It's interesting to see a post here that flips the script a little, focusing on the negative consequences of growth-at-all-costs for those attempting to create good journalism and reviews as opposed to those seeking to consume them. We don't get that perspective often on a tech-focused site like HN.
It is bizarre that new media companies are funded, staffed, and run with the expectation that they'll scale and profit on the level of successful tech companies. Original, credible content takes smart, trained people time to produce, and you can't scale the business without scaling the number of such people doing that work. You can't automate or leverage AI to cultivate trustworthy news sources or investigate a corrupt sheriff's department. I don't know what business model would work above the micro Substack-funded level, but it's clear that the one that keeps being tried never will.
I'd evaluated Evernote alternatives for years, but that ludicrous price hike was the kick in the pants I needed to finally choose one (UpNote, for its similarity to early Evernote and one-time $29.99 price for Premium) and migrate to it. Evernote does make exporting notes easy, at least. I moved and validated a decade-plus of them in an afternoon without any formatting or content issues.
There are plenty of notes apps out there now, and at least one company that actually wants business should handle anyone's particular use case. The only reason I can think of to stay on Evernote at this point is sheer inertia.
The dealer was security-conscious enough to keep a $2+ million a month dark web drug business going for five years, but blabbed about hiding his assets in plain English from a prison phone he knew was being recorded? Wow.
I'd used WeWork offices for solo work with no issues, so I didn't do sufficient diligence when I booked a conference room at one for a confidential client meeting. The room's walls were all clear and so thin that any conversation above a quiet murmur was easily heard from the hall outside. I asked the onsite manager for a more suitable room, but she told me they were all like that there. I ended up sticking the easel pad on the room's conference table and we spent the afternoon whispering to each other as we huddled around it.
Not checking things out in advance was on me of course, but it never dawned on me that their meeting rooms would be designed by people who'd apparently never been in a meeting before. In any case that was the last time I set foot in a WeWork.
My experience with this extends to private offices as well. Maybe I just drew the short straw with my neighbors but, if I'm managing people, I want to give them the courtesy of a noise-free call where they don't feel like they're being spied on (or like I'm being distracted).
I tried maybe 3 or 4 private office solutions during the pandemic's height, and each suffered from this. The "phone booths" are the best solution, imo, but they eat up credits and/or are always occupied.
I'd unironically like a huge warehouse of phone booths (like 3x3 offices) I can hole myself in all day. Why does that not exist? Is that just a cubicle farm with extra steps? I joke to my partner about setting up shop in our closet because it's quiet and distraction free.
Genuine question: Wouldn't this require a lot of ventilation / HVAC infrastructure?
It seems like in order to get 'really quiet' you need to have solid, noise-insulating walls on all 6 sides, which then makes it harder to ventilate (i.e., each cube gets it's own ductwork)
That said - I also like quiet spaces and if I was looking for a co-working space something that's mostly small, cozy, and quiet cubes would be perfect :)
Probably, the rooms get stuffy fairly quickly. I've seen videos of private work booths in Japan that appear well-ventilated so it's possible but no idea about cost effectiveness.
If anyone wants this idea, you can even use the old WeWork signs, just flip the W upside down and change it to MeWork
Probably because he would end up having to spend the same money on a place with better conference rooms. Why pay for two co-working facilities, just so you can use one that has quiet meeting spaces?
WeWork was less about getting work done, and more about LARPing the experience of working for a FAANG and flexing someone else's money.
Exactly, and the facility with real conference rooms that we switched to had nice solo workspaces as well. The decor was a little more corporate, true, but we somehow struggled through that.
I like this question. Why would a person stop paying for something that doesn’t fully suit their basic needs? Obviously if a configuration that worked didn’t exist at WeWork, surely it couldn’t exist anywhere at all?
That wasn’t the question. Question was why stop using a thing which serves you well, because it couldn’t do another thing to your satisfaction? I don’t blame my toothpaste for not caffeinating me enough.
The OPs ask is a very specific niche - conference rooms that can be used for highly confidential meetings. Even in a typical SV open office, most office rooms have glass walls which do not provide the confidentiality the OP seeks. Maybe few “exec rooms” will have that.
> I don’t blame my toothpaste for not caffeinating me enough.
This illustrates why I like the question!
An office environment that includes even slightly private conference rooms is literally unthinkable.
