I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get.
You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition.
They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and expensive, and didn’t have the features of GoPro.
These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico.
Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too.
People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese drone brands. And with BambuLabs (founded by ex-DJI) with 3D printers (the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa, and they’re facing extremely strong headwinds).
Legitimately better Chinese products (incredible engineering) that have massive industrial policy support, probably industrial espionage support (as in the case of DJI for certain), massive influencer marketing campaigns, and near zero cost of capital. When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
The only surprising thing to me is how people just act like it’s not happening. I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract, but it’s incredibly real if you do.
If your country’s industrial and defense policy relies on individual consumers making choices that are worse for them on almost all metrics, it’s time to think about on worse payroll your politicians are.
Absolutely true. But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people, just in a different way. Domestic consumption in China is famously low, work culture is famously bad (996,etc). And this is because of what their government, not the people of China, have chosen to do.
>But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people
Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
>Domestic consumption in China is famously low
Compared to what, the US? Compared to China is at a historical high, isn't it? And they're doing quite well even compared to like 70% of the world and rising.
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
A lot of that was the result of stopping doing the damage they had done in previous five decades that resulted in such a high proportion of their population living in poverty.
There was a real human cost to how China industrialized that isn’t “muh freedoms”.
China overproduced STEM grads so that their industries could hire them for pennies on the dollar. They had to withstand insane competition starting in elementary school, only to end up unemployed or doordashing.
This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
> This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
Engineers from Taiwan go to mainland China these days to earn more money. Taiwan was pretty brutal with personal sacrifice in its development as much or if more than the mainland. We could say similar about Korea, Japan, and Singapore as well. This is why Asia seems to be taking over the world now, but the people are about as happy as you’d expect.
In general, I do think the East Asian nations have over-prioritized work for export and industrial policy at the expense of the well-being of their citizens.
It feels to me more like, East Asian nations tend to have robust domestic sets of expectations that tend to be more stringent, reinforced by geological and cultural barriers, and comparatively lower international castes. Anyone born in EA have no choice but to constantly beat the average and to make contributions to the street cred jar for the nation. And that produce such things as TSMC chips and DJI drones and 7-11 egg salad sandwiches.
That simplistic characterization is still essentially "China-bad." The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. Does it make up for other human rights violations? No. But "CCP bad" flattens a complex and powerful political organization into a fairy tale boogeyman.
> lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty.
Basically true, but not much more than that for most Chinese. The urban modern success story presented to the world is a surprisingly small segment of a notably larger population and even for many in that smaller more fortunate segment the gravy days are long ago and no sign of returning yet.
And chinese don't have full freedom of movement. China uses a system called called hukou which binds a persons rights and benefits to their birthplace. This has created a population of 350 million rural migrants who live in cities but still have a rural hukou and are treated like second class citizens in their own country.
China is a communists based country. Everything is organized and for everything there is a plan. Unlike America where it's free for all. We probably would die from unhappiness in China. But it works for them and they are pretty successful in it.
> The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty.
The CCP also put most of those people into such abject poverty from the 50s onwards. They give up on communism and thereby reversed the problems caused by communism like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
At this point you're just openly shilling for the CCP. The CCP killed millions of people through incompetence, and then they had the brilliant idea of copying the exact development model of the Asian Tigers. It's their previous incompetence that's the reason that they haven't already caught up with South Korea.
Millions? Please. CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng. Most people died due to Mao. CCP back then was only Mao loyalists. CCP endorsed Mao only to gain public legitimacy as the ruling party, since back then China was still a poor country prone to revolts and extremist ideas.
If that's the "worst part" about them, reacting like that to sedition plans, it sounds quite tame.
It's not like people elsewhere, cough, are not arrested for protesting against the bombing in Palestine or against ICE. Or, on the other side of the pond (and on the other side of the political spectrum), for tweeting against illegal immigration to their country. Or in Germany for merely calling the chancellor an idiot.
For bringing people out of poverty, they had laminated placards attached to the doors of people who were poor, and the name of the government official who was responsible for lifting that family out of poverty, and if that government official failed at it, they wouldn't advance in their career.
China is not Iron Curtain countries dominated by the USSR. to compare China to Poland has no merit.
China has built high speed rail, a quality universal health care system, and huge tech and mfg sectors. It most certainly is orders of magnitude above East Germany, and not even the same type of socialism.
There are good things about the West and good things about China, it’s not as simple as “our side good”.
Are you serious? Who is killing thousands abroad and playing corrupt mobster mister policeman in the entire world?
Or course China is supporting Russia. It's geopolitics. The west needs enlargement of their influence in Ukraine. Russia doesn't like this. A failing Russia means China is next. Hard to understand? And China does have universal affordable healthcare.
Maybe, just maybe you should visit one of the large cities in China. You will be surprised how far ahead they are on so many areas. Infrastructure, cultural, government structures, schools, hospitals and more.
>The west needs enlargement of their influence in Ukraine
Okay so you have swallowed the Russia and China propaganda fully. Yes, China has better living conditions now than 20 years ago.
Ukraine is its own country since 1991 and on their own want to move closer to the west, NATO and EU.
Russia invaded Ukraine as Putin is the one who want "enlargement of their influence"
If you think above, how can you blame me in the west for opposing Russia and China? I live in Sweden, we have Kaliningrad with nukes right across us. We had Soviet submarines in our waters in the 80s.
A fallen Ukraine means Russia and Putin and by extension China will invade the Baltics or Poland next. Hard to understand?
Ukraine is not an independent country. The entire culture is practically similar to the Russian one. Yes I have lived in Ukraine (Melitopol) for many years. This whole conflict is 100% caused by the west that tries to put a wig between the two nations. By bribing and buying up assets in Ukraine. Starting from around 2012 when western institutions installing puppets in various places. Government and commercial.
Don't tell me this is somekind of crap conspiracy. We all know that the west performed these actions many times before.
The west is not clean in this war. 100% responsible for this war, killings and destruction .
Many eastern europeans who had good life in soviet block have nostalgia, however, Ukraine fights with all it power to prevent returning back to soviet block, because majority have very unpleasant memories of soviet times and dozens of millions murdered by soviets.
Ukraine broke out of Russian Empire and then conquered back by Red army, then conquered Republics of Ukraine and Belarus together with Russian Federation formed USSR.
So, yes, Ukrainian communists were with those soviets, who murdered other Ukrainians (and other enslaved nations), and then their siblings have nostalgia about «good times».
That is not a good analogy. Scotland voluntarily formed a union with the rest of the UK and played a disproportionate role in colonialism. Ireland would be a better one.
The weakness in the GP's argument is that Russia is not the Soviet Union, nor is it communist.
Yes, their system has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be in order to support domestic industry. It seem’s to be for geo-strategic reasons rather than in the interests of the Chinese people, it’s also probably unsustainable.
WOW the classic yes...but..., where's these statement coming from? I'm Chinese and I don't get the point here at all, you guys seem living in vacuum with biased news, and know much much better than we people living here, that's really confusing everytime I see/read comments lie this.
China now is open freely for almost everyone, come and see by yourslef, if you not living poverty.
The world itslef does not work the propaganda way whether you dislike or hate the gov for whatever reason.
And yes you can criticize the gov as you like with the news you read otr the party you pro with, but never assume how the people feel and belives if you are not the people, and if you do then that's the same mindset as Trump or any other war-bringing president the US had, and you know what they did and still doing.
> but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
What country has perfect government policy?
The US has atrocious government policies. Costs of college, cost of healthcare insurance, the reason so many uninsured people use the ER as their primary medical usage, tax policy prioritization of capital reinvestment over wage earnings, caring for the environment over affordable housing, etc are all problematic policy outcomes which make the average person poorer.
> government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
Right, that sort of thing never happens over here. We don't give the rich tax breaks while robbing the middle class (and saddling it with mountains of debt that will be coming due in their future), we don't print money hand over fist to fund idiotic wars and other vanity projects, and we don't do everything in our power to prevent workers from organizing for higher wages and better working conditions.
Congress and the executive is hard at work to make the American consumer richer than they otherwise would be. Everything they do is with that goal solely in their minds. It's all they live for, not for making their backers and friends richer and more untouchable.
> Assertion that China has brought incredible prosperity to its people.
> Complaint that actually, China's economic policies that brought that prosperity are... Structurally robbing its working class.
> Observation that America, which, presumably, is the model for the best, most evolved, and un-improvable structure for its economy is also structurally robbing its working class, with no roadmap for course-correction from it. (And it's doing it for purposes that are not exactly developing the nation!)
> "That's Whataboutism!"
The complaint in #2 is only relevant as a relative comparison. China's economics structurally rob its working class? Okay, let's all agree that's the case - but rob it compared to what? The unchecked late-stage corporatism that we're practicing? The excesses of the industrial revolution in past centuries? It's bad compared to what, exactly? Some idealized strawman utopia, where no economic planning or monetary policy or deficit spending or consolidation of economic power exists? Do you have a roadmap for getting to that one?
The observation in #3 incredibly relevant. If you're not making a relative comparison of China's economy, you need to make an absolute analysis of it... And on an absolute analysis, it has done an incredible job of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of crushing poverty, and into first-world lifestyles, in only a few decades. All the central planning - control of its exchange rates, its monetary and debt and lending policy, it's focus on exports and fundamentals and R&D and education is exactly what has brought that prosperity about.
Meanwhile, the only thing our central planners, here at home are good at figuring out [1] is how to widen the gap between the haves, and the have-nots.
---
[1] I am being a bit too harsh, the Fed does a good job given its mandate.
Not for nothing, but what do you think is happening in the United States?
American workers have lost income on inflation adjusted terms from 2000-2025. The top 5 companies have a market cap that exceeds the top 30 in 2000, and the concentration of those companies is a single industry vs a diverse collection.
Consolidation of power and capital is reality everywhere. China is not a boogeyman. Go there.
Work Culture is famously bad? Look I get 996. The Youth seem like they are either next level burned out or on a treadmill that never ends(due to the 25% youth unemployment, the deflation happening and the extreme overabundance of educated professionals). Both are not good. But the original comment listed stellar companies and products that wipe the floor with American made junk. You don't get that without some extensive hard work. Stealing only takes to so far, you gotta do a lot more on top of that.
The "idea" of Trump's tariffs (if there ever was one) is to subvert the US constitution which places taxation under the control of congress, not the president.
Tariffs still exist, some were ordered to stop, but there are plenty still being implemented today, and will be in the future; regardless of which party is in power.
There's no real solution other than long-term tariffs. However the President doesn't have the power to do it and Congress doesn't have the willpower. 6-month flash-in-the-pan efforts can only cause chaos.
It's easy to get all high and mighty but there really doesn't have to be complex subterfuge behind "replacing the majority of our technical infrastructure with devices solely created within the borders of our primary military, industrial, and economic rival is not a good idea for security and sovereignty."
We cast aside local manufacturing for cheaper prices in another country and are going to pay the price one way or another.
GoPro was outcompeted on the market. Simple as that.
They were made irrelevant by Insta360 and DJI, both with legitimately better products.
In my view, the only entity to blame for that is GoPro. And I believe that the shortfall was not only in matters of technology. My limited interactions with them painted a picture of an organisation with some super clever people, but paralysed by slow bureaucracy and high risk aversion.
By contrast, Insta360 was much more aggressive and enterprising, while DJI just did what DJI does: build amazing products.
Trying to blame this on some arcane Chinese plot to destroy the West is just a weak attempt to cope with reality: in China today there is simply much higher number of hard working, highly intelligent, highly educated people that are hungry for success then there are in the West.
One thing we forget is that the two great Chinese companies in this space (Insta and DJI) had first to compete against hundreds (thousands?) of other Chinese camera companies before they could come out on the top and compete globally.
They are not a product of a CCP plot. They are a result of a ruthlessly competitive and capable local ecosystem, itself a result of decades of consistent industrial and innovation policy.
Nothing is stopping us in the EU and US to do the same.
It is not as though other countries could not choose do the same.
It seem to me that China choosing to subsidize industry it is not so different than the US choosing to subsidize Roads, Autos and OIL.
In both cases it does seem to work splendidly as intended.
Other than political inertia (or economic reasons far beyond my ability to fathom) there is nothing to stop the US from following suit.
I accept "free market" is a term of art probably from before global trade reality and could be narrowly redefined to mean whatever one wants (or wanted when it was coined) but in my ignorance I see it simply as free to choose actions and responses.
But I am far far away from opinions I am qualified to hold,
think I will shut up now.
I think even the Chicago school would agree that roads should be public
> autos
I absolutely detest US policy with respect to autos so I will not refute this
> oil
Matter of strategic importance that isn’t related to spying or subterfuge. The Nazis probably would have won WWII if they hadn’t run out of diesel. I’m not sure digital cameras come close to this.
But you could imagine a country that invested, in addition to roads, cars, and oil, in public transportation, cities that you can get around on foot, and in renewable energy. Such a country might be better off that the US is now.
Not everyone wants public transport. I never use it. Don’t like being so close to other people. And it is much more expensive where I live. Four friends going for a day trip to the big city is €120+ by train and bus.
Had another look. It’s €265 just for the four train tickets alone, in the lowest class. €375 if you want to travel in comfort class. Two hour journey.
You could imagine that this wasn’t the case, right? Or you could imagine that investing in it for those people who do want it might improve your own life (e.g. by reducing traffic) not to mention society as a whole?
I think the overwhelming and undeniable success and prosperity of China is the biggest concern to the west, the neoliberals consistently predicted their immediate downfall that never came. Except we are all still led by the same neoliberals proven wrong about everything, the contradictions everywhere are driving us all into collective insanity. If we don't manage to purge our media and governments from these vile people the only path forward is collective decline, increased totalitarianism and our repression leading to a war with China. Wars don't always end in the right side winning, and the cold war was won by the wrong side.
So ridiculous. So a bit of subsidy is ok, but no more than the US does? As a country that’s suffered from the US subsidising its own industries, my sympathy is zero.
I would assume that China is your biggest trade partner for both of those categories. Is the US a major trade partner for either of those categories? I find it hard to believe. The US (and most rich countries) have way too much domestic dairy farm capacity. As a result, there is lots of govt subsidies paid to dairy farmers.
That is (factually) a giant overstatement, and ignores domestic US politics.
It's almost like you believe the US remains interested in promoting free trade.
If it did, it wouldn't be levying illegal and constantly changing import tariffs, in violation of international trade agreements that it has signed up to.
I'm waiting for one of these "no you're wrong" comments to explain why it is that I'm wrong. I get that I didn't provide evidence either, but I'm relating the conventional wisdom on BYD-type cars. The C.W. is often wrong! But, like, you have to say why.
I read up on it, and it's not clear to me that it's actual dumping.
As in "selling below the cost of production".
I would say that China is trying to steer the car makers away from competing locally, as it's going to result in a price war. But that's not quite dumping per se.
"Dumping" is a term of art in international trade.
It's the thing that happens when a foreign exporter sells goods in your country below their production cost (or far below what they're charging domestic customers). It's done to fuck up the foreign markets for those goods, or, in China's case, as a relief valve for malinvestment.
China drastically overfunds EV production. There's a whole weird story where provinces apparently competed to get slices of the EV production business, which resulted in a large number of competing firms, producing far more vehicles than the Chinese domestic market could consume.
This isn't just a US thing. Europe tariffs the heck out of these cars.
Right - your comment was very poorly articulated - and loaded with supposition.
Your claim is that the reason people cannot buy the vehicles ISN'T because they are being dumped BUT because the government SAYS they are being dumped and has therefore actively prevented them from being sold.
The supposition is that it's an accurate claim by the governments - there are reports that the Chinese manufacturers are being restricted by their government and that there has been a period of over production, but how much of that is true and how much is propaganda is very difficult to actually ascertain.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. I don't think there's a serious dispute about whether China is dumping EVs, and the US isn't the only place claiming that.
Interesting that they are “dumping” them in Australia and other countries at prices that are competitive but far above what they cost in China.
Below cost of production my ass.
The only Western car company even competing with them is Tesla, who people love to hate for ideological reasons.
Calling what Chinese companies are doing “dumping” is pure cope for the utter failures of Western companies.
Look at my post history, I’m not pro-China at all, but I am a realist and can see the evidence with my own eyes since we can actually get the vehicles here.
I give it 5 years for Western and Japanese companies to be decimated in this market. Can’t say they don’t deserve it.
I don't know how this is supposed to respond to what I just wrote. If an EU country restricted contracts or usage with Google or OpenAI, I wouldn't call them out for doing so. All I'm saying is that it's especially clear why Chinese EVs are impeded from selling in the US.
I'll take a stab. How about something like not more than 50% greater than OECD average per industry? My point: It seems reasonable that some countries was to specialise in certain areas. For example: Taiwan and (East!) Germany chose to build-out their semiconductor industry starting in the 1980s. It has paid pretty good dividends with a healthy amount of industrial subsidies. I also think the OECD should be raising tariff rates to protect against ridiculous levels of Chinese subsidies.
Appeals to fairness are difficult to accept when the rest of us out here in the world have been hurt by the US imposing tariffs and sanctions on us over the past few decades, and with intense chaotic energy in the last few years.
How do we make a system everyone is to abide by when the US can just rewrite the rules when it suits? Order collapses when a huge country behaves this way.
Basically every "made in USA" consumer product has a DOD contract. The DOD is mandated by law to purchase from US companies, so there is a huge sector of small-to-medium businesses which only exist because there is a guaranteed order coming every quarter for uniforms or boots or other equipment that would likely be 1/3 the price if they were contract-manufactured in China or Vietnam.
Not saying this is uniformly bad, because without the law the number of businesses with the ability to manufacture this stuff would trend toward zero, but it is a form of subsidy.
I wonder if this pattern is true for all militaries in rich countries. I think it sounds like good economic policy. If you want to grow your military, then you need to make sure it is spent domestically. Also, the "finish good" may include lots of parts that were built overseas. Think about a Tomohawk missile: I am sure the microchips are all made overseas. That said, the intellectual property is developed domestically (or with very close allies) and final assembly is done domestically.
US Arms exports bring in around $13 billion a year. The military industrial complex is a domestic jobs program that sells the vast majority of what it makes domestically. The US is clearly not spending a trillion dollars a year subsidizing defense in order to make their products more competitive in other markets.
I'm not sure I agree. In the aircraft industry especially the US has strongly pushed for exports. Overseas programs (TRS2, Avro Arrow) were terminated for political reasons (and replaced with F111 etc). More recently see F35 impact.
That's before we discuss the advantage Boeing has in the commercial market thanks to DoD contracts.
Your link shows that the US exports the same as the next 20 countries added together. That suggests some market dominance.
I also suspect these numbers do not include "military aid" - where weapons and munitions are "given" by the US to Ukraine wherever[1]. (But they may, I don't know.)
I agree though that the primary benefit of this is not "sales". And even if it was these aren't consumer goods. So it's not easily compared to China's approach. I'm not suggesting it's a terribly good subsidy. But it's still a subsidy.
[1] there are a lot of political benefits to be gained by having bases in foreign countries, or by port visits by US ships. Unfortunately most of those benefits have been eroded in the last 2 years. The gutting of USAid (which saved basically nothing), leaving the WHO, the tarrif nonsense, bombing Iran - all have destroyed a benevolent reputation 75 years in the making.
Sure the US benefits by giving arms to Ukraine, or having bases in other countries.
But that has nothing to do with the topic at hand which is market dominance for some industry.
>Boeing DOD contracts
This is probably the closest comparison to what China is doing. But it’s still not the same thing because the US buys equipment from Boeing, they don’t just give them direct subsidies.
The equivalent would be if China awarded Bambu a contract to provide 3d printers to schools.
To the extent that the US pursues policies that help defense companies. They don’t do it in order to help those companies compete in foreign markets. They do it because they want those companies not to go out of business for national security reasons, or because they want those companies to provide domestic jobs.
The US does other shady things, but spending massive amounts to help domestic companies outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets isn’t one of them.
If a country hands out enormous subsidies but yet isn't leading in anything, then maybe it's time to consider what structural reasons are causing these subsidies to be squandered and whose bottom lines are being padded.
I heard that when some country wants to pay in a different currency than USD for oil, a coup suddenly happens, or a helicopter comes and the president gets kidnapped
It basically means most of the world's currency wealth is held in the USA or backed by the USA. So the answer would be the finance sector - it's subsidized by the rest of the world.
That’s a stretch for the topic at hand. You can say hey the US does this probably morally equivalent thing, but when people are talking about subsidizing domestic companies so they can outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets, this isn’t what they’re talking about.
Ever wondered why everything in the USA contains corn syrup? Because sugar is artificially expensive (roughly double the global price) due to import tariffs that protect US sugar cane farmers.
This particular complaint is tripple hypocritical. US whole deal is to sell under price until competition dies and only then bring up prices or remove offering.
It winner takes all econony is literally based on destroying the competition as such.
Successful Chinese industries tend to be subsidized at the level of cities and regions. This creates fierce intra national rivalry that forces rapid evolution and excellence. Electric vehicles are an example.
Anything the federal government pumps money into tends not to do as well.
Or when one country can print endless money while threatening the rest of the world with all kinds of punishment if they stop using it as a reserve currency.
Stop crying already. US subsidizes a boatload of things.
This is written like an American who is both ignorant of cybersecurity, American politics, and of the advantages that the US has benefitted from since at least WW2.
The core points are:
- we can't trust a connected GoPro device any more than a connected DJI device
- Just because a device is developed in China doesn't make it a vulnerability.
- Just because a device is made in the US doesn't make it resistant to vulnerabilities.
- US politicians don't have any incentive to tell us the truth. Because of the nature of national security, they could completely lie about any accusations of Chinese involvement and we would never know, especially now that the US president fired anyone who resists his demands for fealty.
- GoPro was first to market but stopped adding value once they IPOed. US public companies depending on IP protections / rent seeking rather than cutthroat competition is the core reason DJI is beating GoPro, not Chinese government subsidies to the sector.
- China's middle and upper classes are far larger than the US's. Similarly, they are training more college grads. China also has more companies being created and more creative destruction than the US. It doesn't matter if we build a better v1.0 product because their innovation engine is moving at least as fast as ours.
- the US has had a 70 year head start on "a near zero cost of capital". Being the west's financier after WW2 and later the world's reserve currency.
I don't pity a US company because it chose not to compete with a Chinese company despite starting from an advantage.
His point wasn't that chinese-made products have more vulnerabilities, what? what are these reading skills.
GoPro has probably never been in a patent litigation in their favor. His point wasn't limited to GoPro either.
The main driving force isn't anything but the simple fact that they can undercut everyone. Some of it is innovation in production methods, some of it subsidies, some of it is the low salaries, some of it is the 12hour shifts seen as normal.
Is it deserved? Sure. They let western companies unintentionally ship their entire know-how to China. Is it OK from a US perspective, does it mean that they can't do anything now, and should just source Chinese products for everything? Hell no.
Thanks for making HN as braindead as Reddit! Thanks to people like you, I'm becoming a master at translating Chinese socials!
Perhaps a huge tell about national strategy is the fact that the owner has $10s of millions to loan to the company? US economic structure in post WWII era has increasingly focused on return on capital (and value extraction). How can that compete in long term with an economy which prioritizes reinvestment *in industry*?
One would presume that the founder is investing their money into something, probably equities, that is an investment in industry. They could be either selling those equities for a loan here or taking a loan against those equities to loan to GoPro (if the cost of capital is lower for them than GoPro, which seems plausible.)
I generally agree with your point about value extraction vs. re-investment.
Exactly. How can they come into existence except via an IPO or similar mechanism? At that moment, investment happens. The rest of the time, it does not. The stock market rising does not increase investment in industry. When you buy stocks at a stock exchange, you aren't investing in industry
You are saying that "investment" only happens when you provide capital to a corporation.
Presumably, under this definition, when you sell stock that is not "disinvestment".
Unless you are selling it back to the company itself. Then it is "disinvestment", because the total amount of capital provided to the corporation has gone down.
That is not what people mean by the term "investment". You need to find a different word, because "investment" has a more general meaning than the concept you are talking about.
People know it’s happening. What do you expect an average consumer to do about it? Pay more out of pocket due to the potential national security risks?
Right, because in an actual free market where DHI was not heavily subsidized, DJI drones would cost MUCH more, and the other drones would be competitive.
Same for BYD vs Tesla and every other car. It is easy to win in the "free market" when you give away your product.
Same for Uber and Lyft for many years — subsidized by VCs until they gained massive scale, effectively killed all the other competition, and now the prices have gone up when they have a lock on the market, a large moat, and the VCs want a return. In my area, what was a $30 ride to the airport a few years ago, far cheaper than any airport service, is now $89.
The entire concept of a "free market" is idealized to the point of fiction.
And remember dear readers, China and Iran openly helps Russia in their invasion of Ukraine. It is like the cold war never ended.
China's covert military training of Russian forces last year was personally approved by President Vladimir Putin's defence minister and directly involved at least four Russian and Chinese generals, according to two European officials and documents seen by Reuters.
Also on Avinox motors on e-mtn bikes. Originally made by DJI, then spun off into their own company, and they are starting to eat the competition on all e-mtn bikes at this point. Bosch, TQ, Shimano, et al just can't compete, especially because Avinox is iterating at startup pace and all the rest are iterating at bike pace (slowly).
Not just subsidised, but the supply chain is literally in the same block.
That's the thing Chinese do where other countries can't compete. If you're making product X, all of your suppliers are within walking distance around your assembly line.
Cloud risks are very true - for both GoPro and DJI.
About a year ago, I was looking for an action camera. I found a good DJI product, but then I learned that you have to link the camera to an app in order to use it. I am fundamentally opposed to that idea, so I looked up the equivalent GoPro camera. Turns out GoPro also requires you to activate the camera with a smartphone app.
I don't want to send my data to a company for something as trivial as an action cam. I was surprised to find that the US model had such an evil requirement, mirroring the Chinese model.
In the end, I bought the DJI action cam (cheaper, better) and activated it in a public location using a burner phone. You only need to use the app once to free the device and take it offline, after which you can delete the surveillance app. I have found no fingerprinting in the created media yet.
GoPro would have made an easy sale with me, if they had been more privacy/power aware.
Cameras need to connect somewhere, somehow to offload their videos/photos. Whether that's network, USB, SD card, those are all attack vectors. Hell, even the files themselves can act as payloads.
> If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place
Oh right, because the US has never done that ? Its public knowledge the US does supply-chain interdiction, see the infamous NSA “upgrade” factories as just one example.
The US is also just as capable of writing buggy code full of security holes as everyone else. Even more so today with the advent of "vibe code it and ship it".
It is only an attack vector if you allow it to be so, defence in depth and all that ...
> I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract
But its all magically ok if its got a "designed in the USA" and/or "made in the USA" badge on it ?
The problem I see here is a desire to use COTS stuff out-of-the-box in natsec environments led by a desire to save money and/or save time. Seems to me like one of those "pick two" moments where the "security" option was thrown in the trash.
This is of course beyond stupid considering the pace of 3d printer vs one PET bottle blow molding machine that can produce same shape shells at thousand units /hour.
They're completely different niches. Blow molding helps you make a million of a thing, 3D printing helps you make a million different things. There's great for low volume items without significant strength requirements. That includes prototypes but also anything niche - like parts for blow molding machines.
Another comment mentioned you can CNC a blow mold. That's completely true and I'm not versed in it enough to know when you'd prefer subtractive or additive rapid prototyping. A 3D printer is a bit more flexible in the shapes it can make but it can only make them out of plastic, which is a huge tradeoff.
But blow moulding machines big enough to make a drone shell are massive.
If you had suggested a more portable technology like vacuum forming maybe you would have a point, but blow moulding is definitely one of the more expensive and least portable ways of forming plastic.
Is it? With a 3d printer you can print any piece on demand, change design without changing tooling and make pieces that are semi-hollow inside for lightness.
Edit - should add, early in the war Ukraine was crowd-sourcing drone parts from citizens with 3D printers at home. This likely grew from that.
This isnt endurance contest, interceptor drones are half battery half explosive with miniscule weight taken by motors electronics and packaging. We are talking 10KW power draw for around a minute.
You can rapid manufacture moulds too, cnc alu is good for 1K shots easily.
100%. It would strongly behoove the US to encourage domestic 3d printer manufacture (or friendly countries like Japan), to the point of bannning Bambu and Chinese companies. Obviously we are doing fine for industrial 3d printers, but the small scale consumer stuff is very important too.
If and when AI commiditizes professional services, it would be good to have modern industry to fall back on. With 3d printing the gap isnt insurmountable yet.
However, our country is run by lawyers, not engineers, so I dont have too much hope. At least a lot of our billionaires started out as engineers...
The cost of your proposed policies to consumers, to the Americans who can create because of cheap great Chinese printers and wouldn't be able to create under your policy... is much greater than the abstract industrial policy benefit.
I'm not sure what stops some of these industries from essentially being more nationalist like China, but more centrist as a company like Palantir. If these risks are as big as you claim, a centralized authority should reverse engineer the things that work done in China or where-ever and use open source/build a better software stack that supplants what's out on the market currently.
GoPro has been “in trouble” for years and years. All of that may be true but they just haven’t justified their survival. They may well be better off selling to Garmin or another domestic air defense vendor and be done in the consumer market.
FWIW current administration wants to play this same game, but they def won’t do it as well.
>People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
I'm actually surprised to hear that GoPro is used in aerospace applications. I assumed that they would use cameras from companies like Teledyne that have a more industrial/military customer base. That is to say, there are almost certainly options for domestic camera manufacturers if required.
You are right about China. The West (especially Apple) taught China how to manufacture while losing the ability ourselves and for some reason didn't consider that they would figure out how to design products themselves and bring the entire product chain within the country.
Individuals at the end of the day mostly care about buying the cheapest thing that does the job. They don't consider where it comes from. Even those that do care have limits in how they will compromise (there is a reason why I bought Bambu Labs 3D printer even though I would have preferred a Prusa).
For us living in "the rest of the world", we only have a choice of being spied on by chinese or american companies, and american ones can do a lot more damage to us than chinese.
So if we're getting spied on anyway, why not buy a better product?
The western countries deindustrialized themselves though. That's just capitalism chasing ever increasing profits and moving production to where it's cheaper, i.e.from west to China. In fact this was cherished because it increased share holder profits.
If you’ve spent a life and the market being supreme then it’s a shock. China’s economic system is wiping the floor with the west.
The U.K. has just nationalised a steel plant which had been bought by China to stop it from being destroyed, and of course the economic right wing hate this as steel is far cheaper to import.
As someone with both an Insta360 camera and a Bambu printer, I feel it, would love to buy GoPro and Prusa, but the value just isn't there.
For one, I had a GoPro whose sensor broke after about 20 minutes of recorded. I ended up getting 3 different replacements, all of which also broke. In the end I just forgot about it when my home burnt down in a wildfire. I got an Insta360 with better picture quality that's also been more reliable for a similar cost.
And I would have loved to buy a Prusa printer but I got a Bambu P1S combo for $600, an equivalent Prusa plus the $300 shipping to Canada would have been ~$2500 CAD. For making trinkets for my 3 year old son plus the few random other things I'd make it's not worth it to pay 4x the money.
Maybe it'll forever be this way due to the differences in cost of living but I do feel as though there's a million barriers to entry to building a business in North America, at least a business that's not fully online.
Core One+ is $1899 CAD, the MMU3 for the Core One+ is $579 CAD and shipping was quoted over $300 since they ship from Europe and not the US to Canada. Just put these into their shopping cart on their site, right now quoting $2887 (including shipping and duties).
I did get a particularly good deal on the P1S combo apparently, the price on their website already higher than what I paid and it's significantly less in Canada than the US with exchange rate. Are they exactly equivalent, dunno, but both are the cheapest Core XY models with enclosure + colour changer that either sell.
Prusa is also cheaper in the US and EU than Canada.
FWIW you can get a kit Core One+ for $999 USD in the US. I actually prefer to get the machine as a kit as assembly helps with understanding the workings of the machine for maintenance.
They’re not remotely equivalent though. That’s like saying that a raspberry pi and 16” monitor are equivalent to a MacBook Pro because that’s the cheapest 16” monitor Apple sells.
If all you want to do is drive the kids to school, you want the Honda, but that doesn’t make the 2 products equivalent.
But if all you’re doing is printing toys for the kids an A1 mini would have been less than half the price of the P1S. The enclosure is mostly a waste if you’re only printing PLA. You’re going to end up venting anyway. Core XY is a little faster than a bedslinger, but if you’re doing a lot of multi color prints, the material change time will dominate, so you won’t see much practical difference.
> both do a variety of materials.
The p1s does not regulate the chamber temperature, so the variety of materials you can get good results either is much more limited.
Sounds like a problem for America. And totally irrelevant to the state of GoPro the company. It sounds like you're advocating for corporate welfare on the basis that a failing company is "based in" USA, even though their most impactful operations are overseas.
I'm not sure what attack vectors are there if you don't connect your camera to company wifi, I guess it could technically put a payload on SD card but... eh ?
> When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
First, Gopros are made and assembled in China (with I think some in Mexico now to avoid tariffs). And absolutely nothing stops them from just sending potentially malicious firmware to the non-china made ones too
Second China didn't make Gopros fucking overheat, shoddy engineering did. They rested on their laurels while competition worked hard on making better product. If it was just production costs the top end GoPros would be the best in the niche, just more expensive, but no they are both more expensive and worse product.
Third, it is not "Chinese govt. doing it" (tho they are certainly helping), it is west constantly sending their tech advantage away just to get some cheap production there. Whether directly like Apple or Tesla, or indirectly, by allowing chinese capital to buy western car companies and instantly get all the tech then just apply their more integrated production to make same stuff cheaper.
West gave China their advantage willingly, for a short term profits, and continue to do so, then try to mask it as some kind of malicious push (not saying it isn't happening, just saying the western companies are complicit in it) rather than corporate greed ruining everything yet again.
You have a point here. China vs USA is just a part of the whole thing.
If we discuss the problem of China doing industrial spying and applying subsides to destroy non-chinese companies, we should mention also that countries like Israel had been stealing tirelessly for decades every US army and US industrial secrets that they could grab. They had been caught later selling this secrets for money to third countries like Russia. And the cherry on top is that all was subsidized, but with US money this time.
Denying North Korean or Chinese people access to places with industrial secrets, while at the same time granting Israeli people free VIP access just because... "white people" (so they can sell it to Russia, and Russians can sell it later to China and NK) does not really make any sense.
China does not want to deindustrialize any country. Why do you think of everything in terms of war and domination ? China has built a industry capable of taking any product and make it better and cheaper. There is no psycho strategy behind it. They will do it till every chinese will live a comfortable life equal to an american. At that point america will be able to compete again.
The CCP has publicly explained that their strategy is indeed to dominate key sectors via gov subsidies, de-industrialize other nations and gain strategic leverage in the process.
Two main reasons. It requires taking a lot of freedom / agency away from individuals, and redirecting much of the profits of successful enterprises to subsidies (and suppressing individual consumption and standard of living).
America does that for aerospace & some defense stuff. But the reason not to is that the industrial policy needed to do it like China does has the effect of reduced wages, longer work hours, and lower quality of life.
The US (and EU/UK) subsidies defense, but imo that’s different. First, it’s more understandable to want domestic arms production. Second, they are not seeking to subsidize to undercut foreign suppliers and drive them out of business.
The US is not pushing subsidized F35 fighters all over the world to drive other producers under.
>People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
In what way exactly? The camera will magically communicate to the mothership?
I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get.
Sounds very similar to another US company - Garmin. They are still popular, but have been raising prices a lot every generation, because for a long time there was no real competition [1]. At this point, Garmin watches that have mapping support have an introduction price of >600 Euro. Even at that price point, zooming or panning maps is excruciatingly slow (sometimes taking up to 10 seconds to re-render) because they have used the same CPU/MCU for multiple generations while increasing screen resolution. They also haven't really innovated a lot as of recently and are moving some new functionality behind a subscription.
This has opened a large gap for Chinese competition. Now you can get a Coros Nomad that goes head-to-head with models like the Garmin Enduro for 350 Euro. They don't have full feature parity yet, but they are so rapidly adding features that they will at some point. Also, in contrast to Garmin, they seem to be using modern microcontrollers, so panning or zooming a map is insanely fast in comparison, while still having ~20 days of battery for daily use.
[1] Of the traditional competitors, Apple Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch Ultra have gotten closer, but are nowhere near the battery life, robustness, mapping support, mapping + workout support, etc.
> Garmin watches that have mapping support have an introduction price of >600 Euro. Even at that price point, zooming or panning maps is excruciatingly slow
I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.
You're right that it's slow due to a wimpy processor. But the processor isn't because they're too lazy to innovate, but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so that I can get a battery life of several weeks.
I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.
As a sibling commenter said, the Instinct 3 Solar only does breadcrumb navigation, it doesn't do topographic maps on the watch (there are some Connect IQ apps that can add mapping, but you don't get good integration with workouts).
I use them all the time when cycling. I often plan a route, but when some different direction looks more interesting, I can spot check whether it leads to bike paths that will eventually merge back into my grand plan, erm, route. Or sometimes even for following the route, you want to look ahead by quickly zooming out or get a lot of detail at some complex intersection, where having a full map gives you much better orientation.
Well, except on a Garmin, my Fenix 8 is often so slow that I had to pause cycling to zoom in/out (even more complicated by not being able to do gradual zooming because it does not have a crown).
Yes, I know I can also use a bike GPS or a more generic GPSr with a large screen. I have used their gpsmap line since 2010 or so and even have the gpsmap H1. But having to always carry it around when you have a break somewhere is a drag and I always have a watch on me anyway. So I primarily use the gpsmap for geocaching and switched to using a watch for other activities.
but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so that I can get a battery life of several weeks
Coros watches have several weeks of battery life and fast maps. It is laziness (or margin maximization), because they could reach the same power budget by moving to a processor that is on a smaller node.
> I know I can also use a bike GPS or a more generic GPSr with a large screen.
Their bike computers have a long lasting battery and are helpful for data. But wow are they frustrating. Software update regularly loses the config, the interface is just so painful (laggy touch screen or confusing buttons).
The mapping is hard to follow.
Not that Strava mapping on a phone is any better. Why can’t Strava put arrows on the direction of travel?
Sounds like the perfect use-case for big-small processors. A power-sipper for routine 99.99% of operations and a more powerful beast for the CPU intensive ops.
It's mostly because Garmin wants to maximize profits by sticking to old CPUs. The Coros watches (from what I've heard, the same applies to Suunto and Polar) are fast.
This has been an issue across the whole Garmin product line. E.g. the Garmin eTrex 32x from 2019 still used the same CPU as the eTrex 30 from 2011. 8 years without a CPU update. And the eTrex was already had miserably slow map rendering in 2011 with maps from that year.
Although Coros watches are fast, the Coros DURA bike computer is pretty slow when re-rendering maps. Naturally, companies can still choose between how fast the CPU is versus how long the battery life is (100+ hours on the Coros DURA I believe).
I think they meant watches that can show actual maps, not just a line or arrow with your route. That feature has always been reserved for the more expensive watches.
The more expensive watches (Fenix) also have long battery lives: lasting up to a month on a battery that can fit in a watch. The processors still have to sip power.
The Coros watches are less than half the price, have 22 days of battery life in smartwatch mode (in the Nomad) and render maps extremely fast. If they added solar, they could probably also last a month (the Coros Apex 4 does 24 days, also without solar).
The funniest thing is that earlier versions of the Coros even used the Garmin map format (though as many small files and not a single/small number of .img). Though they have switched to the open PMTiles format in later versions.
BTW, I had a Fenix 7x solar (before a Fenix 8 AMOLED) and it would usually 'only' last about two weeks. I think you can only reach Garmin's stated time if you disable a lot of functionality.
My Instinct 3 Solar shows 34 days remaining in the battery. I charged it sometime last week, so we're talking about upper 30s at least.
That's with running activity tracking including GPS for about an hour a day, and continuous heart rate monitoring.
At least on my device (and my body) the spo2 sensor is very finicky, requiring absolution stillness, and even at that I don't think it's accurate. So I don't use that.
I also discovered recently that simply using a custom watchface - even one built with an eye toward efficiency - lowers my battery life to about 2 weeks. The native faces enjoy privileged operations and are thus highly efficient. But custom-coded stuff apparently runs in a sandbox that has the effect of costing much more power. That's unfortunate, because my custom face used custom high-legibility fonts (derived from what's on interstate signage), making it noticeably easier on my aging eyes. The built-in fonts aren't great for this.
My Fenix 8 only gets two weeks at most with pulse ox off. Yes, it's the AMOLED version, but I have the screen off by default (which should be similar to MIP). I got similar runtimes on my 7 Pro Solar without pulse ox.
Err.. my 2yo Fenix 7 Solar definitely lasts 3-4 weeks. Not AMOLED (because.. that's why), but MiP. In summer.. it can last >month. Pulse on, GPS is generally only on in solar. Screen is never off. I can obviously make it a worse UX/last longer, but I'm not sure I see the need.. even when I'm back country.
This is correct. There are a number of excellent asymmetric multicore MCU platforms now. You don't have to choose between efficiency and performance today.
Really considering Coros since Garmin introduced a subscription. It doesn't currently prevent me from using anything I want to use, it's just moving in the wrong direction, but I was annoyed by Garmin for a long time, and this is the last drop.
However, my understanding is that Coros just doesn't have an SDK. At all. So it's not really "lagging on features", it's a totally closed platform, that doesn't any have 3rd party apps at all, and will not have them, because it's impossible to write them. I don't know if it's enough of a reason to completely write them off as a competitor, but that does give me a pause. I mean, if I don't have a feature on Garmin, I can theoretically implement it myself, or even hope that somebody else did. If I don't have it on Coros, I will just have to make do.
It’s interesting that you mention Garmin - they’re a good example of pivoting from your original market (standalone gps units for cars) once you see a nimble competitor eating away at it (gps-enabled smartphones). Garmin would be dead if they had held fast on the standalone GPS market.
I'm not sure you are fully aware of the markets that Garmin is in. When it comes to marine, aviation and offroad, you simply cannot run a gps app on a phone. E.g.
"offroad, you simply cannot run a gps app on a phone"
I almost exclusively use GaiaGPS as my offroad GPS navigation app on my phone. It works perfectly fine and it has for a long time, roughly speaking 1/7th of my life.
Garmin will survive a year or more easily, because in Europe there is a big group of people who belive in Garmin even more than people belived in Apple (this group is still huge and strong, but the company itself does everything it can to change it).
The real competition is Apple Watch and for sport-intensive application Garmin wins because of battery and simplicity of usage in harder conditions.
As a motorcyclist and sailor, their hardware is second to none in terms of build quality and robustness. The ability to look down at my Zumo GPS on my motorcycle in a rain storm on a dirt road and have it respond to my wet dirty glove is a close to magic as you will get.
Then there's the watches, the Instinct range is ok but I have a button that doesn't pop back out, my wife's vivoactive suffered the well known touch failure.
However, as a UXer I will say that across all products the software interaction model sucks balls. "China" can and will produce hardware to meet a price point, its not that they can't build good products.
As soon as "China" figures out how to do good UX, the last moat western companies have will fall.
I think the only sports watch company that has an app that is worse than Garmin's is Polar. I have used Garmin devices since 2010, but their UX is (as you say) pretty quirky. They changed the UI/UX of the gpsmap H1 to look more like a smartphone, but it is still weird. Another issue is that their software has been very buggy the last few years, with software only stabilizing 1-2 years after the release. One the largest external source for Garmin information (gpsrchive) has actively recommended against purchasing the H1 because it has been so buggy. Similarly, earlier firmware releases of the Fenix 8 had a lot of issues. Also a lot of functionality of older units hasn't been implemented yet. These are often not small bugs, but of the type, "oopsie, your device froze or rebooted while you were navigating". They basically released an alpha version as a final product.
I don't know about UX, but I've had my Coros watch for a few weeks now and I didn't find it hard to understand. I think it's much easier than when I first learned to use a Fenix watch. It misses some Garmin features though that I'd really like to see like off-course rerouting. But like I said above, they have been adding features at a good pace and a drastically undercutting Garmin on price (most watches less than half the price of the closest Garmin watch).
'China' can do UX just fine, when the incentive is there. Part of the reason UX seems rough, outside of low quality products where it's a tertiary consideration, is cultural differences. User interfaces are part of culture, like everything humans touch. Those preferences shape the resulting tech. Sometimes those choices are less optimal for western users with their own preferences.
About 10 years ago I was looking for a rugged small camera. Found some by Garmin that were on a closeout sale. Excellent quality, never owned a GoPro so can't compare but I used them in similar applications and they never had an issue.
According to a quick search, GoPro has an Enterprise Valuation of $160M. That would be chump change for a large tech company. The brand has name recognition value in excess of that figure. I suspect some big company will happily buy it but not sure who. It has to be a company that wants to get into the camera market. I don't think the brand name is as valuable to an existing camera company-though I could be wrong.
Apple, Google, and Amazon could all make sense. Google would see the business as an opportunity to strengthen its existing IoT portfolio. Apple an opportunity to add to its integrated consumer electronics offering. Amazon would be more a play to improve GoPro's margins. They could easily push it with prime deals, etc.
I could also see Samsung getting in.
Regardless, expect to see more integration, AI features, etc, after acquisition.
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
I had a GoPro many years ago. Eventually sold it because I needed the money for other things.
Been thinking about buying a new action camera eventually.
Got any recommendations?
The one that interests me the most of the ones I’ve seen is the Insta360 X4 Air plus an underwater case for it.
I want to be able to bring my camera swimming, bicycling, hiking, etc. And I think 360 degree cameras are pretty cool. Hopefully it’s not just a gimmick that loses its appeal after a few hours.
As someone who watches a reasonable amount of PoV outdoor activity footage shot on helmet cams and the like (base jumping, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, etc)… I don’t love watching 360 videos uploaded in the raw because of the perspective distortion.
I’m assuming it must be possible, if the resolution is good enough, to post process a portion of each overall frame into an undistorted 1080p (or better) view of the key view of the action, but a lot of people don’t do this (perhaps it’s much more difficult or time-consuming that I’m imagining, or perhaps many viewers enjoy the distorted 360 view more than I do).
part of this is by design, which unfortunately also makes very steep terrain not look as terrifying, but gives you huge FOV. I find in all but the latest Instas its the worse low-light quality that is most notable. More annoying is that everyone is trying to compete on weird angles and perspectives, andY YT shills push attachments and niche features vs. photographic quality
If you're willing to put a little time into video editing, a 360 cam is great. The insta360 tools can make that a little easier if you want something simple.
If you just want to store a snapshot of the moment as it was captured, a regular camera that you pointed in the right direction is better.
The downside is the 360 editing tools are kind of sluggish and not great to work with, and even at 8k res in-camera, the export for a 'normal' looking FoV is pretty low quality compared to a normal action cam recording in 4k.
I have an insta360 X5, it's neat and there's a lot of flexibility, but it does have downsides.
The app is also a pile of crap, it's crammed full of ads, social media junk I don't want, it's slow as molasses, and the size of the app is massive.
I'd love to film in 3d. But being dependent on a single app of a single company (that is not even a good app right now) is literally the worst feature for a hardware I could imagine.
One cool feature I've read about is that (at least some) GoPro cameras can save high-resolution IMU measurements to the recorded video files, timestamped and interleaved with video frames. This can be useful for mapping applications, e.g. https://joshi-bharat.github.io/projects/gopro/
Are there any competitors on the market that also have this feature? I've looked around a few times in the past and haven't found any. Many cameras say that they have an IMU, presumably for image stabilization, but they don't seem to record or expose that data.
It's mostly FUD and/or paid reviewers. Both DJI and Insta have good products, but also very good at sponsoring in a way where things get reviewed very in their favor, making people have an impression that doesn't quite match reality. So the meme one constantly read online about how gopros are so much worse is false. They have their issues, but mostly trade offs.
I bought one back in 2018, curious what brand would you recommend today? I wouldnt mind upgrading to something more modern but I dont care about GoPro for brands sake. Would love something I could take in the water like the GoPro.
A gopro isn't worse than the competition, nor at a premium.
What makes gopro the standard in proper productions (and science etc) is that they're so hackable with the gopro labs software. With that, all the other cameras are toys in comparison for professional usage.
It also doesn’t help that you could probably get by with a hero 4 black even today lol
Man I still can’t believe how bad the rollout of the karma was. I remember at the time everyone in my professional circles was buzzing about it. Then they started literally falling out of the sky. Feel like they never recovered
Eh, I have a Hero 4 black. And if you as the other commenter only think about resolution it can look like that, but the difference is enormous.
4k on a gopro 13 is far far far clearer. And the stabilization is night and day. Half my hero4 videos are mostly blurry shakes and quite jarring to watch, with a bad fov. The stabilization on modern gopros is magical. The bitrate and quality is orders of magnitude better. You can now pull good quality stills from the video if you want. Hero4 can't handle anything but perfect blue sky in the middle of the day. Etc etc
Apparently (checked with AI), Hero 4 Black was the first camera with 30 fps 4k video and was released 12 years ago already (how time flies)
Frankly, after 4k/30 and 1080p/60, there are strong diminishing returns, because most people these days watch videos on their phones in suboptimal conditions (or older desktops that may still be on 1080p), so what are they going to do with your 5k/6k video?
Sure, you can keep doing minor improvements to sensors and optics, but for a consumer it will not justify getting a new model for $500.
Also, competing with smartphone cameras which have gotten better over the years. I bet 99% of people would not be able to tell a gopro video from a phone video.
DJI Osmo cameras are good, I still have my original Osmo action and while the quality is a bit behind now, the battery life and general stability and menus are better than GoPro IMO.
I've found DJI cameras also don't discharge their batteries when sitting, my gopro 11 black is somehow always dead when I grab it even after a few weeks, but my osmo action is still at ~70% after a year.
Insta360 also has some neat offerings, but their software/app is absolutely abysmal, it's crammed full of ads and takes up several GB of space. It also requires an account login.
Many years ago had my first Gopro camera that seriously overheated, sent it for repairs, they said there was nothing wrong with it. It literally turned too hot to handle after taking a few clips and wouldn't work. I think there was some serious hardware issue that caused it to then drain the whole battery.
Gave the brand a second chance some years ago. Couldn't export my videos from the app, it always hanged. So I couldn't share footage. Apparently a common long standing problem on forums.
I missed a lot of footage last year too, after buying a newer model GoPro. Turns out, they now ship a battery that cannot handle even mildly freezing temperatures. Impossible to film while skiing. Of course, you have to buy a special winter battery, and none of their product marketing mentions this.
Yeah, I've had multiple GoPros die in multiple ways, and way too quickly. They're just really poor quality and aren't suited for vibration, heat, cold, etc. -- exactly the things an "action camera" should be able to tolerate.
Extremely similar to iRobot (Roomba). They both practically genericized themselves by inventing and dominating the product category, then just couldn't keep up with the competition. GoPro does feel more self inflicted though. Their drone was a failure, and they burnt a lot of money trying to do some kind of pivot to being a media company.
Hue does support Matter. Hue is expensive but delivers a premium experience, unlike the products talked about in this thread that are expensive but not better than the competition.
Got any you'd recommend? I've been paying the Hue tax because they're the only bulbs I've had with zero connectivity issues ever across several years, whereas every other brand I've tried has been very unreliable.
It sounds similar to a lot of US products. They outsource all production to China, then China essentially start making copies of their products and charging a fraction of the price.
As a cyclist (and former racer), I still want to know how to capture videos with telemetry overlays (speed, power, HR, etc) from my head unit in a straightforward way. NorCal Cycling's videos - https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling - are an excellent demonstration of this at work.
Yes, I've done the Garmin VIRB Edit thing, which is the very approach recommended by Jeff (NorCalCycling) in his tutorial videos on the subject. It feels like something out of 2005. It is incredibly labour-intensive and imprecise unless you're fortunate enough to be in relatively short criteriums where you've got the battery runtime to just record the whole race. Most real-world events and rides require one to turn the camera on and off at certain moments, which then requires _hours_ of stitching together clips and correlating them to GPS fixes from the head unit (in the FIT file), and quite imprecisely at that.
There has to be a more 2026 solution to this. All you need to do is correlate the footage to the FIT data points by timestamp, in the temporal domain.
If Garmin came out with one, it would absolutely annihilate this space. To the best of my knowledge, there is no competition that offers anything turn-key, though perhaps the best of my knowledge has not aged well and by now there is something. It's maddening.
Sounds like you want https://goprotelemetryextractor.com/telemetry-overlay-gps-vi... — feed it your GoPro footage, your Garmin FIT file, set up your gauges as you so desire and you’re off to the races (or the rendering at least). I suspect a lot of cycling Vloggers use it.
Dunno if useful, but in RC hobby area we have had OSD (on-screen displays) for decades. Both in analog and digital video, with recording (analog OSD there's just a small chip). Although analog is probably not relevant for you -- quality is crap and you don't care about milliseconds latency as we do, so go with digital (and not HDZero, they are technically digital, but heavily invested in low-latency, for pro racers).
Just don't buy DJI -- they absolutely want lock you in to their tools, parts are often not compatible even within DJI, require to create an online account, require an app (from a custom .apk on android) and in general have questionable privacy.
Of the open-source systems there's a new OpenIPC system with a most popular implementation of RunCam WifiLink 2 that supports onboard SD card recording [1] [2].
More proprietary (but still cross-compatible with others) is Walksnail Avatar V2 [3] with 32GB of internal storage.
For your case, you don't need a VRX (receiver), although you can totally give it your your buddies to see your race (with OSD) in real time. VRX can be built-in to goggles (if the same company), or as a separate module that connects to your preferred goggles over mini-HDMI, also with recording. [4] [5]
I guess I should say it has some capabilities in this area.
Been a while since I used it, but it will generate the overlays and you can sync it with your ride data (eg Strava or Apple Health in my case, but iirc it also supports Garmin Connect).
There are some capability differences between the mobile app and the Insta360 studio desktop app.
I'm pretty sure it handled multiple files, but in my case they were the chunks that the camera splits its recording into, which is a bit different than than having multiple clips as you described.
No, it doesn't. Gopro actually hss gps and sensors built in, most dji cameras don't (does any?). You need extra hardware, or provide the data yourself. While in gopro you just enable it on the clip.
Of courses, for more advanced stuff you might want to provide the telemetry yourself (like the gopro doesn't know your wattage). But it does have much more than dji out of the box.
Am I wrong in thinking you could do this with ffmpeg, your video files, and your data from Strava/Garmin/whatever? This feels like a program an LLM (or human!) could write pretty easily
You would think it would be that straightforward. However, accurate synchronisation on GPS or temporal attributes would be required.
Judging by the paucity of software to do this, historically, it is not a straightforward problem, or all the devices involved don't generate all the data points required.
The real mess is when you have 26 clips from a long event to string together. It can easily take a day and a half to make a 3 minute montage out of that.
it's not as hard as you're making it seem, you just allow for a positive or negative time offset and rely on the devices counting seconds similarly, which is mostly a given now.
I did this with raw footage and a VESC speed controller dump to overlay a bunch of motor stats on a prior project, this was pre-AI and it was still only an afternoon project.
ffmpeg/image-magick do all the real heavy lifting out of the box.
This sounds like something Claude Code could do very easily. If you need to actually look at the videos that's harder but still possible, but if it's just aligning GPS times and timestamps with reasonably accurate clocks, Claude Could probably do the ffmpeg commands unsupervised. I wouldn't be surprised if Haiku (the cheapest model) could do it, or an open-source agent harness with another small 30B model.
Just prompting claude (probably I would start with Opus) "I would like a HUD display of the following metrics from my Fit file overlayed on these GoPro videos, and I'd like the videos stitched together (there are some gaps, I want seamless playback) it would probably do it in 30 minutes or less, and the majority of the time would probably be ffmpeg.
Yeah I had a little script to do something similar (no video, but merging data) just for Strava recording a while back. Had forgotten all about it until this description & 'FIT files'.
Video's a bit more complex no doubt, but like you say all the pieces are there, SMoP.
When I was looking to buy an action camera last year, I was deciding between Insta360 and DJI, with many YouTubers suggesting outright against GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality.
Action cameras sound like a tough business, since most of them are built to last ages, and they need to keep the vast majority of content creators happy trying to increase image quality in a small form factor.
Anyway, I bought the Insta360 Go Ultra I had my mind on from the start, which I'm still reasonably happy with.
So you don’t realize most you tube influencers using dji or insta360 are being paid to use them? That’s the main reason I’ve seen YouTubers switch. The Chinese brands absolutely flood content creators with free gear and support.
Having owned a number of GoPros, I made the same switch last year.
The Insta360 has super annoying/intrusive software that always feels like it's trying to sell me something, but it's pretty excellent in terms of actual video quality.
I don't really use the software, not even for updates.
I copy out the footage directly using a USB-C cable (wish it had USB 3.0), and do firmware updates by just dropping the update file into the microSD card.
It's friggin' fabulous that everything is doable without having to use an app. (Also the app takes up somewhere between 1-2GB of storage on my phone, and I don't have that kind of space.)
That's fine for flat videos, but 360 videos usually need processing before they're usable. I'm unsure if there are other software options that handle Insta360 360 videos well.
When 360 videos first started to become viable, all we had were looking at the flattened image. It took a bit to get used to. Eventually, the filters caught up so you could slide the rotation around to keep action centered which made things simple in comparison.
It's factually incorrect that gopro hasn't kept up with image quality. One independent comparison I saw for instance put the gp13 in front of the others in most situations except low light. So if anything it's contested who's better/worse, far far from the statement in those videos.
It's factually correct and widely known that lots of tech "reviewers" get paid by the competition to shill products, was a whole scandal even with how Insta360 was caught telling reviewers not to mention their sponsorship. The contracts also often forbid them do do direct comparisons. Also funny how there will be a hundred identical reviews, as they all got the same script.
So, my statement is true. If you've watched a couple of videoes telling you to buy dji/insta360, it's very very likely you've been lied to.
It’s the classic situation. China can outcompete all this stuff. It doesn’t really matter. Roomba, GoPro, they’re all going to be crushed by Chinese manufacturers. You just can’t get the margins to work anywhere else and if you do the R&D you’re a sucker.
I’ve had a few GoPros and a few GoPro 360s. I also had Roombas so you can blame me as the brand killer.
If you look at these US high-tech consumer products, many companies started out much “simpler”. GoPro was a disposable film camera and a wrist-strap, and iteratively got to where it is today. The iPod came out much before the iPhone. As you say, the R&D is a hard sell when you have to go from 0 product to a fully featured state-of-the-art. Somehow, these Chinese companies can spend years copying and then once locked in go on a new-features blitz.
Bad examples. Roomba and GoPro failed to their own complacency while competition jumped over them.
Car industry is better example, west tech export just to get cheaper prices fueled the growth of local companies that then outcompeted the west by just industrial might.
A whole bunch of American and Western multinational companies design hardware in Western countries and manufacture them in China.
The manufacturing isn’t usually the most valuable part of the value chain. E.g., Apple makes the most money when you sell you an iPhone, not their Chinese and Indian factory suppliers and assemblers.
GoPro isn’t failing because they’re an American brand. They’re failing because they’re mismanaged and they made a bunch of product mistakes.
