Worked hard, won a lottery, whatever. It mostly says that these are people with tens of thousands to burn on fun stuff, and such people are a rather narrow slice of the population. There's nothing bad about that, it's just a rather niche community, whose opinions may not be very relevant for the large majority of people outside that niche.
HN is that niche community though. HN is a forum targeting a niche community that skews technical no matter where someone is physically from, and that community skews relatively rich. Concern trolling that there are starving kids in Africa when there are literal billionaires posting here; I mean sure, I'm not saying we shouldn't say something for fear of their feelings. Nor am I saying that everyone here must be rich in order to comment her. Just that some members of the niche community can recognize are inordinately rich. Advertising eg the Volonaut here will likely generate a couple of sales, and if you thought a $3k laptop was a lot, definitely don't look that one up.
HN is a specific slice, but not along the financial line. For each @pmarca or @pg or other founder who has made many millions, there is likely 10k other users, mostly engineers, but not only, all the way to people who are currently unemployed and homeless. The fact that HN has "everyone", and a uniquely relevant person would almost always show up in every thread, is one of the very attracting properties of HN for me.
The "mac community" is even worse. I recently spend $4k on linux laptop, and I get endless criticism, that it is "too expensive" for a "windows pc". I need spec for my work, and comparable mac is 4x more expensive!
This whole discussion is weird. For the majority of the world's population, dropping $3K on a computer is a non-starter, if even possible. Over six hundred million people cannot even afford proper food and shelter. But there are also sixty-two million millionaires in the world. So there are a large number of people who can buy a MBP without even blinking. We've just discovered income disparity. What the heck does that obvious truth have to add to a review of a MBP?
That they've worked hard to be able to afford nice things? What do you think it says, exactly? This is a pretty irritating comment.
Worked hard, won a lottery, whatever. It mostly says that these are people with tens of thousands to burn on fun stuff, and such people are a rather narrow slice of the population. There's nothing bad about that, it's just a rather niche community, whose opinions may not be very relevant for the large majority of people outside that niche.
HN is that niche community though. HN is a forum targeting a niche community that skews technical no matter where someone is physically from, and that community skews relatively rich. Concern trolling that there are starving kids in Africa when there are literal billionaires posting here; I mean sure, I'm not saying we shouldn't say something for fear of their feelings. Nor am I saying that everyone here must be rich in order to comment her. Just that some members of the niche community can recognize are inordinately rich. Advertising eg the Volonaut here will likely generate a couple of sales, and if you thought a $3k laptop was a lot, definitely don't look that one up.
HN is a specific slice, but not along the financial line. For each @pmarca or @pg or other founder who has made many millions, there is likely 10k other users, mostly engineers, but not only, all the way to people who are currently unemployed and homeless. The fact that HN has "everyone", and a uniquely relevant person would almost always show up in every thread, is one of the very attracting properties of HN for me.
That was not a judgment, good or bad. Simply an observation.
Seriously. Stapelberg is a talented guy that's done well for himself, why can't he have nice things if he wants them?
The "mac community" is even worse. I recently spend $4k on linux laptop, and I get endless criticism, that it is "too expensive" for a "windows pc". I need spec for my work, and comparable mac is 4x more expensive!
Maxed out a mbp, I couldn’t get more than a bit than 8k. And comparable is probably generous.
Is this 16,000 dollar laptop in the room with us now?
to be pedantic, a maxed out MBP is 90200 BRL in Brazil now before AC+ and software, around 16777 USD
This whole discussion is weird. For the majority of the world's population, dropping $3K on a computer is a non-starter, if even possible. Over six hundred million people cannot even afford proper food and shelter. But there are also sixty-two million millionaires in the world. So there are a large number of people who can buy a MBP without even blinking. We've just discovered income disparity. What the heck does that obvious truth have to add to a review of a MBP?
just skip going out to lunch once and eat a turkey sandwich instead /s