> People that hack on this only risk their own life.

Provided they do not risk anyone elses, that is entirely their right.

Right, but getting sued is basically the least risky activity ever. Okay, a little dramatic but: you won't go to jail, and if you're rich and become less rich you're still better off than most people. In pure absolutionist terms, being a business owner is basically always less risky than being labor.

The absolute worst-case scenario of messing this up as a company is that you get sued and they win, or you're forced to settle. You pay out some money, post a public apology, whatever. If things get really bad, the company goes under. But you're likely still far richer than the average person, and the blame is distributed enough that no one gets a criminal sentence - not that it was a realistic option to begin with.

The baseline worst-case scenario of messing this up on yourself is that you die.

>People that hack on this only risk their own life

Yeah, only their own life, yknow, something not particularly valuable or motivating to conserve for them, as opposed to the companies financials!

A lot of the other responses say something along the lines of "of course people have more incentive not to mess up, they care about their own lives more than corporations care about getting sued" and sure, that's true in general, but:

- people try to wingsuit through narrow obstacles and miss

- people try to build their own planes and helicopters and die

- people try to build submersible vehicles to go see the titanic and, uh, don't have a 100% success rate

- people try to build steam-powered rockets and die

"It's their life, they won't fuck it up" doesn't exactly cover a lot of behaviors.

I'd argue home-rolling your own medical device firmware is closer to daredevil/"hold my beer" behavior than normal.

None of these have anything to do with your average diabetic loop hacker. You are comparing people that live for the thrills with people that are just trying to live.

They're also people who had a lot of confidence in their own skills (including thinking they knew better than others) and ended up being wrong.

I would say that can have a lot to do with your average diabetic loop hacker.

I'd like some proof that the embedded programmers working for 'the man' at medical device companies are better and more motivated than those that are hacking on loop devices.

You're comparing people with a death wish in disguise with people that are extremely motivated to improve the QOL and they're very careful about how they do this, in fact if you read up on this you'd notice the insane attention to detail and the very rigorous process, on par with what I've seen in industry and in fact probably better than most.

All of this talk in this thread makes me think back to a time when people were laughing at that Finnish kid that was making his own OS with his buddies. Surely nobody would ever trust their business, their property or the lives to open source.

I checked and this is actually hacker news, not the BSA.

I'm arguing that "it's their life, so they'll be more careful than 'the man'" is tenuous.

There have been many people who "made informed decisions" about their medical treatments over the advice of professionals and ended up being wrong. They don't count as thrill seekers.

Even in other threads on HN, you'll find takes on this topic ranging from "I don't trust my device, so I do finger tests every day" to "I trust my vibes and my device and don't do finger tests anymore" which tells me there's a pretty wide spectrum along which hackers might fall.

I'm not at all arguing that it's impossible that someone would do a good job of hacking their device, let alone do better than pharma/med companies.

I just don't buy that everyone who hacks away at it will inherently do a better than said companies because their life is at stake. There are way too many examples of people taking their lives in their own hands and getting it wrong.

Well, in this case the proof is there for your perusal: it works. They have ironed out most if not all of the kinks and manufacturers are pissed that they got shown up by a bunch of people who they consider to be subjects, not having agency. Because after all, if a bunch of ordinary but skilled people can do this their justification for obscene pricing all but evaporates.

I look at these companies for a living. Every two weeks on average another one. I see their codebases. I interview their engineers. There is no magic sauce. It is rare that you come across a company that really gets engineering and that doesn't see the product as a minor obstacle on the way to profits. Medical device companies in general are not exceptional in this sense (though I am aware of one that is).

But fine, you think that the people that work for these companies are somehow better than that ones whose lives are at stake. I beg to differ.

> But fine, you think that the people that work for these companies are somehow better than that ones whose lives are at stake.

That is not the point I'm making.

The point I'm making is that someone's life being at stake does not inherently make then better.

True, but the suggestions made here are that they are worse and shouldn't be trusted. I disagree with that. They are at least as good, and they could well be better.