"...take some banal product that has been sold forever at low margins, attach the disposable part to a proprietary system that pretends to improve it but really just locks people into a particular vendor, add a touch screen manufactured by Chinese tweens, call it “Smart,” and sell it to schlubby dads too indebted to buy a midlife crisis car and too unattractive to have an affair..."

How to get VC funding - and fail - by following the Silicon Valley model.

user-inactivated:

So, uh, don't buy it. Don't give the toothbrush company your bank info. Don't participate in a system that you don't want to support. There are still 5-for-a-buck toothbrushes at the drug store. There are still juicers that you put fruit into the top of and juice comes out. And, there are even companies who will buy the fruit for you, and sell you the juice pre-squeezed in every flavor and consistency you can imagine!

Juicero affects me none. New York and San Francisco rents affect me none. Because I don't buy a Juicero and I woudln't live somewhere that rent costs so much and home ownership is impossible. There are plenty of jobs elsewhere.

This article is annoying because it stands on the premise that someone offering a choice to you is the same as you being forced to participate, and that a choice you don't agree with is somehow this nefarious plot to screw your life up. Fiverr doesn't exist to destroy the middle class dream. It connects freelancers with people who hire them.


posted 2572 days ago