If you want more examples I can give them to you: Google hardware/phones, HP, Dell, Sonos, Bose, Ubiquiti, Cisco, Nvidia, Qualcomm.
Most Japanese corporations still do a lot of their design work in Japan. Sony even does manufacturing of Raspberry Pi devices in Wales.
And of course, speaking of Sony, the money maker for that console is in software, and most of Sony’s studios are in Western countries like the US and Japan. The manufacture of the console is the lowest value part of the business.
Companies that have significant manufacturing and fabrication outside of China/Taiwan: Intel, IBM, GlobalFoundries, ON Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Whisker (Litter Robot), and a very large percentage of the automotive industry.
Large appliances brands have a heavy presence in the US, Canada, and Mexico, including LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, GE appliances, Speed Queen, SubZero/Wolf/Cove, BSH Home Appliances (Bosch/Thermador), Electrolux.
Some of them are expensive luxury items like Vitamix but a whole lot of cheap appliances that compete with overseas brands are made in the US.
When you have an item that is big and heavy to ship, it doesn’t primarily involve electronics fabrication work, labor time per item is relatively low, and you build it in Tennessee/Alabama, making it in the US isn’t really a cost problem.
Most of those appliance brands have become expensive enshittified garbage, or are legendary brands that have been bought up (e.g. KitchenAid used to be a Hobart brand, it's now owned by Whirlpool. Their stand mixers used to last generations; the new ones have a lot of plastic parts inside them). I have one of the original Cuisinart food processors that my mom bought in the 1970s. The base/motor unit is heavy and it still works today. The brand today is now just a label on Conair kitchen gadgets.
Some have held out. Speed Queen are still made in Wisconsin. I will be looking at them when I need to replace my laundry machines, which I expect in the next couple of years.
A lot of what you’re saying is essentially not relevant, because even the enshittified brands are still designing and manufacturing/performing final assembly in Western countries.
Not their entire product lineups, but still a good chunk of them, especially for heavier and physically larger appliances. Your future speed queen might be just as American as if you had bought a cheap GE.
I don’t know where it’s made (probably not the US) but Cuisinart still makes the classic heavy AF food processor, if you’re interested in that.
As a side note, I don’t find that heavy weight or an older design/more metal parts has that much to do with quality or longevity. A lot of old stuff was heavy because material science had fewer options to work with. A motor assembly being made of cast iron doesn’t make it magically last longer. For example, my KitchenAid stand mixer is definitely the newer kind that has plastic parts inside, but it has never needed service and has been getting regular use for a decade with no degradation. Believe it or not I even have a notoriously unreliable Samsung washer and dryer from 2012 that are still going with zero maintenance. It even has a stupid touch screen and, yep, that works flawlessly.
Maybe the bar is low to consider that impressive but I think the point is that a lot of things getting cost cut has been somewhat logical. I see new buy it for life toasters on the market like the Lotus brand selling for $350. I just replaced a $40 Cuisinart garbage toaster that lasted 3 years and died. Chinese off brands built to similar quality by the same factories without the western brand name cost about $20.
So, do the math on that. The Lotus toaster has to last somewhere between 25 and 50 years to reach cost break-even compared to a cheap toaster.
The same math maths for speed queen washers and dryers. They are a great kit but they cost 4x more than a normal washer and dryer. If you conservatively estimate that a cheap washer/dryer lasts 6 years, you’re at 24 years before that speed queen breaks even.
If we are going to combat the economic reality of numbers like these then we need to start taxing disposal.
This puts no value on the costs that unreliable and poorly built appliances add to your life.
A dead toaster is a minor inconvenience. You can go without toast for quite a while. and a toaster can be replaced at any department store. You can carry it home and plug it in. Or order one online and have it at your door the next day. They are cheap enough and unimportant enough that there's no real downside to making price the dominant consideration.
A dead washing machine is a bigger deal, especially if your household has a few kids. You can't go without doing the laundry for very long. Replacing a large appliance involves scheduling a delivery and possibly installation, and maybe the schedule is already full until next week and you'll have to take a day off work to be home for that. I'll pay quite a bit extra to avoid that any more often than necessary. And that doesn't consider the value of the daily satisfaction of using well made appliances. They feel solid, they work without glitches, they are quiet, they are consistent, you don't worry about them.
Even with a toaster some of that applies. I've had toasters that were a daily annoyance to use. They burnt the toast, or toasted unevenly, sometimes randomly, or if you were making a lot of toast the subsequent batches would come out differently from the first. It's worth something to have a toaster that just reliably makes toast, the same way, every day.
What you’re saying makes sense. Obviously changing out appliances is a big hassle.
I would also say that a whole lot of people really either can’t afford to drop $2k on a washing machine or would much rather spend that elsewhere, inconvenience notwithstanding.
At the toaster level, at least in my case the cheap toaster isn’t a daily annoyance, the only annoyance is that it broke. In the modern day that means a replacement arrives at my door in less than 24 hours.
It is a bit dystopian/Cyberpunk-ish, yes. We aren’t getting the Star Trek vision of the future unfortunately. We can see how both corporate incentives and market preferences have spoken.
I will pick an odd example. I was shocked to learn that SpaceX manufactures its ground satellite dishes (that customers need to buy) in Texas. They make more than five million units per year, and are looking to double that number. I am surprised that they did not outsource it to China. Maybe they are concerned about intellectual property theft. Still, that must be a hefty "tax" to pay to manuf in US instead of China.
A common theme between Tesla and SpaceX is obsessive vertical integration. SpaceX is building liquid oxygen (not sure about methane) production facilities at Boca Chica. That way they can make their own and not have to pay for the margin. As for Starlink, they must have found a way to do it better or cheaper or both. On a tangent, the manufacturing expertise in both companies is as impressive as their end products.
> The GoPros aren’t manufactured in the US either.
True. Virtually nothing is.
Though its probably worth noting that Apple's approach to China exists at a much more integrated and larger scale than your average US (or other western) electronics company and is more akin to a fully integrated partnership with various entities like Foxconn than the typical "let's offshore the manufacturing stage" that most other companies take.
At the manufacturing level it largely isn't, no, though as others have pointed out Apple at least still has the ability to explore options outside China. But Apple represents a lack of vertical integration for its big Chinese suppliers like Foxconn, an American middleman taking a big slice of the revenues and profits which come from the customer. One thing to note is that Android isn't all that different, as phone makers still have to tithe to Google.
One factor (mentioned at https://bsky.app/profile/rajakorman.bsky.social/post/3mqubnh... for instance) is Western distrust of the Chinese government and the regulatory barriers erected from both sides. TikTok's probably a good case study. There was a conspicuous lack of Chinese software companies having success in the Western consumer market before TikTok. Building TikTok involved creating a new product aimed at RoW which was separate from its original Chinese model, Douyin. And then after TikTok Western success was still elusive, to some extent, as the US government snatched away Bytedance's toy.
Though even beyond tech and other politically sensitive areas China's generally been pretty slow at generating RoW-consumer-facing products and brands. There's also the slightly remarkable fact that historically (and even to some extent still today) GUIs have been extremely, mysteriously hard for large companies worldwide to do well. The main exception have tended to either be called "Apple" or have dedicated themselves to copying Apple's homework:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22288221 .
Is it common in American factories to have US flags hanging on the walls similar to how dictators like to hang their portraits in factories? Never seen that in the (admitted small amount) of factories I've visited around in Europe, but tends to also give off a bit of "too much nationalism" vibe around here unless there is a special event, the US flag seems to be treated differently in the US so maybe it's a common sight?
I keep forgetting that there is a requirement to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in US schools [1], which is just mind-boggling to me, and it's never something they proudly advertise through their propaganda arm of Hollywood. In hundreds of US-produced shows set in US schools, that detail is always conveniently omitted.
Here's how it works for the non-Americans of us:
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart.
Remembering this often-forgotten detail puts a lot of US culture and behaviour in perspective. Also let's not forget the Bellamy salute, in use for 50 years until 1942: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
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1: and in congressional sessions, government meetings at local levels, and meetings held by many private organizations, according to Wikipedia
> I keep forgetting that there is a requirement to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in US schools
There most certainly is not. The pledge is common in schools but the Supreme Court has ruled no one is required to participate and cannot be punished for non-participation. Is it still weird? Sure. But it’s not required.
"Not required" but my teachers made it abundantly clear what they thought of being forced to allow ungrateful troublemakers to disrespect their country.
I always disliked the Pledge and began to strongly dislike it after moving away from the religion it tries to establish as the national religion, but I was keenly aware that picking this fight would cost me considerable political capital and chose not to.
In the US schools I'm familiar with, it's "not required" kind of like how it's not required to attend meetings at work. Nobody's forcing you, but it will be noticed and there will be consequences.
What sort of consequences? I'm guessing the US got rid of corporal punishment, and since it's optional, could they give like detention and stuff for it? Or is this more about being bullied/similar by peers?
When I was in school decades ago, the consequences were that the teacher would single you out and scold you to “follow directions”, maybe they’d do whatever write up for not following directions. I’m sure in some places kids got detention or letters sent home to their parents, etc.
Sometimes it's not even direct consequences. You stand out as "that kid" and suddenly, you aren't given the benefit of the doubt the next time there is some kind of conflict at school. Or you are held to the rules -just a bit- more strictly than everyone else. Or, if your grade is on the border between a B+ and A-, they'll give you the B where they give the more obedient kids the A. When you become "that kid" the consequences can be almost invisible and insidious.
At least in the US, teachers and administrators are given rather broad latitude to treat students differently, without requiring justification and very often based on their own personal biases and prejudices.
The irony of (teacher) reciting a pledge in support of 'liberty and justice for all' and then falling apart because a child has tried to use some of that liberty, then wishing and perpetuating injustice upon them in retaliation, is strong.
If one's ideals fall over so easily, what would happen in the event of an actual serious attack on those ideals?
I had to do the pledge in early elementary school. It didn't continue forever. Not sure if people still do it. I do agree it's disturbing. Interestingly we once read a book in school that featured a character who refused to say the pledge and got in trouble for it. IIRC it was a case of "you aren't technically required to do this but they'll give you a hard time if you're the only one not doing it".
In general, we Americans really, really love our country. Our flag still represents values tied closely to our revolutionary war and and independence. Obviously the flag gets wrapped around all sorts of causes, even contradictory ones, but that core kernel of shared values is truly universal.
So as individuals we choose to fly the flag a lot.
> "but that core kernel of shared values is truly universal."
Which values? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." does not seem to be upheld very strongly in the USA.
What about women's rights and abortion upturned by the current government, why are Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality needed 50 years after Martin Luther King, what about thousands of people disappeared by Trump's ICE, what about the enormous wealth inequality where the wealthy seem to be a lot more 'equal' than the plebs, what about nobody being punished for the 2008 financial crisis or the Epstein events or the Jan 6th attempted coup? Or the unwillingness of so many people to wear masks during COVID out of respect for their fellow Americans?
How can you claim a "core kernel of universal shared values" without nation-wide universal health care, workers rights, liveable minimum wage, things that demonstrate a fundamental belief in equality and shared values??
> How can you claim a "core kernel of universal shared values" without nation-wide universal health care, workers rights, liveable minimum wage, things that demonstrate a fundamental belief in equality and shared values??
Because the US shared values are not your values. Everything you mentioned are socialist pipe dreams, especially the equality one. None of us are equal to each other. Some of us are good at something, others at something else. This equality crap needs to die rather sooner than later.
I'm not american but afaik it's very common. The US is on a different level though, see the flags in the suburbia, the pledge of allegiance in school's every morning etc.
But I'd say it's not "too much nationalism" rather the average american is defintiely more patriotic than an average european (who can then again be anyone from the UK to Poland to Moldova) but you get my point
I am American who has lived in many countries around the world, and I think this is distinctly wrong and the source of many problems in the US.
It would be more correct to say that the average American values outward displays of nationalism more, and has a more negative perception of those who do not appreciate or want to participate in those displays than people in most other countries. And yes, they conflate this with 'patriotism'. However, this is almost completely performative and lacks real substance, as is proven by the typically far more selfish attitude towards their fellow citizens, and is exemplified by the constant historical failures to provide significant funding for projects designed to help rather than harm others.
Europeans and people from other countries around the world are often fiercely in love with their countries. They just tend not to love the idea of noisily jumping up to gaudily beat their own drum. So yes, the average American thinks they are more nationalistic, when in fact they are just more tribal and crude about their nationalism than what is typically found in other countries around the world. If only our nationalism were taken a bit more seriously than our affiliation with a sports team, which is in theory just for fun and entertainment, that would be an improvement.
I disagree with this, I've noticed that the countries rising to prominence are quite nationalistic and the ones fading into obscurity are very post-national.
> Europeans and people from other countries around the world are often fiercely in love with their countries.
I would also disagree with this, I think it's profoundly uncool to love your country in many parts of Europe—think the UK and especially Germany.
The Europeans that did actually fiercely love their country that I've met were all Poles or Serbs that were gaudily beating their own drum.
What problems do you think arise from nationalism in it's current form in the US?
> I think it's profoundly uncool to love your country in many parts of Europe—think the UK and especially Germany.
I think that's because you're focusing on outward displays in exactly the way GP was talking about. It's profoundly uncool to be a flag-shagger, but Brits do very much love their country deep down, in the ways that really matter.
I don't think they value displaying nationalism more, nationalists tend to be very vocal and visible, it's just that the US is full of nationalists. It really is the biggest issue with the US, and why the orange man is president.
I think you missed my point, which is that in the US, people typically described as nationalists tend to be pseudo-nationalists who value pomp and ceremony, but not substantial concrete actions to better their country or actual real care and love for their fellow countrymen. In terms of percentage of the population who value and love their national identity, we are no different than anywhere else.
Leadership in European countries is so routinely in conflict with their people who understand the inalienable rights of the people so well. I wonder where that comes from.
You're not wrong that the American public is largely out of touch with the fundamentals of a free society.
> Leadership in European countries is so routinely in conflict with their people
> I wonder where that comes from.
> Leadership
Democracy is great but that elected leaders seek reelection at the expense of the common folk isn't something new, those in power will naturally seek more power.
The problem is that Americans look at vulnerable people and billionaires like they individually deserved their fate. The cult of merit.
Nationalism is just one of the many vehicles here used to try and grow power and influence by people that seek it. For many in power it's not even real nationalism - it's not love for the country and the people in it, it's a type of tribal drum beat. It's just a symbol to attach to.
When I was younger, I would have thought that, but now I have trouble distinguishing nationalism and white supremacism when I see enthusiastic usage of flags/pledges.
It is common but I think these displays in the press release are for the photo. I would expect to see a large flag on a tall pole outside most large factories, but inside the decorations will range from bland, to company-oriented, to patriotic.
A defense plant probably has more outward signs of patriotism.
US flag is everywhere. Indoor weightlifting gyms, hanging inside large hangers for aircraft, in schools, factories outside your company HQ on the flagpole, etc.
It is not uncommon to have national and state flags, but it is not similar to how dictators like to hang their portraits. It is meant more to show pride of what you build together as a people, rather than to evoke fear and obeisance.
That said, this may have also been a photo op, and given the image is from texas, there are probably portraits of a dictator hanging around, too.
Also he dictatorship are (officially) pride of doing their work for the state as Americans work multiple jobs in fear of losing their paychecks, their health insurance.
Is it? The car dealership near where I grew up had a 100 foot tall pole with a Canadian flag at least 10 feet wide, probably more. And that's a car dealership... Flags were everywhere: gyms, offices, banks, schools, etc... Can't say I toured any factories to specifically know if they were there, but I'm guessing yes.
Of course now it's different, the flag is less common, to the point in my home province (Alberta) you see more Albertan flags than Canadian ones...
So we Americans love our kickass flag…so what? It wasn’t until relatively recent times that it became intertwined with whatever the fuck our current president stands for (for the next 12 seconds).
I’ve had a US flag up on my house for the past 15 years. This country has been good to the son of European immigrants. It’s far from perfect but I love my country. Meanwhile my European cousins, aunts and uncles are scraping by.
The US is weird about its flag, I think because nationalism wasn't seen as a bad thing up until recently. These days it's much weirder to see an American flag, and usually you know it has something to do with MAGAs. The weird thing to me is how you see one massive one in the luggage retrieval area when you arrive in JFK (in New York). Always makes me sigh
>These days it's much weirder to see an American flag, and usually you know it has something to do with MAGAs. The weird thing to me is how you see one massive one in the luggage retrieval area when you arrive in JFK (in New York). Always makes me sigh
This has to be a troll post. Associating the US flag with MAGA? Sighing because a major international airport has a large flag hanging over the baggage area? Come on.
More than half of US independent voters and more than 70% of Democrats believe the flag has right wing, negative connotations now. Only 26-27% of Democrats believe flying the flag would be seen in a positive light now.
In my country you, as a civilian, fly the national flag for the equivalent of July 4th, and for big personal events like graduations. Flag merchandise is of course also worn in support of the national sports teams.
Outside of that the main people flying national flags are government institutions, who usually have it up right next to a European flag and a flag of the institution, like a local municipality.
The European flag is also plastered over billboards next to all kinds of EU-funded construction projects, of course, and is on literally every single Euro bill.
So no, someone's feelings about an institution are not inherently linked to the success of its empty propaganda campaigns.
I'm not a friend of nationalism, but I believe that it's a trade-off: of you want to be open to immigration, of the kind that pulls in newcomers, inviting them to become a part of the place they move to, instead of remaining outsiders, you have to give them plenty of opportunity to identify with their new home. Of course these days, we see the American flag used a lot in ways completely opposite to this, but that does not change the great progressive value national symbols could provide.
Apple reigns supreme because of China - and the two are inextricably linked. China would not have its high-tech manufacturing prowess if it were not for Apple. The book Apple In China [1] highlights how millions of cheap laborers and the country's engineers took the lessons of working with Apple to solidify its edge in this space in a way nobody can catch up to today.
China took the long-term greedy approach to invest in the relationship. We see the US today taking equity stakes in Intel and trying to play catchup by using elements of the same playbook. The US's advantage remains in the more "intangible" side of the process: creativity, design, new tech. In a global economy with free trade, this is all fine. But China never "westernized" itself as was expected from the increase in global trade. Now the US is back pedaling, trying to jump start its manufacturing. It will take a long time...
The book is a good page-turning read. I recommend it.
Apple still stand because of Software which China sucks at. Good thing the US is not about to destroy its software industry by investing all of its money on AI.
Apple has an excellent mobile OS, which is enough of a loyal userbase that they can make a hardware mistake once in a while and still retain customers. They're less hardware-dependent than most device manufacturers. This also enables them to lag behind the state of the art if it means more reliable/consistent performance. Which is why you don't see a folding Apple phone yet, and why Samsung was able to score points against Apple by having longer battery life and a better camera. This also allows them to demand high quality from their factories.
Manufacturing is primarily in China - that's true for Go Pro & everyone else and almost needless to say. The point is China usually eats the design layer too, making Apple a little unique in that they survived Chinese competition completely unscathed.
Apple is one of the few brands I completely expect to be able to genuinely pull this off.
Their volumes are high enough that they will literally build an entire factory from scratch to produce a single product line, they are far enough up the luxury ladder that a few extra dollar in labour won't hurt them too badly, and the contracts with their suppliers are significant enough that they don't need the short supply lines of a Shenzhen and can just demand their suppliers Get It Done.
Having a domestic factory won't hurt Apple, and with an erratic President who'll flip on tariffs twice a week it's a sensible hedge against his inevitable next meltdown.
I bought my first GoPro for a scuba diving trip in Mexico once. Was super excited, it was my first scuba diving experience too.
As soon as we hit deeper waters the capture button pressed itself down due the pressure and it wouldn’t come back up. That, unfortunately happened in a way that I couldn’t start a capture. Lost the entire thing, despite the camera being perfectly fine after we came back to surface.
