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0 pointsfragmede20d ago0 comments

The question is, in this new software world order, how much do brands matter vs what they've done vs network effects. I could have Claude code shit out a Facebook or Twitter clone, or an Uber clone, and have none of the baggage of Cambridge Analytica, being owned by Elon Musk, or Travis kalanick of Greyball and S. Fowler legacy. An Uber driver-turned-dev could easily stand up a competitor and give way more money to the drivers simply by not having the overhead that Uber has with lawyers and executive salaries in this age of ChatGPT. Drivers will go to where there's riders and money, and riders will go to where there's drivers and cheaper rides. (and no drivers.) If someone needs an app idea to work on, it's the incumbents, without the suck. Facebook without "People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."

Because looking at Truth Social and Gab, people do adopt brands as part of their identity; and Uber but for drivers, or Facebook, without the spying, are trivial to make the software side of things on now. The fact that we haven't seen a dozen Uber competitors spring up is a testament to the fact that branding is a helluva moat. It's impossible to put a dollar value on it, but ChatGPT has no moat, except that it's Chat-fucking-GPT. The original chatbot and no matter how good Claude gets, it'll never be the original.

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lionkor20d ago

Also those vibe coded competitors will not make it. Feel free to try though

JumpCrisscross20d ago

> those vibe coded competitors will not make it

Some of them will. And I suspect the set of markets in which they do will only increase—traditional SWE is probably dying, hard as that is to accept. But the fundamentals of engineering and business are nowhere close to going away. And those are the actually-hard parts of business.

lionkor18d ago

This assumes that the tools continue getting better. People are still expecting new models to come out, and I don't think there's much more unused training material left...? Tooling improvements have been the biggest changes since mid 2023, and speed.

Results are still, on average, very faulty.

zahlman20d ago

> I could have Claude code shit out a... clone, and have none of the baggage...

Social media is different because of the network effects. Taking hold requires being there to catch refugees when something else collapses, and being sensitive to the fact of that collapse. It seems like quite a bit of luck is often required.

But you could also, you know, actually try to differentiate yourself. Figure out actual things that you'd want those sites to do differently, and have an opinion on which different approach to take.

And I especially wouldn't try with Twitter, because there are already at least two major competitors, and the people who have fled to them, in broad terms, seem to have done so based more on internal social strife than on any technical dissatisfaction. (Despite all the seemingly obvious technical issues to complain about!)

JumpCrisscross20d ago

> I could have Claude code shit out a Facebook or Twitter clone, or an Uber clone

No, you couldn’t. At best you’d turn out a video game simulating Uber. The idea that all of the business is in its software seems to be one Silicon Valley perennially unlearns.

fragmedeOP20d ago

As long as we agree that code generation is capable of creating a video game simulating Uber, we're on the same page. The fact that there's more to a business than a flashy bit of software is exactly my point! The idea that Silicon Valley is one dude who doesn't get it is as old as the valley itself.

alephnerd20d ago

I've found the newer generation of founders understand that. The issue is they don't use HN anymore.

I've noticed a significant tone and demographic shift on the site over the past 2-3 years with more Western Europeans and Midwesterners and fewer Bay Area+NYC users, and fewer decisionmakers or decisionmaking adjacent people using the site.

And the deeply technical types who used HN largely shifted to lobste.rs.

Karrot_Kream (another longtime HN user) identified this shift as well [0]

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Karrot_Kream

fragmedeOP20d ago

I agree. Where did they go? Blind? Private Slack/discords?

2 more replies

kridsdale120d ago

(I look over to the Coca-Cola Classic on my table that I picked because my taste buds prefer the classic brand)

stackghost20d ago

Your taste buds prefer the flavor, not the brand. If they changed their name to "Caramel Diet Fanta" but kept the recipe identical, you'd still enjoy the taste.

The New Coke brand failed because people didn't like the taste, not the other way around.

nicole_express20d ago

New Coke is a very interesting counterpoint to the brand focus, but on the other hand, they did at the time make a very big push of it being "New" Coke. Hard to tell what would've happened if they had just swapped out the formula.

I drink Diet Coke, which is basically the same formula that became New Coke with chemical sludge instead of sugar, and it tastes pretty good to my tongue to the point where I drink it over Coke Zero, the one closer to "the real thing".

organsnyder20d ago

Every time I drink a Coke (or any other soft drink), the brand's baggage (good and bad) is present. Unless you're doing a blind taste test, it's impossible to avoid that.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsfragmede20d ago0 comments

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lionkor20d ago

Also those vibe coded competitors will not make it. Feel free to try though

JumpCrisscross20d ago

> those vibe coded competitors will not make it

lionkor18d ago

Results are still, on average, very faulty.

zahlman20d ago

> I could have Claude code shit out a... clone, and have none of the baggage...

But you could also, you know, actually try to differentiate yourself. Figure out actual things that you'd want those sites to do differently, and have an opinion on which different approach to take.

JumpCrisscross20d ago

> I could have Claude code shit out a Facebook or Twitter clone, or an Uber clone

No, you couldn’t. At best you’d turn out a video game simulating Uber. The idea that all of the business is in its software seems to be one Silicon Valley perennially unlearns.

fragmedeOP20d ago

alephnerd20d ago

I've found the newer generation of founders understand that. The issue is they don't use HN anymore.

And the deeply technical types who used HN largely shifted to lobste.rs.

Karrot_Kream (another longtime HN user) identified this shift as well [0]

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Karrot_Kream

fragmedeOP20d ago

I agree. Where did they go? Blind? Private Slack/discords?

2 more replies

kridsdale120d ago

(I look over to the Coca-Cola Classic on my table that I picked because my taste buds prefer the classic brand)

stackghost20d ago

Your taste buds prefer the flavor, not the brand. If they changed their name to "Caramel Diet Fanta" but kept the recipe identical, you'd still enjoy the taste.

The New Coke brand failed because people didn't like the taste, not the other way around.

nicole_express20d ago

organsnyder20d ago

Every time I drink a Coke (or any other soft drink), the brand's baggage (good and bad) is present. Unless you're doing a blind taste test, it's impossible to avoid that.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse