
Stop Obsessing Over Comments On Hacker News (2015) - deepakkarki
https://venngage.com/blog/why-you-need-to-stop-obsessing-over-comments-on-hacker-news/#!
======
jasode
Discussion from October 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10412465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10412465)

My take on it is:

HN/Slashdot commenters can be valuable for pointing out what's technically
wrong with the product. They also tend to put too much weight on product's
shortcomings. However, they are blind to what's _right_ about the product or
discount the product's strengths for the non-geek consumer.

However, that doesn't mean that average consumers are ultimately right either.
On the one hand, they don't have the technical understanding which often skews
the prediction towards market failure. Their naivete just lets them try the
product and vote with their wallets. On the other hand, that lack of knowledge
leads to unrealistic hypothetical products... e.g. _" if they can put a man on
the moon, why can't my smartphone battery last 3 months and project a 4k video
with 5000 lumens on my living room wall?"_ (relevant XKCD:
[https://xkcd.com/1425/](https://xkcd.com/1425/))

------
pfarnsworth
This really just puts more strength in the idea that success is largely luck-
based.

No one can accurately predict success. Not specialized forums, not specialized
workers in the field, and _not even VCs whose sole incentive is to make money
by investing in great ideas_.

Even YC says as much that they have no clear idea as to what will be a
success, and their strongest signal is the strength of the founders, and that
there should be co-founders. I'm not sure how their experiment went with
inducting people into YC just based solely on who they were, without an idea,
but that's just further evidence that even people obsessed with finding
success basically have no clear idea or signal as to what makes a success.

~~~
caseysoftware
I agree with some of the sentiment but I feel like saying "largely luck-based"
frames it as being mostly out of our control.

Yes, there are absolutely economic/industry issues that are completely out of
our control and hard to predict but I believe a major part is the strength of
the team to focus, execute, get along and continue when sh*t happens, and
adjust as their Vision hits reality.

I'm not sure what the division is between luck/timing vs team/product vs all
the other things but it's hard to accept that it's "largely" out of my hands.
Maybe you're right but I hope not.

~~~
pfarnsworth
Assuming that the minimum threshold for any successful company are things like
"strength of the team to focus, execute, get along and continue when sh*t
happens, and adjust as their Vision hits reality", then I do believe that
everything else is out of your control.

If it weren't out of your control, then wouldn't someone have already come up
with a more surefire way of creating a successful company than what we
currently have? The smartest people are here in Silicon Valley, all trying to
become billionaires and yet only a very small percentage actually succeed, and
there's no way to accurately and consistently predict before it happens.

------
anexprogrammer
Meh.

When I submit my project to Show HN it'll be to have the stupid obvious
things, or gaping security FU, I've missed ripped to shreds. That's the point
to my mind. Same if I were showing it to /r/programming. They're my sanity
check before pushing for users.

Hopefully I've already got a good idea of the market before I do that. If I
want positive outlook, perhaps equally unrealistic or wrong, I'd submit to
whatever non-technical reddit suits the service.

Does anyone submit MVP to HN in the expectation of glowing praise or
predictions of success?

e.g. I _still_ don't like Quora, and rarely even visit, especially after the
sign-in to view more change.

------
awinder
There's a certain amount of insane luck involved in any startup succeeding;
you have factors like financing, broader industry investment trends, initial
financing that involve just blind luck that is out of your control. To say
nothing of all the ways you could control but ultimately screw up, in some way
that ultimately kills the company.

Add to that some idea that is not normal and involves actually changing the
way society thinks and acts. Or some idea that runs headlong into a highly
regulated industry and involves a gamble on winning (zenefits, Uber, lyft).
Calling these ideas crazy is basically stating the obvious. The unnormal
result is that they actually succeed. And good for them for doing it, and I'm
not discounting the skill and ideation or how well these people "earned" the
success. I'm just saying let's not discount that they were still lucky and
that the ideas were crazy -- this is statistical fact.