For scuba diving you will want to have a house for the camera regardless of brand. It not only lower the risk of damages, but it is also more explicitly designed for depth without needing to compromising for non-divers.
That said, GoPro is not the best for low light environments, and the battery is a bit temperature sensitive, both which can be an issue when diving.
GoPros (at least the early generations) required a special housing for use in water. My first GoPro was a 2 I believe and I bought it for scuba and it was terrible. Then the newer models came out promising better performance for diving, so I upgraded... and it was terrible as well. Gave up on GoPros after being sucked in twice and not getting the results I was hoping for. It was ok for other things, but anything involving water was not great.
I believe things eventually got sorted out for water use, but I was no longer a customer.
Hahahah. Do you seriously just take random objects deep underwater and expect them to be designed to withstand that sort of an environment?
Was the GoPro you bought rated up to that depth or something? After a cursory look online, they're only rated down to 10m, which is about what I'd expect.
It was rated 30m, I went down less than that, and I used their enclosing thingy. Yes, I did expect it to work as their marketing team managed to convince me of such.
It wasn't a random object, it was a camera marketed for such environment.
I had a GoPro Hero 7 and 8. In the -10c snow they battery wouldn't even last for 5 minutes. It's a bad product and just like with cars and solar the Chinese are ruthlessly out-engineering the west.
TheOutdoorBoys youtube channel mentioned something about special batteries for cold temps. -10c for many of his hiking and camping trips isn't unusual, and (as I understand it) he did weekly videos with Go Pros for a decade. He probably knows a thing or two.
I never understood if I was supposed to turn it completely off on the ski lifts or leave it in “sleep” for best battery life, and like you say the battery in the cold was just disappointing. Some irony though with another HN commenter having an overheating issue.
I stopped buying go pros when I drove from the top of Mt Blue Sky to the base. Had the camera mounted on my dashboard, planned to make a cool time lapse down the mountain road.
Turns out it overheated 15 minutes into the drive, and corrupted all the footage from my whole ski trip.
I'm also still salty that they cancelled my favorite fast video editing software (can't remember the name).
we barely ever use our GoPro 8 BLACK. I decided to take it with me skiing and turned it on for a crazy ride down. When I got back I wanted to show my GF the footage and it just had frozen video, only playing sound.
I thought they were meant to be really robust and hardy but it decided not to work when I needed it and now I don't really trust them tbh. It's sort of opposite of what the brand was leading me to believe.
Contrary to the popular opinion in the rest of the comments, I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware, a lot of thought into usability for professionals, many accessories, and hackable with official firmware from the company.
The "problem" is that I don't use it that often. Most people do not need action footage regularly. It was more like a impulse/hobby buy rather than a need.
>I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware
I have the same model and hate it. Damn thing overheats constantly. It has never been able to do 4K60 for more than ~twenty minutes even with a full-blast AC vent pointed directly at it. It still overheats periodically when doing 1080P60 too, but a lot less often and usually only in situations where I am also uncomfortbly warm.
More than zero overheating is unacceptable though considering I have to notice it happened, turn it back on, dismiss the warning, and restart recording. Pic from literally just today, July 18th: https://ibb.co/chPq0N8g
They missed the chance to make PC camera just before Covid or during it or now as another revenue stream. They have a hacky way to get it to work but they should have made one specifically for the PC and meeting settings.. Cisco and others make a killing in that space
My guess is that action cameras are 20 % need (professionals, documentary crews etc) and 80 % fashion (people buying them and them using them for a few shots twice a year on the holiday), and the fashion component peak is over.
If you just need Good, there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps with output that is more than sufficient for any non-professional use.
I don't have a brand recommendation off hand, because the ones I've bought have been random names, but they've all been more than enough. As a reference, I've used them for capturing footage for training machine vision systems, and some general purpose marketing videos. I'm not a "creator", so I paid no attention to editing features, clip hosting, or any of those things.
Amazon sometimes gets some hate here, but I usually just buy there because the returns process is so simple. In the random case I get a product that turned out to be deceptive advertising, I drop it at Whole Foods and have a credit before I leave the parking lot. And I have the product in hand in 48 hours at most.
> there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps
I have to very strongly disagree with this sentiment. I have personally tested quite a few no-name "4K 60fps" cameras from Amazon and AliExpress. Many of them upscale from 1080 - which is fine I guess - but then in 60fps will use a crop sensor and upscale from like ~640. Even with the more recognizable SJCam and Akaso brands, unless you're paying ~$200 - you're going to get upscaling, bad color science, bad image distortion. When comparing against a GoPro 5 (first 4k 60 entry) or 8 (first with USB C) the difference is astounding.
Though perhaps this is the difference between good and great that you refer to - but for me, it's certainly worth getting a used GoPro vs any of these modern cheap alternatives.
Unfortunately current new GoPros don't improve on their existing line enough to justify paying current prices. I wish I could get a new 2018 quality GoPro knockoff for <$200
I'll have to try and dig out a couple of the ones I bought and re-verify this. Really though the 60fps doesn't matter for the majority of users. Even the 4K aspect is overkill for most common things.
ISTR GoPro moved away from Ambarella SoCs several years ago and rolled their own, but most of the other cameras are using Amba, Novatek, etc., and certainly offer great performance for a fraction of the cost of GoPro.
It’s less that 4k 60fps doesn’t matter, but that most mobile cheap cameras are so poor quality that you don’t see much of a difference. The sensors are so small that switching to 60fps leaves less time for the shutter speed so you end up with a noisy image.
I saw a review on YouTube of a lot of these alternatives, along with the established brands, and in bright sunlight and little movement some were ok but quality was all over.
However once it got a bit darker, or heavy movement, the big brands left the rest in the dust pretty much.
So yeah, do a bit of research and figure out your use-case.
American manufacturing is a rounding error, especially when it comes to consumer electronics.
Western manufacturing can't compete with a Shenzhen. Our supply lines suck, our labour is too expensive for any kind of manual work, and we didn't bother to invest in automation as decades of outsourcing made our manufacturers focus on low-volume high-margin products.
No need to steal when our own companies willingly export core competency for a few cents of shareholder value!
You are a country. You have to decide on your country’s economic model before starting the game. Choose:
- a free market economy. Companies are unhindered by the state to make their own decisions to maximize shareholder value. Decisions therefore lean towards short term profit margins rather than long term success. Influence of the state via elected politicians on a short term is expensive but effective to ensure you are unhindered by regulation. Success here is not aligned with the long term success of the state.
- a quasi free market where there is partial state ownership and control, but also supports free market principles to encourage private investment. The state will heavily subsidize your economy and decisions can be made to prioritize long term global success rather than short term shareholder value.
- a state controlled and state owned economy. All decisions are made by committee. There are no shareholders apart from the state. Success benefits all within the state. Failure also tied directly to the state. Long term goals are preference over short term goals.
Choose carefully. Once your have made your decision the costs to change it are extremely high and will result in societal and economic collapse.
As a scammed customer - this was inevitable. They promised great improvements model over model and didn't deliver.
I bought model 9 and since beginning it overheats, randomly stops recording or just shuts down. There were promises to fix this with firmware updates - didn't happen.
I've owned a bunch of gopros and I feel like they've always had the same kind of bugs. Random crashes, things not working anymore. It's really bad, so bad that I had plenty of videos that were missing sound, or just corruption in general.
Then they started this subscription thing and I was like, finally, they're going the SaaS way, they will make so much money, and they will be able to improve that camera that basically never seems to improve much version after version. I bought a bunch of put options, and I lost all my money, every time I put back some in the put options.
Now I have the insta360 go ultra and... I think go pro is going to die. It's just so good.
I've only owned 2 GoPros, the latest one I purchased back in 2020. I use it mostly for motorsports related content and it did it's job well, but never had a need to replace or upgrade to the latest. Now there's so many options.
IMO the image quality on GoPro is still the best. I don't understand why people say it's horrible. For flat video it outperforms Insta360 and definitely DJI.
> While GoPro action cameras are built to withstand shock, the brand itself is looking distinctly shaky right now. Latest reports[1] are that founder Nicholas Woodman is propping the company up by extending it a loan of his own money to the tune of $20 million, at an annual interest rate of 6.5%, while a buyer is desperately sought. It’s believed GoPro may not survive the year without a new owner or fresh injection of cash, with Woodman’s intervention acting as a stopgap rather than bail-out per se.
Memory is the acute issue causing their struggles; their most recent quarter saw a gross margin of 4.5% (that's revenue minus the direct cost of producing the cameras, divided by the revenue). That's a hefty fall from their previous margin of ~31%. This contributed to their operating loss of $57M in the last 3 months.
Thag being said, they haven't had a positive quarterly operating income since the last quarter of 2022, even when the margin was higher than 4.5%. So it's not like they were succeeding before the memory crunch, just losing money slower.
I remember using these on movie sets as crash cams - a cheap camera that could be mounted on something fast-moving so you could get cool action shots without risking the $100k primary camera. But the main selling point for this use-case is that they were cheap, and that’s a fight the Chinese companies will always win.
I slept on GoPro for a long time because, but then wanted to document some outdoor activities. I went with two Hero 5 units and as a photographer, I was shocked by how overhyped these devices seemed to be.
The first surprise was just shoddy electrical engineering: unlike any camera from a big-name manufacturer, they drain the batteries in storage, to the point where they're dead after 2-3 weeks. But that aside, image quality is just poor for the price. It's oversharpened and oversaturated to cover up deficiencies, and that may work for some YouTube videos, but it's a $400 device that's miles behind any $500 mirrorless.
So I get it that if really want to go snorkeling or mountain biking with a camera, this might be a good choice, but that's a tiny market, and for everything else, why would you buy it? If you want cell phone quality video, you can use your cell phone. If you want professional quality, you can spend the same amount of money on a mirrorless from Canon, Panasonic, Sony, or whatever.
The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an action camera - to the point that people for a long time called any action camera "a GoPro". Comparing them to smartphones or mirrorless cameras is completely missing their point: nobody would buy them for regular point-and-shoot activity.
You buy a GoPro to mount onto a dirt bike, or on your helmet during caving, or on a chest harness during a skydive, or on the front of your surfboard: all activities where a smartphone or a mirrorless would die on their first use.
GoPro isn't failing because the concept is wrong - the market is massive. GoPro is failing because its competitors started releasing clones which are both better and cheaper. They are the expensive premium brand in a market where buyers expect their product will need to be replaced when it inevitably can't handle the abuse anymore.
it’s very much like iRobot vacuums - more expensive and less performant than the chinese competitors that have totally overtaken the market. iRobot sad story, but so behind. i have a chinese robot from 3i that fills its mop water tank from humidity in the air. and my action camera is an Insta360 that does great 360 video underwater without a case.
smartvacuums.co.uk says a dehumidifier collects 10 - 20 litres of water a day. dehumidifier-rentals.co.uk says 8 - 20 litres a day for a domestic compressor type, or 0.5 - 10 litres per day for a small domestic type. upgradedhome.com says about 4 litres a day.
Sounds plausible for a mop water bucket to fill usefully full between, say, twice-weekly moppings.
every time i post an amazon link people downvote me but i'll do it for you. this is not a referral link, just copied straight from my order history https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGXRQQ3H "3i S10 Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop with WaterRecycle System"
it would be pretty impressive if its a marketing lie, as i've had the robot running for about a year and haven't had to refill the water tank. it's "just" a dehumidifier. i live in miami so plenty of moisture to go around.
No, that's precisely my point. It's only an action camera, and you assert that the market is massive, but I don't see it. Just how many millions of units can you sell to YouTuber spelunkers, YouTuber mountain bikers, YouTuber paragliders, YouTuber divers, and so on?
The reality is that even in "action" situations - the situations where normal people want to capture memories of hiking, biking, boating, etc - normal cameras, including cell phones, are usually more than enough and GoPro somehow managers to be worse.
Just how many millions of people do those outdoors activities?
You can't survive selling solely to YouTubers, that's definitely true, but you don't need to. Just like tennis companies don't need to survive solely on selling to Grand Slam competitors. Plenty of people are willing to spend a few hundred bucks on their hobbies if it gives them nice pictures and videos for InstaSnapBookTok and to show off at parties.
And no, normal cameras and smartphones are not enough. They'll do for a casual hike, but they will not survive being attached to a mountain bike going downhill and being shaken to bits. I found out the hard way, it is how I killed my first smartphone. If you disagree: why not try it out yourself with a $1500 flagship phone and report back how it went?
> Just how many millions of people do those outdoors activities?
Many, but that's irrelevant. There are hundreds of thousand of bicycles in my city, and very, very of them have cameras. That's kinda the point: what you're selling is the dream of being a YouTube influencer, pretty much. Otherwise, there's little value to having a big library of videos from every ride you've taken, especially since let's face it, most people ride the same routes / trails most of the time.
Now, the dream of being an influencer may be a strong selling point, but you can only do it once. People are not gonna keep upgrading.
> So I get it that if really want to go snorkeling or mountain biking with a camera, this might be a good choice, but that's a tiny market, and for everything else, why would you buy it?
I don't think people are cross-shopping action cameras and mirrorless cameras. Either you want a wearable light-weight shockproof, waterproof camera or not.
Worth pointing out that your experience is with a model from a decade ago. The current Hero model is the 13.
My strong photographer opinion is that you should buy the oldest action camera that meets any resolution/framerate needs and treat it almost like a disposable. Buy on sales or used units. Use them on shots you genuinely are unwilling to use a mirrorless for - strapped to the front of a bike, magnetically attached to the side of a car, strapped to someone jumping in a lake.
Red Bull really ran the marketing playbook that GoPro should have done: become known for athletes doing extreme things. Instead they stayed too technical and product-based and didn't build a brand beyond "we make action cameras."
They don't have the type of insane cashflow that RedBull does to sponsor tons of athletes and weird events, but their video contests are kind of a big deal in the action sports community.
AKA, their Line of the Winter[1] competition for skiing, or their Best Line conest for MTB[2] that they used to run. And they're the title sponsor for the GoPro Mountain Games[3].
They're still THE action sports cameara carried in a lot of outdoor equipment stores, but the Insta360 has really dominated social media recently, and their products are currently a better value for cost/performance.
As a long-time GoPro owner who recently added an Insta360 X5 to his collection, I can't really see any meaningful difference in software horribleness. They are both really really bad, with ads everywhere constantly pushing subscriptions to their cloud services.
At least with the normal cameras the software can be entirely ignored, I can take video from my Hero5 straight in to any ordinary NLE and go from there, but the 360 camera requires their software to convert from the native format to anything usable, even if I'm keeping it as 360 footage.
The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
>The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
This was my main gripe, but also:
* Image stabilization (Hypersmooth Pro/ReelSteady) as a subscription feature.
* Auto-rotate and orientation lock don't work in streaming mode. (I reported this as a bug on the Hero7, was told it was being looked at, still a problem on the Hero10 when I stopped paying attention)
For what it's worth, DJI does offer desktop software for their Osmo action cams. They also have a direct NAS/cloud storage upload option from the camera, as well as allowing normal transfer over USB or by pulling the SD card.
> The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
This is my biggest issue as well. It's actually the one "real" thing I use the iPad for. It still gets the mobile app interface whilst being on a bigger screen and being almost usable.
Agree. Gopro recently released a DaVinci plugin for 360 videoes, which is great. But I often would like something in between the advanced DaVinci and the simple mobile editing. After the release of Max2, the Quik app got a big overhaul and is quite capable now. But it's still mobile, and Gopro Player (for desktop) is then now even further behind on capabilities. Same issue with Insta360 (both mobile and desktop, never tried Dji's apps)
On top of that, when GoPro first launched mobile phones generally did not have cameras capable of producing production-quality images, and especially video. 20 years later, the game is much different.
Remember the Flip video camera that was all the rage for like 2 years and then just disappeared when cellphones could shoot video? GoPro is like a rugged Flip, so it took a little longer for the world to catch up to them, but now there are lots of options, and a "cheap" sports camera that is 1/4 the price of a GoPro is good enough, even if it only lasts 1/2 as long.
It's honestly embarrassing that our leaders still haven't realized why this is happening, and still aren't taking any actions to prevent it from getting worse.
Giving billions of free money to shareholders of Intel & friends is going to do absolutely nothing to change the tide. Want domestic manufacturing? Invest in building a JLCPCB alternative: automated to the fullest extent possible in order to save fractions of a cent on ops, then operated on a razor-thin margin but making up for it in volume.
Chinese people aren't the lazy dumb manual workers we have long pretended they are. After we have freely given them all of our engineering knowledge with outsourcing, they are now beating us on the free market. If we don't internalize this, stop with the silly competition-destroying tariffs, and try to compete again, we are doomed to slide into irrelevancy - and we've got only ourselves to blame.
It's a testament to how broken modern business practices are that GoPro can sell 1.2 Million cameras per year and still go out of business.
It's possible they are just poorly run, and they spend more in R&D than they recoup in revenue, but I strongly suspect they were set up to only be profitable if they sold millions of cameras per year as an attempt to maximize profits at that volume, without consideration of other scenarios.
What does one buy if they want a 1080p60 action cam with stabilisation that doesn't overheat, has good battery life and acceptable low light performance (think rainy day in the woods)?
Ah damn I just bought their new Mission One a few weeks ago (upgrading from a Hero 10). Already quite angry though since it seems the batteries are basically the same shape for both, except the connector is in a different location, so the 3 existing batteries I have for the Hero 10 are not compatible, which is a shitty move from GoPro. Well I guess either way I won’t be buying gopros anymore in the future.
Only reason I'd choose them over Insta360 for example is that weird manual phone app permissions to activate the camera Insta does. I don't know if go pro doesn't do that, haven't bought a modern go pro in a bit.
I will say the Insta 360 Go 3S is an amazing camera physically it's so small and convenient. They could improve the algo when you pan over a pavement that conglomerate pattern looks sickening when you pan.
They could spur a lot of innovation by open sourcing their firmware or introducing plugins. They don't really have a channel to take asks like "ring buffer style recording" but I would do it myself.
Saw some sponsored videos on YouTube where they out GoPro compeititor (Insta360 with it's logo) on a Korean/Chinese baby, and the baby enjoying his day.
Very good marketing I would say.
Attached Example (you will find many such videos on Social Media)
Betteridge enters the chat. GoPro's market is changing: strong competitors now make solid, low cost alternatives. GoPro is moving deep into professional markets where margins are high, and leveraging their position as a US company whose products can be utilized by sensitive customers.
GoPro will be fine. They just won't be the go-to for every YouTuber any longer.
Not to mention that they're now competing with fake AI slop videos. People don't have so much interest to record their sporting achievements anymore since the video no longer serves as social proof.
He’s good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
Rather than actually getting real on China and their abuse of the postal system, it’s all about tarrifs on penguins.
Biden did far more with the chips act, but rather than building on that trunk failed to enact any meaningful change. And of course make billions in the side from bribery.
I don't see a use case for these cameras. Phone takes amazing pictures and videos and is always on hand and if I need something more polished, I just get DSLR. Sure DSLR is more expensive, but if I want to do something well, I'd rather go all in.
The use case is niche but there. I ride mountain bikes and off-road motorcycles and have a GoPro on my helmet. A phone is the wrong form factor and a DSLR is too heavy.
Same with surfers, or people who race cars etc. Having a physically small camera, with robust mounting and stabilization is not something a phone in a gimbal or a "real camera" can provide.
I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get.
You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition.
They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and expensive, and didn’t have the features of GoPro.
These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico.
Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too.
People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese drone brands. And with BambuLabs (founded by ex-DJI) with 3D printers (the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa, and they’re facing extremely strong headwinds).
Legitimately better Chinese products (incredible engineering) that have massive industrial policy support, probably industrial espionage support (as in the case of DJI for certain), massive influencer marketing campaigns, and near zero cost of capital. When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
The only surprising thing to me is how people just act like it’s not happening. I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract, but it’s incredibly real if you do.
