
Ask HN: Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? - alexitosrv
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
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parenthesis
What problem does it solve that UTC doesn't?

Its time unit (1 beat := 1000th of a (mean solar) day) doesn't have any nice
relation to the units of time with which people are already very familiar
(seconds, minutes, hours).

~~~
Kejistan
What problem does a meter solve that a foot doesn't? Easy conversions between
different sized measures of distance. 1000 beats in a day is easier to keep
track of than 1440 minutes. Just because its not easily converted to from the
units you're used to doesn't make it "bad" (2.54cm to 1 inch?).

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lucasoman
Meters by themselves don't solve anything. But the whole metric system makes a
lot of sense; everything is a power of ten, a cubic centimeter equals a
milliliter, which makes length=>volume conversion trivial, etc.

From infancy, seconds, minutes and hours are ingrained in our minds. 60 is
also a beautiful number, being divisible by 2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20,30. Given a
time, like 10:42AM, a person can conjure feelings, instincts and memories
about that time. Using a system based on 1000 "beats" would make time
measurement meaningless for a very long time.

Outside of the Internet, most "normal" people communicate predominately with
people in their own area and timezone, making the benefit of no timezones
moot.

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Semiapies
Further, the metric system offered _universality_ between conflicting
measures. However, people around the world already use the single measuring
system of hours, minutes, and seconds (that last being a SI unit), and UTC is
a global standard.

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kaens
Because everybody is already used to telling time in a certain way, and
doesn't want to take the time to learn a new one, put in the effort to learn a
new one, or deal with the initial wave of missed meetings and general
confusion that would result as larger portions of the population moved to a
different way of telling time.

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mooism2
Most people only have to worry about time zones when they go on holiday, even
in the internet age, so they gain nothing.

It forces people to give up familiar concepts of hours, minutes, and seconds,
for no good reason.

It forces people in some locations to get used to the date changing during
daylight hours (big change if you are used to the date changing at midnight,
after or just before you go to bed).

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ryanwaggoner
A better question might be: why would anyone think this _would_ work?

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ryanv
Indeed. Next up: Why doesn't the world speak Esperanto?

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tokenadult
_Why doesn't the world speak Esperanto?_

That question is well answered by Justin Rye's FAQ about Esperanto:

<http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/>

The short answer is that Esperanto is much harder to learn than Esperantists
claim it is, and thus it has never had many speakers, and thus it provides
lousy return on investment for learning it. The total number of all Esperanto
speakers in the whole wide world (at any given level of proficiency you care
to define) is less than the number of new speakers added by English or Chinese
in a single year. There will always be much better return on investment of
time, money, and effort to learning any of the top dozen or so natural
languages than to learning Esperanto. And that's why Esperanto is the language
for which tomorrow never comes as to it being widely used as an auxiliary
international language.

Studying Esperanto is a fine hobby, and one I have engaged in, but it is a
poor solution to the practical problem of communicating with more people who
don't know your native language. I say this as a person who has learned
multiple languages from multiple language families.

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axod
Because powers of 10 are less useful than other more useful numbers like 60.
That's why IMHO metric isn't generally as useful for day to day uses. eg you
get a dozen rolls from the baker so you can divide them between 2,3,4 or 6
people. Getting 10 would be silly.

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evetsx
as someone raised in a family of 5 and now with a family of 5 of my own I'm
not entirely convinced.

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showerst
I think time zones are actually pretty useful. If I have to call Frankfurt or
Tokyo, it makes a big difference whether it's 4pm their time or 6pm.

If things were the same worldwide then I'd have no idea if it's the middle of
the night in the place I'm trying to call unless I've already memorized it.
With time zones I can just look at a world clock.

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lutorm
Why is the US still not using metric? That's a _compelling_ change, which
would align it with the rest of the world. And it's still not happening. The
chances of the entire world adopting a new time scheme just for the heck of it
are zero.

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axod
Make something people want. People don't want metric. Give up on it... The UK
is similarly un-metric. Be proud of it!

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md81544
The UK _isn't_ similarly unmetric. We're, admittedly, in a half-cocked halfway
house where food is sold by the gram (and it's legally enforced to be that
way), but beer is still by the pint, speed limits and distances are in miles,
and temperature is optional. What a mess.

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axod
I, like many other people, still ask for food by the pound.

Asking for 100g of strawberry bon-bons, rather than "a quarter of strawberry
bon-bons" just makes you sound like an idiot IMHO. Also obviously milk is by
the pint.

As far as I know though the case against selling food by imperial measures was
dropped by the EU.

I agree it's a mess that needs sorting out. Leave people to use what they want
to use.

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gstar
I thoroughly disagree that you should leave people to use what they want to
(anarchy).

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axod
For the majority of people, the fact you can easily divide a measurement by
1000 is absolutely useless.

Just like the fact you can happily discuss units of measurement with someone
from a foreign land.

If an entire country uses a particular unit of measurement, leave them alone
to continue using it in peace.

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aristus
Is this a serious question? Internet Time was a marketing gimmick by a watch
company. It's like asking why "Bat Time" didn't work.

Me, I'm still holding out for this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar>

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trickjarrett
Two reasons: 1\. There's no GOOD reason for this change to happen. It's change
for change's sake. Sure it's more logical, but standards of time or
measurement aren't changed for just that reason, they get changed when they're
shown to be BROKEN and while our current time system is less than optimal,
it's far from broken. Blame the Babylonians.

2\. Establishment.

Dethroning a company, which has marketing, and products, and such is one
thing. But to dethrone a concept requires a great big change, cataclysmic in
some ways. Ignoring the first point, Internet time could have succeeded if it
only reached critical mass.

Imagine if Twitter decided that starting today they only showed message times
in Internet time. Would that be enough for people to quit twitter? Possibly.
But would they lose that many people? It's really more about the here and now,
so people shrug, call it eccentricity, and the geeks go about educating people
trying to make them understand the merits of the new time system.

If it and Twitter hung on, more and more people would come to understand it.
This is the first hurdle now behind us.

Many of us Americans understand the metric system, but the government still
uses miles, feet, lbs, gallons, etc. So the people then have to begin calling
for the social change, and dealing with those who didn't want the change. This
is the second major hurdle. Even if a loud and vocal group advocated the
change, it would require a great deal of reason to enact the change.

Consider all the clocks that would need replacing. The epic sweeping changes
to the clock and watch industry. They would fight tooth and nail to avoid such
change. The costs would be astronomical. Sure they'd see a surge in sales from
those who adopted the new system, but I doubt they would see much profit after
the change to marketing, production, etc.