------
minimaxir
Ugh. There _really_ should be a logical fallacy around the fact that Hacker
News was incorrect about Dropbox and other companies, and how it's not a
license to _ignore comments altogether_. I really wish people would stop
referring to the Dropbox story on HN as an example of "ignore the haters
because they are wrong." Dropbox, and the other startups mentioned in the
post, are _outliers_ , not typical examples, and also cases that people have
learned from since 2008.

~~~
caseysoftware
Agreed. There's major survivorship bias in the author's selection.

I'd love to see an analysis of _all_ the "Show HN" posts and which
projects/companies are alive and thriving at +1 year, +3 years, and +5 years.
It still wouldn't be a complete picture but better than cherry picking
winners.

------
empath75
There are so many comments on hacker news of the flavor: "Why would anyone use
this when you can build it yourself in five minutes using x, y and z open
source tools" completely ignoring how much knowledge you have to have retained
in order to build it in five minutes.

~~~
hehheh
Any time I read someone saying something like that I internally replace the
subject with food. "Why would anyone buy food professionally made at a
restaurant when you could make something similar at home?" Because I want
something nice and I'm willing to spend some cash to get it. C'mon..

~~~
na85
Valid point.

Counterexample by way of metaphor: I used to feel the same way about
restaurant food, but then my cooking skills increased to the point where I can
make most Italian or French food just as well as if not better than most
restaurants I've been to.

Now, I rarely if ever go out for French or Italian any more.

~~~
HillaryBriss
French food is an interesting case, IMHO.

Aside from _pommes-frites_ and crepes, finding French food at the bottom of
the price scale is pretty difficult.

And I wonder why that's true. I mean, in Los Angeles, I can find food from
other great culinary traditions at both the high end and the low end of the
price scale: Korean, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Peruvian, Vietnamese,
Middle Eastern -- even Japanese, which, considering general price levels in
Japan, is surprising.

But French food? It's almost always some high priced, sit-down place with a
valet out front. There don't seem to be a lotta reasonably/low priced French
food joints out there.

(Even stranger is the price of "British" food, usually found in pubs: always
seems overpriced. And British is not exactly known as a great food tradition.)

------
jimlawruk
This reminds me of something Joel Spolsky said on a podcast several years
back. The gist was many newer ideas for startups that turned out to be great,
were first met with criticism or labeled bad ideas. Because if the new idea
was too obvious, it was probably already done by someone else. (At least that
is what I think he meant. Wish I could find the show notes.)

~~~
ericzawo
Would be interested to listen to this if you do dig it up!

~~~
jimlawruk
Found it:
[https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W25795](https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W25795)
Podcast 025. It is a good one, with Jeff, Joel and Steve Yegge. Joel says:
"For a startup to work, it has to be an idea that is not very convincing. It
has to be a completely terrible idea."

------
msabalau
There doesn't appear to be any justification given for the eight posts
selected for analysis. Given that nearly everything fails, choosing seven well
recognized successes and one started that scaled quickly but failed seems an
interesting methodological choice. Neither to they present any evidence that
anyone is, in fact, obsessing over HN comments. The whole thing is "don't let
the haters get you down" tweet expanded endlessly. With a infographic.

One can admire the article as a piece of analysis shaped SEO-bait, even as one
despairs over the value it subtracts from the world by existing.

------
na85
Who'd have thought a community of grognards seemingly interested only in the
latest JavaScript framework and _a priori_ inserting Latin idioms into places
they don't belong makes a poor predictor of startup success?

~~~
jodrellblank
Did HN comments in aggregate ever intend or claim to be an above average
predictor of startup success? Why would you expect it to be?

And, consequently, why would you then feel smug posting ad-homs about how you
aren't surprised that it isn't?

------
canadian_voter
Oh god, this reminds me of the time I told Bram Cohen that Bit Torrent would
never work. Of course, I just didn't understand what he was trying to do.
Face, meet egg.