If your country’s industrial and defense policy relies on individual consumers making choices that are worse for them on almost all metrics, it’s time to think about on worse payroll your politicians are.
Absolutely true. But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people, just in a different way. Domestic consumption in China is famously low, work culture is famously bad (996,etc). And this is because of what their government, not the people of China, have chosen to do.
>But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people
Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
>Domestic consumption in China is famously low
Compared to what, the US? Compared to China is at a historical high, isn't it? And they're doing quite well even compared to like 70% of the world and rising.
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
A lot of that was the result of stopping doing the damage they had done in previous five decades that resulted in such a high proportion of their population living in poverty.
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
Yes, but China-bad ideology demands that we ask ”at what cost?”
I wonder if similar costs were paid when the West was industrializing?
Spoiler: Yes.
There was a real human cost to how China industrialized that isn’t “muh freedoms”.
China overproduced STEM grads so that their industries could hire them for pennies on the dollar. They had to withstand insane competition starting in elementary school, only to end up unemployed or doordashing.
This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
> having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies
I don't know why people keep bringing this up as though it is surprising.
In almost any field other than AI PhDs are underpaid on average.
There are many, many bio PhDs working as lab technicians.
> This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
Engineers from Taiwan go to mainland China these days to earn more money. Taiwan was pretty brutal with personal sacrifice in its development as much or if more than the mainland. We could say similar about Korea, Japan, and Singapore as well. This is why Asia seems to be taking over the world now, but the people are about as happy as you’d expect.
In general, I do think the East Asian nations have over-prioritized work for export and industrial policy at the expense of the well-being of their citizens.
It feels to me more like, East Asian nations tend to have robust domestic sets of expectations that tend to be more stringent, reinforced by geological and cultural barriers, and comparatively lower international castes. Anyone born in EA have no choice but to constantly beat the average and to make contributions to the street cred jar for the nation. And that produce such things as TSMC chips and DJI drones and 7-11 egg salad sandwiches.
China isn't bad, the CCP is.
That simplistic characterization is still essentially "China-bad." The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. Does it make up for other human rights violations? No. But "CCP bad" flattens a complex and powerful political organization into a fairy tale boogeyman.
> lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty.
Basically true, but not much more than that for most Chinese. The urban modern success story presented to the world is a surprisingly small segment of a notably larger population and even for many in that smaller more fortunate segment the gravy days are long ago and no sign of returning yet.
https://eastasiaforum.org/2011/08/19/in-the-city-but-not-of-...
And chinese don't have full freedom of movement. China uses a system called called hukou which binds a persons rights and benefits to their birthplace. This has created a population of 350 million rural migrants who live in cities but still have a rural hukou and are treated like second class citizens in their own country.
https://borgenproject.org/chinas-hukou-system-restricts-mobi...
China is a communists based country. Everything is organized and for everything there is a plan. Unlike America where it's free for all. We probably would die from unhappiness in China. But it works for them and they are pretty successful in it.
China is not actually communist anymore. It is totalitarian capitalist
> The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty.
The CCP also put most of those people into such abject poverty from the 50s onwards. They give up on communism and thereby reversed the problems caused by communism like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
At this point you're just openly shilling for the CCP. The CCP killed millions of people through incompetence, and then they had the brilliant idea of copying the exact development model of the Asian Tigers. It's their previous incompetence that's the reason that they haven't already caught up with South Korea.
Millions? Please. CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng. Most people died due to Mao. CCP back then was only Mao loyalists. CCP endorsed Mao only to gain public legitimacy as the ruling party, since back then China was still a poor country prone to revolts and extremist ideas.
> CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng.
Their policies changed, so they're no longer responsible for their own history?
The current generations are not responsible for historical things they didn't order or did.
As for the country as an abstract in general, sure. As much as other countries are responsible for their own history.
I don't think most folks I know in the US are willing to touch the historical wrongs (genocide and slavery) with a 3.048M pole.
> I don't think most folks I know in the US are willing to touch the historical wrongs (genocide and slavery) with a 3.048M pole.
I hear those discussed quite often in the US. Someone is obviously willing. And more importantly, it's legal.
The worst part of the CCP is it's hatred for free speech
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/16/hong-kong-book...
Five arrested in Hong Kong bookstore raids in ‘seditious’ materials crackdown
Third round of arrests linked to independent bookshops widely regarded as clampdown on dissent in territory
If that's the "worst part" about them, reacting like that to sedition plans, it sounds quite tame.
It's not like people elsewhere, cough, are not arrested for protesting against the bombing in Palestine or against ICE. Or, on the other side of the pond (and on the other side of the political spectrum), for tweeting against illegal immigration to their country. Or in Germany for merely calling the chancellor an idiot.
I love how tankies just LOVE to lick the boots of oppressors as long as they say they are the right oppressors.
The CCP now has proved a 'better' system than the western 'democracy' that is in many ways at the end of its life.
Both systems are at end-of-life. If anything, China is closer to the end. The total fertility rate in China is down to 1, while the US is 1.62.
It's as if the introduction of market capitalism and consumerism into a country craters the fertility rate and dooms it!
Not as much as their East Asian neighbors, who had increasing democracy and fewer deaths to starvation…
The Eastern neighbors all also had way more outside funding....
Their economy has grown, and continues to grow faster than that of any of their neighbors.
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For bringing people out of poverty, they had laminated placards attached to the doors of people who were poor, and the name of the government official who was responsible for lifting that family out of poverty, and if that government official failed at it, they wouldn't advance in their career.
>Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
So did the western world.
Ask Poland, the Baltics and East Germany if they want communism back. I'll wait. :)
I am so tired of the praise of China online while condemning the west. Worst part is you probably live in the west.
*Nono, dont reply, just downvote instead :)
China is not Iron Curtain countries dominated by the USSR. to compare China to Poland has no merit.
China has built high speed rail, a quality universal health care system, and huge tech and mfg sectors. It most certainly is orders of magnitude above East Germany, and not even the same type of socialism.
There are good things about the West and good things about China, it’s not as simple as “our side good”.
China is still a dictatorship who massacred its own people despite building high speed rail...
They only got it good when the USA opened relations in the 80s something they never did with Soviet.
China does not have universal health care.
China helps Russia invade Ukraine. That is simple. Unless you like that too?
Also, where do people want to live? North EU. Yet when we keep our lands people call us racist.
And the US calls itself a democracy and kills innocent people abroad.
I don't see any merit in these simplistic world views.
The world isn't Lord of the Rings, it's more A Song Of Ice And Fire.
Can't a democracy vote and agree to kill innocent people abroad? Not sure those things are discordant.
It can. Which probably justifies 9/11 if you see it that way.
Are you serious? Who is killing thousands abroad and playing corrupt mobster mister policeman in the entire world? Or course China is supporting Russia. It's geopolitics. The west needs enlargement of their influence in Ukraine. Russia doesn't like this. A failing Russia means China is next. Hard to understand? And China does have universal affordable healthcare. Maybe, just maybe you should visit one of the large cities in China. You will be surprised how far ahead they are on so many areas. Infrastructure, cultural, government structures, schools, hospitals and more.
>The west needs enlargement of their influence in Ukraine
Okay so you have swallowed the Russia and China propaganda fully. Yes, China has better living conditions now than 20 years ago.
Ukraine is its own country since 1991 and on their own want to move closer to the west, NATO and EU.
Russia invaded Ukraine as Putin is the one who want "enlargement of their influence"
If you think above, how can you blame me in the west for opposing Russia and China? I live in Sweden, we have Kaliningrad with nukes right across us. We had Soviet submarines in our waters in the 80s.
A fallen Ukraine means Russia and Putin and by extension China will invade the Baltics or Poland next. Hard to understand?
Where do you live?
Ukraine is not an independent country. The entire culture is practically similar to the Russian one. Yes I have lived in Ukraine (Melitopol) for many years. This whole conflict is 100% caused by the west that tries to put a wig between the two nations. By bribing and buying up assets in Ukraine. Starting from around 2012 when western institutions installing puppets in various places. Government and commercial. Don't tell me this is somekind of crap conspiracy. We all know that the west performed these actions many times before. The west is not clean in this war. 100% responsible for this war, killings and destruction .
Did that comment indicate any condemnation of the west?
What I'm tired of is zero-sum jingoistic nationalism of any kind. Can we just be happy for all of the world to prosper?
edit: I didn't downvote you but it's probably the uncalled-for cynicism.
Nationalism is a cancer
>Ask Poland, the Baltics and East Germany if they want communism back. I'll wait. :)
We could, but don't expect the results to be as clear cut as you think :)
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-...
https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/10/12/many-eastern-eur...
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2009/11/02/end-of-communi...
https://brnodaily.com/2023/11/20/news/poll-17-of-czechs-say-...
https://english.radio.cz/poll-less-25-feel-better-now-under-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_nostalgia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie
And of course 2026 China is the very opposite of some failing economy, like Eastern Bloc countries have been in 1989.
Many eastern europeans who had good life in soviet block have nostalgia, however, Ukraine fights with all it power to prevent returning back to soviet block, because majority have very unpleasant memories of soviet times and dozens of millions murdered by soviets.
Ukrainians were the Soviets. It's like Scotland complaining about British colonial policy.
Ukraine broke out of Russian Empire and then conquered back by Red army, then conquered Republics of Ukraine and Belarus together with Russian Federation formed USSR.
So, yes, Ukrainian communists were with those soviets, who murdered other Ukrainians (and other enslaved nations), and then their siblings have nostalgia about «good times».
That is not a good analogy. Scotland voluntarily formed a union with the rest of the UK and played a disproportionate role in colonialism. Ireland would be a better one.
The weakness in the GP's argument is that Russia is not the Soviet Union, nor is it communist.
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Yes, their system has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be in order to support domestic industry. It seem’s to be for geo-strategic reasons rather than in the interests of the Chinese people, it’s also probably unsustainable.
WOW the classic yes...but..., where's these statement coming from? I'm Chinese and I don't get the point here at all, you guys seem living in vacuum with biased news, and know much much better than we people living here, that's really confusing everytime I see/read comments lie this.
China now is open freely for almost everyone, come and see by yourslef, if you not living poverty.
The world itslef does not work the propaganda way whether you dislike or hate the gov for whatever reason. And yes you can criticize the gov as you like with the news you read otr the party you pro with, but never assume how the people feel and belives if you are not the people, and if you do then that's the same mindset as Trump or any other war-bringing president the US had, and you know what they did and still doing.
Tell your neighbors, friends, and government bureaucrats about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Let me know how that goes.
Probably about as well a if you told them about ICE. Or if you complained against the war at Kent state university.
Is that all you can find? Pretty empty list. I can probably create a long list of atrocities done by the west last 5 years alone.
That is the point. You can create the list openly and without fear.
You can create a long list of Chinese atrocities, but mentioning even one will get you into a lot of trouble.
China interns a million Uigurians and other people with beliefs.
> but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
What country has perfect government policy?
The US has atrocious government policies. Costs of college, cost of healthcare insurance, the reason so many uninsured people use the ER as their primary medical usage, tax policy prioritization of capital reinvestment over wage earnings, caring for the environment over affordable housing, etc are all problematic policy outcomes which make the average person poorer.
They are also unsustainable.
> government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
Right, that sort of thing never happens over here. We don't give the rich tax breaks while robbing the middle class (and saddling it with mountains of debt that will be coming due in their future), we don't print money hand over fist to fund idiotic wars and other vanity projects, and we don't do everything in our power to prevent workers from organizing for higher wages and better working conditions.
Congress and the executive is hard at work to make the American consumer richer than they otherwise would be. Everything they do is with that goal solely in their minds. It's all they live for, not for making their backers and friends richer and more untouchable.
If governments introduced a whataboutism sin tax, they could solve budget deficits overnight.
Let's look at the thread of discussion.
> Assertion that China has brought incredible prosperity to its people.
> Complaint that actually, China's economic policies that brought that prosperity are... Structurally robbing its working class.
> Observation that America, which, presumably, is the model for the best, most evolved, and un-improvable structure for its economy is also structurally robbing its working class, with no roadmap for course-correction from it. (And it's doing it for purposes that are not exactly developing the nation!)
> "That's Whataboutism!"
The complaint in #2 is only relevant as a relative comparison. China's economics structurally rob its working class? Okay, let's all agree that's the case - but rob it compared to what? The unchecked late-stage corporatism that we're practicing? The excesses of the industrial revolution in past centuries? It's bad compared to what, exactly? Some idealized strawman utopia, where no economic planning or monetary policy or deficit spending or consolidation of economic power exists? Do you have a roadmap for getting to that one?
The observation in #3 incredibly relevant. If you're not making a relative comparison of China's economy, you need to make an absolute analysis of it... And on an absolute analysis, it has done an incredible job of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of crushing poverty, and into first-world lifestyles, in only a few decades. All the central planning - control of its exchange rates, its monetary and debt and lending policy, it's focus on exports and fundamentals and R&D and education is exactly what has brought that prosperity about.
Meanwhile, the only thing our central planners, here at home are good at figuring out [1] is how to widen the gap between the haves, and the have-nots.
---
[1] I am being a bit too harsh, the Fed does a good job given its mandate.
Not for nothing, but what do you think is happening in the United States?
American workers have lost income on inflation adjusted terms from 2000-2025. The top 5 companies have a market cap that exceeds the top 30 in 2000, and the concentration of those companies is a single industry vs a diverse collection.
Consolidation of power and capital is reality everywhere. China is not a boogeyman. Go there.
Work Culture is famously bad? Look I get 996. The Youth seem like they are either next level burned out or on a treadmill that never ends(due to the 25% youth unemployment, the deflation happening and the extreme overabundance of educated professionals). Both are not good. But the original comment listed stellar companies and products that wipe the floor with American made junk. You don't get that without some extensive hard work. Stealing only takes to so far, you gotta do a lot more on top of that.
Consumption is not just low, it’s intentionally suppressed.
> who’s payroll your politicians are on
It doesn’t even have to be foreign - it can just be corrupt self interest.
What other explanation is there for attacking Venezuela and Iran?
I don't even think it's corrupt self-interest. Just idiotic bravado and wanting to settle long held grudges.
Distraction from the Epstein files
You’re getting downvoted for this which is crazy.
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Its more like lack of policy. To be clear, we are talking about China winning IoT hardware industry in this case. That’s not a policy.
You could ban Chinese IoT devices. Or spur local industry. But we aren’t talking about the military relying on Chinese hardware or something.
Doesn't this apply to China in the first place? Their GFW practically blocked such choices for decades already.
This is the idea behind a tariff
The "idea" of Trump's tariffs (if there ever was one) is to subvert the US constitution which places taxation under the control of congress, not the president.
The person you replied to did not mention a specific leader's policy.
False. Tariffs are a standard foreign policy tool used as an economic negotiating tactic.
The US government is literally refunding the tariffs because they were illegal.
Tariffs still exist, some were ordered to stop, but there are plenty still being implemented today, and will be in the future; regardless of which party is in power.
That doesn’t respond to this comment.
So Trump was right to call for tariffs?
There's no real solution other than long-term tariffs. However the President doesn't have the power to do it and Congress doesn't have the willpower. 6-month flash-in-the-pan efforts can only cause chaos.
It's easy to get all high and mighty but there really doesn't have to be complex subterfuge behind "replacing the majority of our technical infrastructure with devices solely created within the borders of our primary military, industrial, and economic rival is not a good idea for security and sovereignty."
We cast aside local manufacturing for cheaper prices in another country and are going to pay the price one way or another.
GoPro was outcompeted on the market. Simple as that.
They were made irrelevant by Insta360 and DJI, both with legitimately better products.
In my view, the only entity to blame for that is GoPro. And I believe that the shortfall was not only in matters of technology. My limited interactions with them painted a picture of an organisation with some super clever people, but paralysed by slow bureaucracy and high risk aversion.
By contrast, Insta360 was much more aggressive and enterprising, while DJI just did what DJI does: build amazing products.
Trying to blame this on some arcane Chinese plot to destroy the West is just a weak attempt to cope with reality: in China today there is simply much higher number of hard working, highly intelligent, highly educated people that are hungry for success then there are in the West.
One thing we forget is that the two great Chinese companies in this space (Insta and DJI) had first to compete against hundreds (thousands?) of other Chinese camera companies before they could come out on the top and compete globally.
They are not a product of a CCP plot. They are a result of a ruthlessly competitive and capable local ecosystem, itself a result of decades of consistent industrial and innovation policy.
Nothing is stopping us in the EU and US to do the same.
Reads to me like it's free market doing its job, if you think of countries as companies. US just needs to step up its game.
It's not really a free market when one country is heavily subsidizing it's industries
It is not as though other countries could not choose do the same.
It seem to me that China choosing to subsidize industry it is not so different than the US choosing to subsidize Roads, Autos and OIL.
In both cases it does seem to work splendidly as intended.
Other than political inertia (or economic reasons far beyond my ability to fathom) there is nothing to stop the US from following suit.
I accept "free market" is a term of art probably from before global trade reality and could be narrowly redefined to mean whatever one wants (or wanted when it was coined) but in my ignorance I see it simply as free to choose actions and responses.
But I am far far away from opinions I am qualified to hold, think I will shut up now.
> roads
I think even the Chicago school would agree that roads should be public
> autos
I absolutely detest US policy with respect to autos so I will not refute this
> oil
Matter of strategic importance that isn’t related to spying or subterfuge. The Nazis probably would have won WWII if they hadn’t run out of diesel. I’m not sure digital cameras come close to this.
But you could imagine a country that invested, in addition to roads, cars, and oil, in public transportation, cities that you can get around on foot, and in renewable energy. Such a country might be better off that the US is now.
Not everyone wants public transport. I never use it. Don’t like being so close to other people. And it is much more expensive where I live. Four friends going for a day trip to the big city is €120+ by train and bus.
Had another look. It’s €265 just for the four train tickets alone, in the lowest class. €375 if you want to travel in comfort class. Two hour journey.
You could imagine that this wasn’t the case, right? Or you could imagine that investing in it for those people who do want it might improve your own life (e.g. by reducing traffic) not to mention society as a whole?
I just look at what the most efficient form of transport is for the trip I’m taking. And the answer is never public transit.
Don’t really mind or care what other people do.
I think the overwhelming and undeniable success and prosperity of China is the biggest concern to the west, the neoliberals consistently predicted their immediate downfall that never came. Except we are all still led by the same neoliberals proven wrong about everything, the contradictions everywhere are driving us all into collective insanity. If we don't manage to purge our media and governments from these vile people the only path forward is collective decline, increased totalitarianism and our repression leading to a war with China. Wars don't always end in the right side winning, and the cold war was won by the wrong side.
Thanks, not to disagree but it may be best to use plain language as I do not know what a neoliberal is to me never mind what it means to you.
I do know liberal is used as a derisive term by the people we (US) are being led by which leads me to cognitive dissonance parsing your statement.
> the neoliberals consistently predicted their immediate downfall that never came.
That doesn't seem correct. Wasn't the predication that once China started to become successful they'd open up and become more democratic?
Which clearly didn't happen, as per the outright slaughter of the Chinese university students who were protesting in 1989: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...
So ridiculous. So a bit of subsidy is ok, but no more than the US does? As a country that’s suffered from the US subsidising its own industries, my sympathy is zero.
> What country and what industries?
New Zealand. Meat exports and dairy.
I would assume that China is your biggest trade partner for both of those categories. Is the US a major trade partner for either of those categories? I find it hard to believe. The US (and most rich countries) have way too much domestic dairy farm capacity. As a result, there is lots of govt subsidies paid to dairy farmers.
The US is our largest market for meat exports. Our top dairy markets are all in Asia, China being too.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/meat-exports-reach-10-billion...
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/growth-in-export-markets-for-...
and the US famously never subsidizes any of its industries...
> Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received on average three to eight times more subsidies than competitors in OECD economies.
https://www.oecd.org/en/blogs/2026/06/industrial-subsidies-h...
