
HackerNews (and jasonlbaptiste) on The Economist - rglullis
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/04/opportunity_costs
======
MikeCapone
"But without those white earbuds, how would you have signalled your
trendiness?"

I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but I'm a bit tired of comments like this,
implying that Apple is successful mostly because people are blindly buying its
products to be "in" and signal how cool they are.

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mixmax
That's very true. They make great products that are very well thought of down
to the last pixel-perfect detail. They draw on many years of experience and
hard work to make the products they do.

~~~
_sh
I was made acutely aware of this the other day when out with my girlfriend to
pick up: a replacement iPod for her and a cordless phone. After playing with
an iPod nano for a couple of minutes while settling on colour/features etc, we
then went to look at the cordless phones...

The contrast in design choice just left me depressed. All the phones were
crappy, ugly things, with user interfaces that were just awful. Maybe they had
really good features but I didn't care, because it looked to me as though the
designers didn't care about their product. And this was something I was going
to bring into my home and use everyday!

The whole experience left me bummed. I left with just the iPod.

~~~
dejb
You do realise your story essentially supports the notion that your purchase
was based on fashion and signalling right? I mean "Maybe they had really good
features but I didn't care" actually typifies my view of an Apple fan.

~~~
mixmax
No, it was based on product quality, not fashion. There's a huge difference
between the two.

~~~
dejb
"Product quality" that doesn't relate to functionality is fashion in my view.
Think about it.

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jasonlbaptiste
I've always loved using this quote to give perspective to how much Apple's
grown.

~~~
minus1
How did this comment end up on The Economist?

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jasonlbaptiste
i have absolutely no clue. i was browsing hn as normal and saw my name on the
front page, so I did a double take thinking i was on a comment/threads page.

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dustingetz
if i could go back in time and cherrypick what to invest in, no shit i'd be
rich!

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jxcole
What on earth does this have to do with hacker news?

EDIT: what I meant is: The title says hacker news on the economist, yet the
page has no mention of hacker news anywhere. A better title might be: it is
smart to invest in good stock.

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tbgvi
At the top it says _"JASON BAPTISTE notes:"_

If you click on 'notes' it links to the comment on HN

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jrockway
I, for one, welcome our new hypermedia overlords.

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mixmax
_"The site is currently not available due to technical problems. Please try
again later. Thank you for your understanding."_

:-(

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spudlyo
_Guru Meditation: XID: 294194655_

Classy hat-tip to Amiga.

~~~
kierank
From Varnish Cache.

