Re:How Duolingo reignited user growth
by satvikpendem on Wednesday March 01, 2023 @12:36AM
(#34979135)
Yeah I was about to say, it's recency bias to think that only lately had HN comments been negative.
tbh, I wouldn't expect something different from a site named "hacker news". Hackers showing their skepticism regarding start ups and software business led by "typical business people". Hackers don't care about eternal growth and gamification...
Is that supposed to be some kind of "gotcha" because dropbox became successful?
It was one users comment on how they felt about the app. I doubt it becoming popular changed it for them.
Eh, I'd argue Dropbox becoming popular is ancillary to the comment being an amusing example of a negative HN comment for a few reasons:
1. The comment categorically dismisses the entire product idea
2. As evidence for (1), the comment cites a rather complicated method that would arguably be out of reach for most users
3. The comment describes the method from (2) as "trivial"
So even if Dropbox had failed, the comment would still be entertaining, IMO.
See also, my all time favorite; this comment about Dropbox from 2007: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
> "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software."
Quite trivial indeed.