I can't read this seriously while being unable to buy any Chinese EVs here in the US.
You can't buy Chinese EVs in the US because China is overtly running a dumping campaign for them. It's an interesting story, read up on it!
That is (factually) a giant overstatement, and ignores domestic US politics.
It's almost like you believe the US remains interested in promoting free trade.
If it did, it wouldn't be levying illegal and constantly changing import tariffs, in violation of international trade agreements that it has signed up to.
I'm waiting for one of these "no you're wrong" comments to explain why it is that I'm wrong. I get that I didn't provide evidence either, but I'm relating the conventional wisdom on BYD-type cars. The C.W. is often wrong! But, like, you have to say why.
Hitchen's Razor
I read up on it, and it's not clear to me that it's actual dumping.
As in "selling below the cost of production".
I would say that China is trying to steer the car makers away from competing locally, as it's going to result in a price war. But that's not quite dumping per se.
Wait - what?
You cannot buy them because they are dumping them??????
"Dumping" is a term of art in international trade.
It's the thing that happens when a foreign exporter sells goods in your country below their production cost (or far below what they're charging domestic customers). It's done to fuck up the foreign markets for those goods, or, in China's case, as a relief valve for malinvestment.
China drastically overfunds EV production. There's a whole weird story where provinces apparently competed to get slices of the EV production business, which resulted in a large number of competing firms, producing far more vehicles than the Chinese domestic market could consume.
This isn't just a US thing. Europe tariffs the heck out of these cars.
Yes, I am well aware of the definition of dumping - that fails to explain why people cannot buy them.
If they're being dumped there is an oversupply, and people are spoilt for choice. The market is awash with the dumped product.
Not being able to buy them is the exact reverse of that.
The entire point of anti-dumping actions is that left unregulated, people will buy these unsubsidized cars.
Right - your comment was very poorly articulated - and loaded with supposition.
Your claim is that the reason people cannot buy the vehicles ISN'T because they are being dumped BUT because the government SAYS they are being dumped and has therefore actively prevented them from being sold.
The supposition is that it's an accurate claim by the governments - there are reports that the Chinese manufacturers are being restricted by their government and that there has been a period of over production, but how much of that is true and how much is propaganda is very difficult to actually ascertain.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. I don't think there's a serious dispute about whether China is dumping EVs, and the US isn't the only place claiming that.
Interesting that they are “dumping” them in Australia and other countries at prices that are competitive but far above what they cost in China.
Below cost of production my ass.
The only Western car company even competing with them is Tesla, who people love to hate for ideological reasons.
Calling what Chinese companies are doing “dumping” is pure cope for the utter failures of Western companies.
Look at my post history, I’m not pro-China at all, but I am a realist and can see the evidence with my own eyes since we can actually get the vehicles here.
I give it 5 years for Western and Japanese companies to be decimated in this market. Can’t say they don’t deserve it.
The whole SV is based on dumping. And was for decades.
I don't know how this is supposed to respond to what I just wrote. If an EU country restricted contracts or usage with Google or OpenAI, I wouldn't call them out for doing so. All I'm saying is that it's especially clear why Chinese EVs are impeded from selling in the US.
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What’s the level of subsidy that’s ok?
I'll take a stab. How about something like not more than 50% greater than OECD average per industry? My point: It seems reasonable that some countries was to specialise in certain areas. For example: Taiwan and (East!) Germany chose to build-out their semiconductor industry starting in the 1980s. It has paid pretty good dividends with a healthy amount of industrial subsidies. I also think the OECD should be raising tariff rates to protect against ridiculous levels of Chinese subsidies.
Appeals to fairness are difficult to accept when the rest of us out here in the world have been hurt by the US imposing tariffs and sanctions on us over the past few decades, and with intense chaotic energy in the last few years.
How do we make a system everyone is to abide by when the US can just rewrite the rules when it suits? Order collapses when a huge country behaves this way.
Quite a few members of the OECD have already done so.
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"my level" - $1 more is cheating
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Which industries are the US leading in because of subsidies?
Arms, weapons, fighter jets and so on. The US sounds a trillion $ a year subsidizing the military industrial complex.
The US chose their market (arms). The Chinese chose consumer goods. Go figure.
Basically every "made in USA" consumer product has a DOD contract. The DOD is mandated by law to purchase from US companies, so there is a huge sector of small-to-medium businesses which only exist because there is a guaranteed order coming every quarter for uniforms or boots or other equipment that would likely be 1/3 the price if they were contract-manufactured in China or Vietnam.
Not saying this is uniformly bad, because without the law the number of businesses with the ability to manufacture this stuff would trend toward zero, but it is a form of subsidy.
I wonder if this pattern is true for all militaries in rich countries. I think it sounds like good economic policy. If you want to grow your military, then you need to make sure it is spent domestically. Also, the "finish good" may include lots of parts that were built overseas. Think about a Tomohawk missile: I am sure the microchips are all made overseas. That said, the intellectual property is developed domestically (or with very close allies) and final assembly is done domestically.
US Arms exports bring in around $13 billion a year. The military industrial complex is a domestic jobs program that sells the vast majority of what it makes domestically. The US is clearly not spending a trillion dollars a year subsidizing defense in order to make their products more competitive in other markets.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/arms_exports/
I'm not sure I agree. In the aircraft industry especially the US has strongly pushed for exports. Overseas programs (TRS2, Avro Arrow) were terminated for political reasons (and replaced with F111 etc). More recently see F35 impact.
That's before we discuss the advantage Boeing has in the commercial market thanks to DoD contracts.
Your link shows that the US exports the same as the next 20 countries added together. That suggests some market dominance.
I also suspect these numbers do not include "military aid" - where weapons and munitions are "given" by the US to Ukraine wherever[1]. (But they may, I don't know.)
I agree though that the primary benefit of this is not "sales". And even if it was these aren't consumer goods. So it's not easily compared to China's approach. I'm not suggesting it's a terribly good subsidy. But it's still a subsidy.
[1] there are a lot of political benefits to be gained by having bases in foreign countries, or by port visits by US ships. Unfortunately most of those benefits have been eroded in the last 2 years. The gutting of USAid (which saved basically nothing), leaving the WHO, the tarrif nonsense, bombing Iran - all have destroyed a benevolent reputation 75 years in the making.
Sure the US benefits by giving arms to Ukraine, or having bases in other countries.
But that has nothing to do with the topic at hand which is market dominance for some industry.
>Boeing DOD contracts
This is probably the closest comparison to what China is doing. But it’s still not the same thing because the US buys equipment from Boeing, they don’t just give them direct subsidies.
The equivalent would be if China awarded Bambu a contract to provide 3d printers to schools.
To the extent that the US pursues policies that help defense companies. They don’t do it in order to help those companies compete in foreign markets. They do it because they want those companies not to go out of business for national security reasons, or because they want those companies to provide domestic jobs.
The US does other shady things, but spending massive amounts to help domestic companies outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets isn’t one of them.
Sadly, consumer goods are the new arms (drones, batteries, etc)
Oil, natural gas, corn (for fuel), soybeans (for cattle feed)
If a country hands out enormous subsidies but yet isn't leading in anything, then maybe it's time to consider what structural reasons are causing these subsidies to be squandered and whose bottom lines are being padded.
What US industries get anywhere near Chinese level subsidies.
I heard that when some country wants to pay in a different currency than USD for oil, a coup suddenly happens, or a helicopter comes and the president gets kidnapped
The US dollar being the global reserve currency makes exports more expensive though.
It basically means most of the world's currency wealth is held in the USA or backed by the USA. So the answer would be the finance sector - it's subsidized by the rest of the world.
That’s a stretch for the topic at hand. You can say hey the US does this probably morally equivalent thing, but when people are talking about subsidizing domestic companies so they can outcompete foreign companies in foreign markets, this isn’t what they’re talking about.
Agriculture?
China spends close to 10x what the US does on agriculture subsidies.
Ever wondered why everything in the USA contains corn syrup? Because sugar is artificially expensive (roughly double the global price) due to import tariffs that protect US sugar cane farmers.
EVs, mobile phones, are two massive industries where Chinese competitors are not only way ahead, but also basically banned.
When Uber does it: good. When China does it: bad.
When we do it: it fine. When they do it: it's bad!
This particular complaint is tripple hypocritical. US whole deal is to sell under price until competition dies and only then bring up prices or remove offering.
It winner takes all econony is literally based on destroying the competition as such.
Ignoring foreign patents also played a big part in US industrialization.
It's not much more of a free market when giant corporations do.
Successful Chinese industries tend to be subsidized at the level of cities and regions. This creates fierce intra national rivalry that forces rapid evolution and excellence. Electric vehicles are an example.
Anything the federal government pumps money into tends not to do as well.
Every country including the US does that.
Does it matter? When has capitalism cared about fair or free
Or when one country can print endless money while threatening the rest of the world with all kinds of punishment if they stop using it as a reserve currency.
Stop crying already. US subsidizes a boatload of things.
This is written like an American who is both ignorant of cybersecurity, American politics, and of the advantages that the US has benefitted from since at least WW2.
The core points are:
I don't pity a US company because it chose not to compete with a Chinese company despite starting from an advantage.His point wasn't that chinese-made products have more vulnerabilities, what? what are these reading skills. GoPro has probably never been in a patent litigation in their favor. His point wasn't limited to GoPro either.
The main driving force isn't anything but the simple fact that they can undercut everyone. Some of it is innovation in production methods, some of it subsidies, some of it is the low salaries, some of it is the 12hour shifts seen as normal.
Is it deserved? Sure. They let western companies unintentionally ship their entire know-how to China. Is it OK from a US perspective, does it mean that they can't do anything now, and should just source Chinese products for everything? Hell no.
Thanks for making HN as braindead as Reddit! Thanks to people like you, I'm becoming a master at translating Chinese socials!
Perhaps a huge tell about national strategy is the fact that the owner has $10s of millions to loan to the company? US economic structure in post WWII era has increasingly focused on return on capital (and value extraction). How can that compete in long term with an economy which prioritizes reinvestment *in industry*?
One would presume that the founder is investing their money into something, probably equities, that is an investment in industry. They could be either selling those equities for a loan here or taking a loan against those equities to loan to GoPro (if the cost of capital is lower for them than GoPro, which seems plausible.)
I generally agree with your point about value extraction vs. re-investment.
Equities aren't investment in industry except when there's an IPO or SPO. The rest of the time, it's zero-sum.
What you just said makes no sense. How can equities come into existence except via an IPO or similar mechanism?
Equities are literally investments in business. Equity is a line in the balance sheet for every corporation.
Exactly. How can they come into existence except via an IPO or similar mechanism? At that moment, investment happens. The rest of the time, it does not. The stock market rising does not increase investment in industry. When you buy stocks at a stock exchange, you aren't investing in industry
You are saying that "investment" only happens when you provide capital to a corporation.
Presumably, under this definition, when you sell stock that is not "disinvestment".
Unless you are selling it back to the company itself. Then it is "disinvestment", because the total amount of capital provided to the corporation has gone down.
That is not what people mean by the term "investment". You need to find a different word, because "investment" has a more general meaning than the concept you are talking about.
People know it’s happening. What do you expect an average consumer to do about it? Pay more out of pocket due to the potential national security risks?
You can't pay more to get a better drone than DJI's. You can pay more (although it's difficult) to get a worse drone. Much worse.
Right, because in an actual free market where DHI was not heavily subsidized, DJI drones would cost MUCH more, and the other drones would be competitive.
Same for BYD vs Tesla and every other car. It is easy to win in the "free market" when you give away your product.
Same for Uber and Lyft for many years — subsidized by VCs until they gained massive scale, effectively killed all the other competition, and now the prices have gone up when they have a lock on the market, a large moat, and the VCs want a return. In my area, what was a $30 ride to the airport a few years ago, far cheaper than any airport service, is now $89.
The entire concept of a "free market" is idealized to the point of fiction.
Next year you'll have a fair old choice of drones from Ukrainian manufacturers though, when they're no longer needed to defeat Putin.
I like that thought
And remember dear readers, China and Iran openly helps Russia in their invasion of Ukraine. It is like the cold war never ended.
China's covert military training of Russian forces last year was personally approved by President Vladimir Putin's defence minister and directly involved at least four Russian and Chinese generals, according to two European officials and documents seen by Reuters.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-ap...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_for_Russia_in_the_Russ...
One of EUs biggest trading partners wants Ukraine to lose to Russia...
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/ch...
Iran helps with Shaeed Drones as known
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136#Geran-2
With Chinese parts btw.
North Korea is in too with 10k troops at least and massive ammo. Traded for food and wheat from Ukraine.
> Iran helps with Shaeed Drones as known
This ought to be a useful message for the US, too, whose Russian-owned government didn't want to help provide Ukraine with much in the way of weapons.
The US got an absolute pasting in Hormuz from Iranian drones, and maybe if they'd had some Ukrainian kit they'd have come off a little better.
In today's environment people can't even make the choice to pay more. The productn are just priced out of reach!
I would pay more to have a product the US doesn’t have its hands in.
Also on Avinox motors on e-mtn bikes. Originally made by DJI, then spun off into their own company, and they are starting to eat the competition on all e-mtn bikes at this point. Bosch, TQ, Shimano, et al just can't compete, especially because Avinox is iterating at startup pace and all the rest are iterating at bike pace (slowly).
This is the key though: it’s not just supposed subsidies, because the Chinese companies are fundamentally just faster and more efficient
I would argue the real answer is world class supply chain for high tech manufacturing. And that supply chain is heavily subsidised.
Not just subsidised, but the supply chain is literally in the same block.
That's the thing Chinese do where other countries can't compete. If you're making product X, all of your suppliers are within walking distance around your assembly line.
In Europe they might be 4 countries over.
Simon Wardley has been shouting this from the rooftops, including detailed per industry timelines when China will take over, in 2015.
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> muh illegal aliens and muh christianity and muh identity politics
Please don't post lame tropes like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
What would the attack vector be? I’m not saying there isn’t any, I don’t know much about aerospace and this sounds interesting.
> What would the attack vector be?
The cameras. But quite how, I don’t know.
Any backdoored camera with wireless networking can take pictures remotely.
Cloud risks are very true - for both GoPro and DJI.
About a year ago, I was looking for an action camera. I found a good DJI product, but then I learned that you have to link the camera to an app in order to use it. I am fundamentally opposed to that idea, so I looked up the equivalent GoPro camera. Turns out GoPro also requires you to activate the camera with a smartphone app.
I don't want to send my data to a company for something as trivial as an action cam. I was surprised to find that the US model had such an evil requirement, mirroring the Chinese model.
In the end, I bought the DJI action cam (cheaper, better) and activated it in a public location using a burner phone. You only need to use the app once to free the device and take it offline, after which you can delete the surveillance app. I have found no fingerprinting in the created media yet.
GoPro would have made an easy sale with me, if they had been more privacy/power aware.
Cameras need to connect somewhere, somehow to offload their videos/photos. Whether that's network, USB, SD card, those are all attack vectors. Hell, even the files themselves can act as payloads.
they don't do that while flying though.
> If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place
Oh right, because the US has never done that ? Its public knowledge the US does supply-chain interdiction, see the infamous NSA “upgrade” factories as just one example.
The US is also just as capable of writing buggy code full of security holes as everyone else. Even more so today with the advent of "vibe code it and ship it".
It is only an attack vector if you allow it to be so, defence in depth and all that ...
> I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract
But its all magically ok if its got a "designed in the USA" and/or "made in the USA" badge on it ?
The problem I see here is a desire to use COTS stuff out-of-the-box in natsec environments led by a desire to save money and/or save time. Seems to me like one of those "pick two" moments where the "security" option was thrown in the trash.
> the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa
They hardly have time to compete, busy as they are with foot-shooting practice.
Not sure what you mean. Had a mk 4 or what the last one was - excellent. Now on core one (or what the name is for the enclosed one), also great.
Dunno, Prusa seems to have mostly forgotten about consumers as their industrial business is booming.
Stuff like this: https://sensofusion.com/dronefactory/
This is of course beyond stupid considering the pace of 3d printer vs one PET bottle blow molding machine that can produce same shape shells at thousand units /hour.
They're completely different niches. Blow molding helps you make a million of a thing, 3D printing helps you make a million different things. There's great for low volume items without significant strength requirements. That includes prototypes but also anything niche - like parts for blow molding machines.
Another comment mentioned you can CNC a blow mold. That's completely true and I'm not versed in it enough to know when you'd prefer subtractive or additive rapid prototyping. A 3D printer is a bit more flexible in the shapes it can make but it can only make them out of plastic, which is a huge tradeoff.
But blow moulding machines big enough to make a drone shell are massive.
If you had suggested a more portable technology like vacuum forming maybe you would have a point, but blow moulding is definitely one of the more expensive and least portable ways of forming plastic.
Massive is subjective, you can fit 10 packed or 5 set-up and running machines in one container https://cntaiso.en.made-in-china.com/product/iXYEPnyvhsUl/Ch...
Is it? With a 3d printer you can print any piece on demand, change design without changing tooling and make pieces that are semi-hollow inside for lightness.
Edit - should add, early in the war Ukraine was crowd-sourcing drone parts from citizens with 3D printers at home. This likely grew from that.
This isnt endurance contest, interceptor drones are half battery half explosive with miniscule weight taken by motors electronics and packaging. We are talking 10KW power draw for around a minute.
You can rapid manufacture moulds too, cnc alu is good for 1K shots easily.
100%. It would strongly behoove the US to encourage domestic 3d printer manufacture (or friendly countries like Japan), to the point of bannning Bambu and Chinese companies. Obviously we are doing fine for industrial 3d printers, but the small scale consumer stuff is very important too.
If and when AI commiditizes professional services, it would be good to have modern industry to fall back on. With 3d printing the gap isnt insurmountable yet.
However, our country is run by lawyers, not engineers, so I dont have too much hope. At least a lot of our billionaires started out as engineers...
The cost of your proposed policies to consumers, to the Americans who can create because of cheap great Chinese printers and wouldn't be able to create under your policy... is much greater than the abstract industrial policy benefit.
I'm not sure what stops some of these industries from essentially being more nationalist like China, but more centrist as a company like Palantir. If these risks are as big as you claim, a centralized authority should reverse engineer the things that work done in China or where-ever and use open source/build a better software stack that supplants what's out on the market currently.
I think the engineering is actually pretty irrelevant in terms of the competitiveness
GoPro has been “in trouble” for years and years. All of that may be true but they just haven’t justified their survival. They may well be better off selling to Garmin or another domestic air defense vendor and be done in the consumer market.
FWIW current administration wants to play this same game, but they def won’t do it as well.
>People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
I'm actually surprised to hear that GoPro is used in aerospace applications. I assumed that they would use cameras from companies like Teledyne that have a more industrial/military customer base. That is to say, there are almost certainly options for domestic camera manufacturers if required.
You are right about China. The West (especially Apple) taught China how to manufacture while losing the ability ourselves and for some reason didn't consider that they would figure out how to design products themselves and bring the entire product chain within the country.
Individuals at the end of the day mostly care about buying the cheapest thing that does the job. They don't consider where it comes from. Even those that do care have limits in how they will compromise (there is a reason why I bought Bambu Labs 3D printer even though I would have preferred a Prusa).
For us living in "the rest of the world", we only have a choice of being spied on by chinese or american companies, and american ones can do a lot more damage to us than chinese.
So if we're getting spied on anyway, why not buy a better product?
The western countries deindustrialized themselves though. That's just capitalism chasing ever increasing profits and moving production to where it's cheaper, i.e.from west to China. In fact this was cherished because it increased share holder profits.
If you’ve spent a life and the market being supreme then it’s a shock. China’s economic system is wiping the floor with the west.
The U.K. has just nationalised a steel plant which had been bought by China to stop it from being destroyed, and of course the economic right wing hate this as steel is far cheaper to import.
Britain is on a hell of a trajectory. First Brexit then the rise of Reform.
