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    But what if I want a faster horse?

    (rakhim.exotext.com)
    1525 points saeedesmaili | 13 comments | 11 Apr 25 11:39 UTC | HN request time: 1.064s | source | bottom
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    cjs_ac ◴[11 Apr 25 12:22 UTC] No.43652999[source]▶
    For any given thing or category of thing, a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing, but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing. For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into cars like those marques.

    If you're designing a consumer-oriented web service like Netflix or Spotify or Instagram, you will probably add in some user analytics service, and use the insights from that analysis to inform future development. However, that analysis will aggregate its results over all your users, and won't pick out the enthusiasts, who will shape discourse and public opinion about your service. Consequently, your results will be dominated by people who don't really have an opinion, and just take whatever they're given.

    Think about web browsers. The first popular browser was Netscape Navigator; then, Internet Explorer came onto the scene. Mozilla Firefox clawed back a fair chunk of market share, and then Google Chrome came along and ate everyone's lunch. In all of these changes, most of the userbase didn't really care what browser they were using: the change was driven by enthusiasts recommending the latest and greatest to their less-technically-inclined friends and family.

    So if you develop your product by following your analytics, you'll inevitably converge on something that just shoves content into the faces of an indiscriminating userbase, because that's what the median user of any given service wants. (This isn't to say that most people are tasteless blobs; I think everyone is a connoisseur of something, it's just that for any given individual, that something probably isn't your product.) But who knows - maybe that really is the most profitable way to run a tech business.

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    sokoloff ◴[11 Apr 25 12:41 UTC] No.43653133[source]▶
    > Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches

    For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them).

    My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful to many, even those who can’t tell the three marques apart or even unaided recall the name Lamborghini.

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    1. JKCalhoun ◴[11 Apr 25 12:47 UTC] No.43653180[source]▶
    I would say they're popular because they are expensive. It's bragging rights, conspicuous consumption…
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    2. thfuran ◴[11 Apr 25 12:57 UTC] No.43653260[source]▶
    If they were cheap, I might have one. As is, I never will.
    3. world2vec ◴[11 Apr 25 12:59 UTC] No.43653282[source]▶
    But people desire them as a conspicuous symbol because some people decades ago were really into fast cars and picked those brands as the best of the best. It was the true enthusiasts that promoted them and then other people copied them because they wanted to be in the same "gang" and over time that evolved into a status symbol, far removed from the original one. But it did start with a small group of true fans.
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    4. shakna ◴[11 Apr 25 13:26 UTC] No.43653528[source]▶
    If it was just expense, then Koenigsegg would be a household name. Most enthusiasts will know them, but the average person won't. There's something more that leads culture in such a way to uphold a particular brand.
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    5. JKCalhoun ◴[11 Apr 25 14:16 UTC] No.43654072[source]▶
    And professional racing.
    6. bbor ◴[11 Apr 25 14:23 UTC] No.43654134[source]▶
    Really great, succinct way to make this point. Here's an NGRAM of mentions of these brands in the English Fiction corpus, 1860-2025 -- Ferrari dominates until ~1970, when Porsche gains dominance. Obviously, Koenigsegg is barely on the graph at all.

    P.S. I think it's telling that Porsche wasn't mentioned almost at all in English until the mid 1950s, given their role in the war!

    https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ferrari%2CLamb...

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    7. vladvasiliu ◴[11 Apr 25 14:27 UTC] No.43654179[source]▶
    Don't they make like 5 of those, and for absurdly high prices?

    Ferraris, Porsches and similar are somewhat attainable, which, I think, helps with their being symbols, since most people have already actually seen them and know they're real. A Koenigsegg is as good as a story. Hell, I live in Paris and I've never actually seen one. Porches and Ferraris? They're seemingly everywhere.

    8. red_admiral ◴[11 Apr 25 14:27 UTC] No.43654187[source]▶
    Indeed, Andrew Tate's tagline when someone criticised him was "I drive a Bugatti and you don't".
    9. bzzzt ◴[11 Apr 25 14:34 UTC] No.43654252[source]▶
    Ferrari and Lamborghini predate Koenigsegg by a generation so my guess is it's about the history.
    10. teqsun ◴[11 Apr 25 14:36 UTC] No.43654276[source]▶
    I guess the term would be "conspicuous consumption".

    As to why Koenigsegg doesn't get the rep, I'll take the outside opinion that it's because their name is too inaccessible whereas "Bugatti" slips easily into rap lyrics.

    11. shmeeed ◴[11 Apr 25 16:16 UTC] No.43655514{3}[source]▶
    I'm not sure what it's supposed to be telling about, but it's probably not about their involvement in the war, which was hardly out of line for any german engineering company at the time. Ferdinand Porsche was arrested for war crimes, but never tried (which IS telling in its own way). Rather, the NGRAM just traces the rise of the company as it's known today:

    Up until about 1948, Porsche was a pure development contractor mostly for the government. They only started manufacturing cars under their own brand in the early 50s (a few 356 built basically in a shed notwithstanding) after Ferry Porsche had taken over, and with the introduction of the 911 began a meteoric rise as a volume manufacturer for international markets.

    12. ahmeneeroe-v2 ◴[11 Apr 25 16:55 UTC] No.43655940[source]▶
    Not for the enthusiasts. My neighbor has a $120k Porsche and a $20k Porsche and appears to adore them both
    13. nradov ◴[11 Apr 25 17:53 UTC] No.43656523[source]▶
    It's not just that they're expensive markers of conspicuous consumption, it's about exclusivity. Exotic car manufacturers like Ferrari intentionally make fewer cars than the market demands. Only "special" customers are even allowed to buy them regardless of price. Ownership, especially of the higher end models, marks a consumer as a member of a high-status exclusive club. (I am not claiming that this is rational or sensible, but it is an effective marketing strategy for luxury goods.)