I’m assuming maybe they have luxuries like that in the Pentagon and Cheyenne Mountain, but to picture a conference room that doesn’t require huddles and whispers in the same building as desk space is exactly the same as picturing tooth paste that serves the function of coffee. At worst it doesn’t exist at all or at best it’s a silly curio borne from a mad man’s flight of fancy.
I realize it’s legacy and not cool any more, but Regus has had a perfectly fine facility in Palo Alto with perfectly nice rooms for conferences and individual or small group work for considerably longer than WeWork has existed.
The problem was that they pivoted from offering on-demand offices to long-term contracts with companies seeking serviced offices with easier exit clauses. That made it difficult for the occasional, not everyday user to secure conference rooms, offices, helicopter in, etc.
Of course, the average office desk worker carries nuclear codes in their back pocket and communicate with each other using furtive glances and discreet hand signals. It is totally unpardonable that a mass-market hipster coworking space did not consider them when designing their spaces. /s
> It is totally unpardonable that a mass-market hipster coworking space did not consider them when designing their spaces.
Quite the opposite! If WeWork doesn’t offer conference rooms with any smidgeon of privacy, then that’s simply not something that’s offered anywhere else. This fact is the basis of why your original question was a good one: Why would anyone stop paying WeWork?
Perhaps given the lack of privacy in any conference rooms anywhere, GP simply retired from professional life altogether. This may be the only compelling possible reason to stop paying WeWork for their service of providing some but not all of their basic business needs.
Have any Forklift users here on MacOS tried Double Commander? A two-panel file manager of some kind is a hugely useful productivity tool, I'm just wondering if there's a reason to switch to this one. If not I'll give it a go when I have some free time.
If anyone on MacOS doesn't have a similar tool already you should definitely grab this. A two-panel file manager that supports bulk renaming is really handy.
I use Forklift. Version 4 just came out this week, with a new quasi-subscription model. Now it's $20/yr, or $35 for 2, but you can keep using the final version that comes out during your subscription period. That's not awful but I'm still disappointed.
My first impression: this is clearly not a "Mac-assed Mac app"[0]. The fonts are weird (but configurable). The keyboard shortcuts are weird (but configurable). The preference pane isn't under the "Double Commander > Settings" menu, but "Configuration > Options", and it doesn't open with "cmd-,", and that doesn't seem to be configurable.
These are not deal breakers. Different doesn't automatically mean bad. In this case, it does mean that you have to learn how to use it from scratch, compared to something like Forklift or Commander One that someone used to Finder can pick up and start using. It also doesn't seem to come with a zillion integrations with cloud services like S3, Box, etc. like the Mac-native options.
These are my first impressions. I've used it for maybe 20 minutes now. That's not a fair shake, and it could be that I'd absolutely love it if I kept at it. Still, it doesn't make me want to keep at it. I could see Double Commander being brilliant if I already used it on Linux and wanted to bring my workflow, settings, plugins, and all that to Mac. I don't think I'd want to start using it here.
Anyone here recall the AMAZING PMV (PathMinder) for dos from back in the day - I have yet to find a better file management tool than PMV was... I could navigate everything via arrows and keyboard - I loved it.
A niche sub equivalent succeeding on, say, Lemmy would either require the existing reddit sub to close and migrate there or for the Lemmy active user count to grow to the point where a critical mass of users interested in that niche want to discuss it there. There needs to be some way on Lemmy to promote those forums as well. A couple of niche forums I'm subscribed to are gaining a little traction, but I only found out they existed when they were mentioned on the reddit subs they're based on.
The Voyage of the Beagle is a fun read, with many little asides about what the animals Darwin ate tasted like. Puma meat was one he called out as particularly delicious and remarkably like veal.
24-year-old me would have been Googling where to buy this by the time I was halfway through the article. It's not for me any more, but Acronym definitely hit what they were going for with this. Laptop and phone design used to be a lot less homogeneous than it is now, and though our devices are vastly more powerful and functional these days they definitely lack a sense of fun. I applaud anyone working to bring that back.
It is bizarre that new media companies are funded, staffed, and run with the expectation that they'll scale and profit on the level of successful tech companies. Original, credible content takes smart, trained people time to produce, and you can't scale the business without scaling the number of such people doing that work. You can't automate or leverage AI to cultivate trustworthy news sources or investigate a corrupt sheriff's department. I don't know what business model would work above the micro Substack-funded level, but it's clear that the one that keeps being tried never will.