through the comments before reading the article is different from posting your thoughts without reading the article.

Oh... and as a hint, if your response includes ".. you don't understand .. " at any point... please understand that you are insulting the person you speak to.

A plea to designers.... Read the original piece carefully and try to avoid being defensive. This is an important post for all of you. I've been a defender of Design and designers for 2 decades now. But you all are your own worst enemies. This post should serve as a chance for all of you to learn why you are often Balkanized in business decisions and business structures. It should serve as a chance for you all to show that you actually understand business realities and can propose rational arguments.

Instead, reading through these comments I see pretty much nothing but personal opinion, vigorous hand-waving, very poor and stretched-to-breaking analogies and the usual "because it means this to me" and "because I say so" and "because... Apple" arguments.

I'd suggest reading again with the mindset of "this is the way non designers think about us" and then come back and (with facts this time) explain your perspective.

And remember... this is Hacker News. We work at Start-ups. We believe in shipping early, shipping often, and iterating to improve. Your answers and perspective MUST work within this construct or we will ignore you (and you will thus teach all of us that designers are, in fact, crazy).

Ball's in your court.

1 - the link between blogs of all sorts and the bottom-line is tenuous at best. If you're an ad revenue business, you can make the argument that all traffic has an impact on the bottom line, but suffice it to say that none of the advertising supported start-ups I have been involved in have seen sustained valuable traffic referred in from a blog.

2 - Normal blogs and tech blogs don't write articles that go into detail on the minutae of the design elements in a product's UI. That's limited to design blogs.

3 - Personally, I'm getting kind of tired of the default defense of most designers to this sort of criticism ("because Apple"). Saying that Apple is where it is because of Design not only ignores the market, product and business realities that have lead to Apple's (recent) success - it also ignores the many ways in which Apple's design is sub-standard or even bad (resulting in people copying bad design patterns "because Apple did it").

You are confusing art with design (formerly known, perhaps more accurately, as commercial art). If you are creating "unlimited idealistic perfection" you are creating art. If you are selling soap it's design.

> Free word of mouth advertising and free blog articles written about the beauty of the > pixels contribute to the bottom line much more than the cost of doing a little > pixel fitting.

Really? Give me the data to back up your bottom line claim. Because in my (5 and counting) start-ups I've seen little to no impact on the bottom line from design blog posts.

Being a customer of restaurants and being an investor in food tech start-ups is not the same as understanding operating a food service business.

That logic is similar to the logic of people who say, "I love cooking, I'll open a restaurant." (which, by the way, is one of the major causes of the high rate of infant restaurant mortality).

There are hundreds if not thousands of amazing dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong and Saigon that prove you wrong.

Beyond that.... as a former back of the house restaurant employee (10+ years, Cordon Bleu, blah blah) I can tell you that the only time fewer dishes is a guarantee of higher quality is when the staff isn't skilled.

Is this statement based on your experience working in quality focused restaurants?

Using a condom is hardly comparable to having a kid (in work, implications, responsibility -- ie "decision)

It should not be "decide to not have kids" It should be "decide to have kids"

Having kids is a major decision. Not having them is not.

Every day I say a little prayer of thanks for getting to where I am without having kids. Every time I spend time with my (many) friends who have kids (and now grandkids in some cases), I understand why they've made this choice and yet feel even more validated in my own choice.

And every time someone says, "how do you look so young for your age" or "how can you possibly afford to live the way you live and go the places you go and have the experiences you have" - I just smile and say, "no kids."

Dave,

You're a smart cat. And you've been really successful in the tech / entrepreneurial venue.

But this piece perfectly illustrates a common problem among successful tech entrepreneurs. You've not only assumed that a problem you struggle with is universal, you've also assumed that your success and expertise within one industry means that you know how to operate within other industries (that you don't know about). Worse still... you assume that you don't need to know anything about the industry to "fix" it. This is VERY common among successful tech entrepreneurs. You've started with the assumption that you KNOW BETTER than the people who are currently operating within the business (despite the fact that you don't know the realities of running such a business). In your case, you also assume that most people running restaurants are morons (because if they were not, they'd obviously be running their businesses as if they were tech start-ups).

This combination of myopic narcissism, arrogance and ignorance has gotten a LOT of entrepreneurs and investors in a LOT of trouble in the past.

Might I suggest that you should: 1) learn about the food service business (perhaps you could assume that successful food service professionals are not idiots to start?), 2) test your assumption that there are a reasonable number of people who share your problem

Final Note: tech entrepreneurs and investors - I'd suggest looking at this as a good illustration of a condition that we should all avoid.

Thank you so much for saying this. It perfectly captures my feelings about this piece - and also my frustration for what eating out has become. I actually had some asshat try to take pictures of the meal I was eating with his iPhone the other day.

OK, as a former professional athlete this piece is, as usual, half-smart and largely uninformed (and hugely frustrating).

Important points:

1 - Don't confuse a "health club" with a gym. 2 - Don't confuse a "personal fitness trainer" with an athletic trainer. 3 - Most of all.... Don't confuse Performance and Results.

If you actually really care about Performance and training - I would suggest you start by learning the fundamentals of training. You MUST own your own training. And to do that you need to be informed. The author obviously didn't do any of this work as he just ran from "expert" to "expert" rather than taking personal responsibility. A simple rule of thumb.... if you're not talking about periodization, you're working with the wrong person (and doing it wrong).

Kevin Brown was one of the best PTs on the west coast and I'm incredibly fortunate to have worked with him. He was a huge loss to the community, and to his friends and family. But he wasn't the sort of 'holy man' that is implied in this piece. Unlike everyone else who the author worked with throughout his efforts, Kevin was just a highly skilled, highly trained, athletic performance professional. These people exist throughout the athletic world - including working as trainers.

So make the effort.

1 - Educate yourself on performance and athletic training principles.

2 - Fine a serious professional and work with them.

If you're not up for the above - then accept that you're not going to get the "magical" results you dream of. That's life.

Oh... and a fundamental flaw throughout this piece is the idea that there is some sort of "shortcut" to high performing physical fitness and athletic performance. Other than using PEDs there is no shortcut. And even PEDs are only effective if you ALSO take no shortcuts in your training.

As a former publishing professional, no - there isn't. If the article were to differentiate between online subscription revenue and print subscription revenue, and were to control for other factors that ALSO drive switch to subscription, then you could make the case that the paywall is "working."

You can make a (stretch) claim at correlation just like you did, sure. But correlation (stretch or otherwise) is not the same as causation.

Wait.... this article makes no sense. So subscription revenues are going up, and subscription revenue as a percentage of total revenue is going up. That's great. But why is this an indication of success of the paywall? Seriously...

Analysis and modeling should always be free of dogma. Otherwise you will (as the other of this post demonstrates) start using your analysis and modeling to justify and prove your dogma (rather than to understand). The fact that Silver's analysis and modeling did not prove her point does not invalidate it. In fact, you could argue that the root of her "anger" is that his book proves her beliefs to be at least unproven if not entirely false.

The idea that SNS isn't first-in, first-out is scary enough to me - but the fact that it's also "at least one copy will be delivered" (rather than "only one copy") makes it kind of insane.