this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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Huh - so it turns out people liked how smartphones consolidated all their various devices into one?
I guess the era of the hardware app is over…
You can't conclude that from this. The fact that there was hype and excitement about this supports an interest in the concept. This was simply utterly horrible execution and that is all.
Which hype? lol. Everyone hated this idea since reveal.
I don’t know about that. That a LOT of people liked that reveal TED talk.
If this was half the price, could hold a charge, didn’t start fires, and didn’t pull your shirt down, then it would still be dumb, but you’d probably have enough people buying it to keep the company alive.
That was a year ago, with 2 million views and 39k likes. That is not sign of hype. Specially when contrasted directly to the reality of sales.
Dear lord, you can see on the TED talk when he does the obviously planned big reveal, Imran Chaudhri doesn't even get an applause. He actually pauses a few times in the conference waiting for the audience to applaud and nothing happens a couple of times. When he makes jokes almost nobody laughs. There's even a point where he jumps the gun and says thank you before the spontaneous applause™ happens. That has to be the most cringe TED talk in history (and that's hard because almost all of TED in the past 5 years is cringe), other than the fact it was just an obvious ad.
I just disagree and/or read different sources. There was considerable hype regarding this device across numerous tech sources and many people liked and still do like the idea. Clearly you don't think everyone hated it do you? Using words like everyone or no one almost always means your sample is off or your are projecting an opinion.
Yeah, I don't doubt there were people who were really hyped out of their minds for this. But it's my impression they were a minority. Almost all press around the device was extremely skeptical, and only a few were cautiously excited. I follow a lot of tech circles in social media and there wasn't really a buzz about the pin. But, I think the proof is in the pudding. 10,000 sales is not exactly evidence of an extremely popular device. Even if the end result was bad, if there was a lot of hype, one would expect higher sales. After all we knew the price and conditions of sales (subscription) for a long time before release.
I don't think that's the pudding. The device had a high bar for entry with its price and was a very novel tech device. Most people interested in the concept likely were reticent to pre-order and wanted to wait for early adopter reports to surface. I maintain that there is a viable market and sufficient enthusiasm for the technology / concept that the company promised, but obviously not the one they delivered.
I mean, sure. Several startups are making bank selling AI, not to individuals, but to companies. There is no money to be made long term on mediocre chatbots. No matter in what form factor they come, and unfortunately, this and the rabbit thing poisoned the market and clearly marked anything AI as a scam on buyer's minds.
Edit: also, if the hype were really that high for such a device, then the rabbit should've sold a lot more units, since it was the budget version of the humane pin. But that wasn't the case either. And now everyone knows both companies were just pump and dump scams.
Rabbit r1 garnered $10million in pre-order sales. How many should it have sold to impress you? The first 5 batches I think sold out within a day or days, production of the units appeared to be the bottleneck until people actually got a hold of them and reported on how awful they were.
You just seem bent on this whole issue. Is there a point you want to make? Or are you just upset about AI stuff in general?
My point is that the hype is very intense, but not massively distributed. I just try to promote critical thinking and reasoning by calling out bullshitters and retconners. Rabbit r1 sold 50000 units in a few days, that is in fact impressive, and a sign of a core audience that is very passionate about a concept. Of course, before it came out that they were in fact a scam company.
But, let's look at the big picture. Worldwide, over 4 000 000 cellphones are sold…every day. Even if we look at just the US market, we are talking about 300 000 cellphone sales per day. This puts things in perspective. Tech enthusiast, compulsive buyers and obsessive nerds might hype up things to the moon and back. But the fact of the matter is that they are not representative of the market. The whole market of potential buyers of a computing device as a whole were at best mildly curious, and at worst entirely oblivious of the existence of the r1 and the humane pin.
But you ARE the bullshiter. You are not some voice of reason. The initial iPhone sold 270,000 units in its first two days. You can't compare a novel tech device to something with decades of evolution.
Time will be the only judge here. You are making an opinionated statement about the interest of the global population that is speculation biased from your own personal opinion when there is data that suggests that opieis incorrect. Argue all you want or just Wait 10 years and see. But some sort of vert successful AI aasisitive enabled glasses, pin, Earbuds, or other wearable is a highly likely evolution of these early failures.
Yours is also an opinionated statement about the interest of the global population that is speculation biased from your own personal opinion. You presented some data, and I counterargued with my own data. Chill out. Neither of us is here debating for world peace or anything. But I would add that wisdom of the masses (votes) seem to agree with me. Which is further evidence that at least on this community, there was no hype. The nerd culture is actually very anti AI. It's business bros that share your worldview.
I actually agree. I would cite the Playdate as a counterexample.