~~~
knodi123
I was once superficially polite to the founder of twitter, while laughing
patronizingly on the inside. "So, it's like chat, but with more restrictions
and fewer features? Completely unmonetized, and the name _literally_ means
ignorant babbling? Huh, cool. Hope it works out for you!"

~~~
zdkl
I'm still not convinced your inner voice was wrong, but you can't argue with
the investors apparently

------
mercer
Interesting article, but the example at the beginning doesn't strike me as a
very good one.

The commenters _were_ correct in being concerned about safety, and the
suggestion to link Facebook _was_ implemented.

I remember when I signed up for AirBnB my biggest concern was not being able
to trust the person renting the place. Their account being linked to a
Facebook profile (mostly) solved this problem for me.

------
imagist
AirBnB poses a safety risk to homeowners. The fact that it's also a billion
dollar business now doesn't change that. Additional problems have been
discovered with AirBnB's business model, which are arguably even worse.

Sure, if all you care about is money, those criticisms don't matter. But
personally, I care about if I might have a negative effect on the world.

------
tyingq
I agree with the gist of the story, but I find the example poorly chosen.

The launch post regarding AirBNB set a tone with it's title that set people up
to be critical... _" Sleep under my kitchen table.."_ Even for those that
understood the tongue-in-cheek there, the title is self deprecating.

I suspect the thread would have had a more positive tone with a different
title.

------
mjgoeke
Just in case you're reading the comments here - In the infographic section
"Comments were generally negative and top comment tended to reflect this
sentiment." the POSITIVE / NEGATIVE categories are swapped.

------
SunShiranui
What I would find interesting is not just the positive\negative ratio of
comments for successful projects, but also a comparison with less
successful\failed ones.

Do successful projects receive more positive comments?

------
franciscop
Oops, seems I've gone over the top about obsessing with HN comments:

[http://comments.network/](http://comments.network/)

------
yarou
I'm not sure how valid this premise of this article is.

I would imagine that most startup founders probably spend maybe 10-15% of
their day worrying about HN/Product Hunt comments. I forget who said it (maybe
pg?), but HN isn't meant to be used as support board, especially for YC
companies. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, especially if there is
malfeasance or fraud involved.

------
andrewclunn
Hasn't this been posted here before? Anyone have a link to the comments on
that posting?

~~~
molecule
teach a man to fish...

[https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&query=comments%20obsessi...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&query=comments%20obsessing&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

~~~
andrewclunn
Hey thanks!

------
intrasight
One of my 2017 new year's resolutions: stop obsessing over comments on hacker
news

------
afandian
I can't believe there are no comments on this post after 32 minutes!

------
sdegutis
Comments on HN can be enlightening as to how people think. Never look here for
validation of innovative ideas though. It's just not meant for that kind of
discussion.

------
joshuaNathaniel
Stop obsessing over comments in general.

------
ruminasean
You can comment here? I had no idea!

------
generic_user
It would be nice if the Rust evangelists could show a little restraint. When a
Rust article is posted (multiple times a day) and people disagree with its
greatness there is no need to post even more articles about Rust closely
related to the previous stories.

------
DiabloD3
Oh my God, but without HN, how will I validate my existence?

... said me, while sipping expensive wine out of a crystal chalice that came
from the 9th century while sitting on a throne made of the finest organic
pasture raised bovine hide, while smoking a Stradavarius (the violin, not the
cigar).

~~~
KevinEldon
I believe you're saying the devil has many advocates here.

~~~
DiabloD3
Yup, that is literally HN's community in a nutshell.

Not passing judgement, mind you, but at least it isn't a Goddamned echo
chamber like most other websites. Well, at least, not nearly as bad.

~~~
virmundi
I like that HN is an echo chamber with a multitude of groups yelling at one
time. Like binaural beats, something good comes from the synthesis.

~~~
dang
> _HN is an echo chamber with a multitude of groups yelling at one time_

That's not a bad description, at least of one segment of the spectrum.

~~~
virmundi
I find that's how HN is in general. There's a Rust contingent. There's a
general FP contingent with a Haskell flank. A few years ago there was a
Clojure Independency Party that provided things. I'm a member of the ArangoDB
Activists Movement. The noisiest group right now is focuses on Machine
Learning with NN. Fun times. Good way to get exposed to different ideas.