If that scam of a man wins the next election, it’ll be quite the show.
It's basically the same past trajectory of Germany, no? Many countries are on it right now.
Bailing out the EU was a big hit to the economy and not many countries have taken hits like that.
There are estimates as high as 10% of GDP, though 6-8% seem more agreed upon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Brexit
Reform reached 31% in the polls and have slipped to 26%. there’s a (slim) chance Farage will be beaten by a comedian in a bin.
Trump reached 55% and became president. Twice.
Pot. Kettle.
You're not wrong.
But unlike the USA, at least Britons realized Brexit was a mistake. And that Johnson was corrupt and a liar.
I am a citizen of both the UK and USA.
It is astonishing to me that Trump could be voted back in after attempting a coup.
As someone with both an Insta360 camera and a Bambu printer, I feel it, would love to buy GoPro and Prusa, but the value just isn't there.
For one, I had a GoPro whose sensor broke after about 20 minutes of recorded. I ended up getting 3 different replacements, all of which also broke. In the end I just forgot about it when my home burnt down in a wildfire. I got an Insta360 with better picture quality that's also been more reliable for a similar cost.
And I would have loved to buy a Prusa printer but I got a Bambu P1S combo for $600, an equivalent Prusa plus the $300 shipping to Canada would have been ~$2500 CAD. For making trinkets for my 3 year old son plus the few random other things I'd make it's not worth it to pay 4x the money.
Maybe it'll forever be this way due to the differences in cost of living but I do feel as though there's a million barriers to entry to building a business in North America, at least a business that's not fully online.
Unless Canadian prices are much much higher than US, the only Prusa that costs that much is a Core One L or a Prusa XL.
Neither one of those are equivalent to a P1S. They’re 2 tiers above it. Equivalent Bambu printers sell for about the same price.
I have printers from both companies. There are tradeoffs for each, but Prusa isn’t 4x more for an equivalent printer.
Core One+ is $1899 CAD, the MMU3 for the Core One+ is $579 CAD and shipping was quoted over $300 since they ship from Europe and not the US to Canada. Just put these into their shopping cart on their site, right now quoting $2887 (including shipping and duties).
I did get a particularly good deal on the P1S combo apparently, the price on their website already higher than what I paid and it's significantly less in Canada than the US with exchange rate. Are they exactly equivalent, dunno, but both are the cheapest Core XY models with enclosure + colour changer that either sell.
Prusa is also cheaper in the US and EU than Canada.
FWIW you can get a kit Core One+ for $999 USD in the US. I actually prefer to get the machine as a kit as assembly helps with understanding the workings of the machine for maintenance.
They’re not remotely equivalent though. That’s like saying that a raspberry pi and 16” monitor are equivalent to a MacBook Pro because that’s the cheapest 16” monitor Apple sells.
Okay so explain the difference to a normal consumer because I'm printing toys for my kid...
Both are enclosed and both do 4 colors in a variety of materials. Both are the cheapest version of that that each company offers.
IMO it's more like comparing a Honda to a Mercedes. I'm sure the Mercedes is better but a Honda gets you places all the same.
It’s more like comparing a Honda to an F-350.
If all you want to do is drive the kids to school, you want the Honda, but that doesn’t make the 2 products equivalent.
But if all you’re doing is printing toys for the kids an A1 mini would have been less than half the price of the P1S. The enclosure is mostly a waste if you’re only printing PLA. You’re going to end up venting anyway. Core XY is a little faster than a bedslinger, but if you’re doing a lot of multi color prints, the material change time will dominate, so you won’t see much practical difference.
> both do a variety of materials.
The p1s does not regulate the chamber temperature, so the variety of materials you can get good results either is much more limited.
Sounds like a problem for America. And totally irrelevant to the state of GoPro the company. It sounds like you're advocating for corporate welfare on the basis that a failing company is "based in" USA, even though their most impactful operations are overseas.
If GoPro is manufactured in China then it’s no more secure than Insta360.
I'm not sure what attack vectors are there if you don't connect your camera to company wifi, I guess it could technically put a payload on SD card but... eh ?
> When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
First, Gopros are made and assembled in China (with I think some in Mexico now to avoid tariffs). And absolutely nothing stops them from just sending potentially malicious firmware to the non-china made ones too
Second China didn't make Gopros fucking overheat, shoddy engineering did. They rested on their laurels while competition worked hard on making better product. If it was just production costs the top end GoPros would be the best in the niche, just more expensive, but no they are both more expensive and worse product.
Third, it is not "Chinese govt. doing it" (tho they are certainly helping), it is west constantly sending their tech advantage away just to get some cheap production there. Whether directly like Apple or Tesla, or indirectly, by allowing chinese capital to buy western car companies and instantly get all the tech then just apply their more integrated production to make same stuff cheaper.
West gave China their advantage willingly, for a short term profits, and continue to do so, then try to mask it as some kind of malicious push (not saying it isn't happening, just saying the western companies are complicit in it) rather than corporate greed ruining everything yet again.
> China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons,
No. Not even close
China wants its place at the table.
With Erope and USA
People seem to think a developed China is a threat. But they are not staying in rural poverty for ever for our sake. That is not a threat.
They are not trying to "deindustrialise" anybody, just finding a place amongst equals
Lol your country and your capitalism helped build China.
Wasn't that the thing like ~30 years ago? All the western companies pushing manufacturing into China for increased profit?
Capitalism and the west gave all that power away :), you deindustrialised yourselves.
boo hoo china bad, buy my more expensive and shitty american product
The biggest attack vector against the world is is Israel and Zionism, not China. Stop bashing China. Its getting silly and infantile.
You have a point here. China vs USA is just a part of the whole thing.
If we discuss the problem of China doing industrial spying and applying subsides to destroy non-chinese companies, we should mention also that countries like Israel had been stealing tirelessly for decades every US army and US industrial secrets that they could grab. They had been caught later selling this secrets for money to third countries like Russia. And the cherry on top is that all was subsidized, but with US money this time.
Denying North Korean or Chinese people access to places with industrial secrets, while at the same time granting Israeli people free VIP access just because... "white people" (so they can sell it to Russia, and Russians can sell it later to China and NK) does not really make any sense.
China does not want to deindustrialize any country. Why do you think of everything in terms of war and domination ? China has built a industry capable of taking any product and make it better and cheaper. There is no psycho strategy behind it. They will do it till every chinese will live a comfortable life equal to an american. At that point america will be able to compete again.
The CCP has publicly explained that their strategy is indeed to dominate key sectors via gov subsidies, de-industrialize other nations and gain strategic leverage in the process.
Why doesn't America do that too? It seems to work really really well.
Two main reasons. It requires taking a lot of freedom / agency away from individuals, and redirecting much of the profits of successful enterprises to subsidies (and suppressing individual consumption and standard of living).
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Median PPP adjusted income and disposable income tells a very different story.
Those don't measure standard of living
America does that for aerospace & some defense stuff. But the reason not to is that the industrial policy needed to do it like China does has the effect of reduced wages, longer work hours, and lower quality of life.
The US (and EU/UK) subsidies defense, but imo that’s different. First, it’s more understandable to want domestic arms production. Second, they are not seeking to subsidize to undercut foreign suppliers and drive them out of business.
The US is not pushing subsidized F35 fighters all over the world to drive other producers under.
government first intervened in British Steel last year to prevent its then-owner, the Chinese company Jingye Group, from shutting it down https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/business/britain-national...
>People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
In what way exactly? The camera will magically communicate to the mothership?
I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get.
Sounds very similar to another US company - Garmin. They are still popular, but have been raising prices a lot every generation, because for a long time there was no real competition [1]. At this point, Garmin watches that have mapping support have an introduction price of >600 Euro. Even at that price point, zooming or panning maps is excruciatingly slow (sometimes taking up to 10 seconds to re-render) because they have used the same CPU/MCU for multiple generations while increasing screen resolution. They also haven't really innovated a lot as of recently and are moving some new functionality behind a subscription.
This has opened a large gap for Chinese competition. Now you can get a Coros Nomad that goes head-to-head with models like the Garmin Enduro for 350 Euro. They don't have full feature parity yet, but they are so rapidly adding features that they will at some point. Also, in contrast to Garmin, they seem to be using modern microcontrollers, so panning or zooming a map is insanely fast in comparison, while still having ~20 days of battery for daily use.
[1] Of the traditional competitors, Apple Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch Ultra have gotten closer, but are nowhere near the battery life, robustness, mapping support, mapping + workout support, etc.
> Garmin watches that have mapping support have an introduction price of >600 Euro. Even at that price point, zooming or panning maps is excruciatingly slow
I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.
You're right that it's slow due to a wimpy processor. But the processor isn't because they're too lazy to innovate, but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so that I can get a battery life of several weeks.
I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.
As a sibling commenter said, the Instinct 3 Solar only does breadcrumb navigation, it doesn't do topographic maps on the watch (there are some Connect IQ apps that can add mapping, but you don't get good integration with workouts).
I use them all the time when cycling. I often plan a route, but when some different direction looks more interesting, I can spot check whether it leads to bike paths that will eventually merge back into my grand plan, erm, route. Or sometimes even for following the route, you want to look ahead by quickly zooming out or get a lot of detail at some complex intersection, where having a full map gives you much better orientation.
Well, except on a Garmin, my Fenix 8 is often so slow that I had to pause cycling to zoom in/out (even more complicated by not being able to do gradual zooming because it does not have a crown).
Yes, I know I can also use a bike GPS or a more generic GPSr with a large screen. I have used their gpsmap line since 2010 or so and even have the gpsmap H1. But having to always carry it around when you have a break somewhere is a drag and I always have a watch on me anyway. So I primarily use the gpsmap for geocaching and switched to using a watch for other activities.
but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so that I can get a battery life of several weeks
Coros watches have several weeks of battery life and fast maps. It is laziness (or margin maximization), because they could reach the same power budget by moving to a processor that is on a smaller node.
> I know I can also use a bike GPS or a more generic GPSr with a large screen.
Their bike computers have a long lasting battery and are helpful for data. But wow are they frustrating. Software update regularly loses the config, the interface is just so painful (laggy touch screen or confusing buttons). The mapping is hard to follow.
Not that Strava mapping on a phone is any better. Why can’t Strava put arrows on the direction of travel?
Sounds like the perfect use-case for big-small processors. A power-sipper for routine 99.99% of operations and a more powerful beast for the CPU intensive ops.
It's mostly because Garmin wants to maximize profits by sticking to old CPUs. The Coros watches (from what I've heard, the same applies to Suunto and Polar) are fast.
This has been an issue across the whole Garmin product line. E.g. the Garmin eTrex 32x from 2019 still used the same CPU as the eTrex 30 from 2011. 8 years without a CPU update. And the eTrex was already had miserably slow map rendering in 2011 with maps from that year.
Although Coros watches are fast, the Coros DURA bike computer is pretty slow when re-rendering maps. Naturally, companies can still choose between how fast the CPU is versus how long the battery life is (100+ hours on the Coros DURA I believe).
> It's mostly because Garmin wants to maximize profits
I see people riding bikes worth tens of thousands regularly. They should try a top tier models and see what happens.
One of the benefits of these old eTrex models is that they run on AA's, so they're used for things like long distance cycling (across countries).
I don't know if there are top tier models that run on replaceable batteries you can get at any gas station.
They have solar ones, but judging by reviews, they get about 10 minutes extra battery life per hour in the sun.
Yes, this ships in basically every smartwatch since the Snapdragon Wear 3100 launched in 2018.
I think they meant watches that can show actual maps, not just a line or arrow with your route. That feature has always been reserved for the more expensive watches.
The more expensive watches (Fenix) also have long battery lives: lasting up to a month on a battery that can fit in a watch. The processors still have to sip power.
The Coros watches are less than half the price, have 22 days of battery life in smartwatch mode (in the Nomad) and render maps extremely fast. If they added solar, they could probably also last a month (the Coros Apex 4 does 24 days, also without solar).
The funniest thing is that earlier versions of the Coros even used the Garmin map format (though as many small files and not a single/small number of .img). Though they have switched to the open PMTiles format in later versions.
BTW, I had a Fenix 7x solar (before a Fenix 8 AMOLED) and it would usually 'only' last about two weeks. I think you can only reach Garmin's stated time if you disable a lot of functionality.
> The Coros watches are less than half the price, have 22 days of battery life in smartwatch mode
Garmin gets almost 30% more battery life in exchange of not being as fast (30 days)
> I think you can only reach Garmin's stated time if you disable a lot of functionality.
Turning off always-on Pulse ox gets you there. Turning everything off except telling time gets you 2.5x the battery life (69-71 days)
My Instinct 3 Solar shows 34 days remaining in the battery. I charged it sometime last week, so we're talking about upper 30s at least.
That's with running activity tracking including GPS for about an hour a day, and continuous heart rate monitoring.
At least on my device (and my body) the spo2 sensor is very finicky, requiring absolution stillness, and even at that I don't think it's accurate. So I don't use that.
I also discovered recently that simply using a custom watchface - even one built with an eye toward efficiency - lowers my battery life to about 2 weeks. The native faces enjoy privileged operations and are thus highly efficient. But custom-coded stuff apparently runs in a sandbox that has the effect of costing much more power. That's unfortunate, because my custom face used custom high-legibility fonts (derived from what's on interstate signage), making it noticeably easier on my aging eyes. The built-in fonts aren't great for this.
My Fenix 8 only gets two weeks at most with pulse ox off. Yes, it's the AMOLED version, but I have the screen off by default (which should be similar to MIP). I got similar runtimes on my 7 Pro Solar without pulse ox.
Err.. my 2yo Fenix 7 Solar definitely lasts 3-4 weeks. Not AMOLED (because.. that's why), but MiP. In summer.. it can last >month. Pulse on, GPS is generally only on in solar. Screen is never off. I can obviously make it a worse UX/last longer, but I'm not sure I see the need.. even when I'm back country.
A modern powerful MCU should be able to do both due to advanced power saving modes. Or youcan even have a power MCU and very low power standby MCU.
This is correct. There are a number of excellent asymmetric multicore MCU platforms now. You don't have to choose between efficiency and performance today.
How do you like the Instinct 3 Solar? I'm considering one for the exceptional battery life.
Really considering Coros since Garmin introduced a subscription. It doesn't currently prevent me from using anything I want to use, it's just moving in the wrong direction, but I was annoyed by Garmin for a long time, and this is the last drop.
However, my understanding is that Coros just doesn't have an SDK. At all. So it's not really "lagging on features", it's a totally closed platform, that doesn't any have 3rd party apps at all, and will not have them, because it's impossible to write them. I don't know if it's enough of a reason to completely write them off as a competitor, but that does give me a pause. I mean, if I don't have a feature on Garmin, I can theoretically implement it myself, or even hope that somebody else did. If I don't have it on Coros, I will just have to make do.
It’s interesting that you mention Garmin - they’re a good example of pivoting from your original market (standalone gps units for cars) once you see a nimble competitor eating away at it (gps-enabled smartphones). Garmin would be dead if they had held fast on the standalone GPS market.
I'm not sure you are fully aware of the markets that Garmin is in. When it comes to marine, aviation and offroad, you simply cannot run a gps app on a phone. E.g.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/aviation/general/
Yep, also, they had gpsr units way before their gpsunits for cars became popular. They started making GPS receivers in (I think) 1993:
https://static.garmin.com/pumac/GPS95AVD_PilotsGuide.pdf
Thanks! I’m clearly not aware.
"offroad, you simply cannot run a gps app on a phone"
I almost exclusively use GaiaGPS as my offroad GPS navigation app on my phone. It works perfectly fine and it has for a long time, roughly speaking 1/7th of my life.
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Garmin will survive a year or more easily, because in Europe there is a big group of people who belive in Garmin even more than people belived in Apple (this group is still huge and strong, but the company itself does everything it can to change it).
The real competition is Apple Watch and for sport-intensive application Garmin wins because of battery and simplicity of usage in harder conditions.
I have a love/hate relationship with Garmin.
As a motorcyclist and sailor, their hardware is second to none in terms of build quality and robustness. The ability to look down at my Zumo GPS on my motorcycle in a rain storm on a dirt road and have it respond to my wet dirty glove is a close to magic as you will get.
Then there's the watches, the Instinct range is ok but I have a button that doesn't pop back out, my wife's vivoactive suffered the well known touch failure.
However, as a UXer I will say that across all products the software interaction model sucks balls. "China" can and will produce hardware to meet a price point, its not that they can't build good products.
As soon as "China" figures out how to do good UX, the last moat western companies have will fall.
I think the only sports watch company that has an app that is worse than Garmin's is Polar. I have used Garmin devices since 2010, but their UX is (as you say) pretty quirky. They changed the UI/UX of the gpsmap H1 to look more like a smartphone, but it is still weird. Another issue is that their software has been very buggy the last few years, with software only stabilizing 1-2 years after the release. One the largest external source for Garmin information (gpsrchive) has actively recommended against purchasing the H1 because it has been so buggy. Similarly, earlier firmware releases of the Fenix 8 had a lot of issues. Also a lot of functionality of older units hasn't been implemented yet. These are often not small bugs, but of the type, "oopsie, your device froze or rebooted while you were navigating". They basically released an alpha version as a final product.
I don't know about UX, but I've had my Coros watch for a few weeks now and I didn't find it hard to understand. I think it's much easier than when I first learned to use a Fenix watch. It misses some Garmin features though that I'd really like to see like off-course rerouting. But like I said above, they have been adding features at a good pace and a drastically undercutting Garmin on price (most watches less than half the price of the closest Garmin watch).
'China' can do UX just fine, when the incentive is there. Part of the reason UX seems rough, outside of low quality products where it's a tertiary consideration, is cultural differences. User interfaces are part of culture, like everything humans touch. Those preferences shape the resulting tech. Sometimes those choices are less optimal for western users with their own preferences.
https://youtu.be/WSMFnJnY7EA?si=NMz0wd94gM5abxyj
About 10 years ago I was looking for a rugged small camera. Found some by Garmin that were on a closeout sale. Excellent quality, never owned a GoPro so can't compare but I used them in similar applications and they never had an issue.
According to a quick search, GoPro has an Enterprise Valuation of $160M. That would be chump change for a large tech company. The brand has name recognition value in excess of that figure. I suspect some big company will happily buy it but not sure who. It has to be a company that wants to get into the camera market. I don't think the brand name is as valuable to an existing camera company-though I could be wrong.
Apple, Google, and Amazon could all make sense. Google would see the business as an opportunity to strengthen its existing IoT portfolio. Apple an opportunity to add to its integrated consumer electronics offering. Amazon would be more a play to improve GoPro's margins. They could easily push it with prime deals, etc.
I could also see Samsung getting in.
Regardless, expect to see more integration, AI features, etc, after acquisition.
If google would buy GoPro it would close it a couple of years later
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
I had a GoPro many years ago. Eventually sold it because I needed the money for other things.
Been thinking about buying a new action camera eventually.
Got any recommendations?
The one that interests me the most of the ones I’ve seen is the Insta360 X4 Air plus an underwater case for it.
I want to be able to bring my camera swimming, bicycling, hiking, etc. And I think 360 degree cameras are pretty cool. Hopefully it’s not just a gimmick that loses its appeal after a few hours.
As someone who watches a reasonable amount of PoV outdoor activity footage shot on helmet cams and the like (base jumping, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, etc)… I don’t love watching 360 videos uploaded in the raw because of the perspective distortion.
I’m assuming it must be possible, if the resolution is good enough, to post process a portion of each overall frame into an undistorted 1080p (or better) view of the key view of the action, but a lot of people don’t do this (perhaps it’s much more difficult or time-consuming that I’m imagining, or perhaps many viewers enjoy the distorted 360 view more than I do).
Just my two cents, YMMV, etc.
part of this is by design, which unfortunately also makes very steep terrain not look as terrifying, but gives you huge FOV. I find in all but the latest Instas its the worse low-light quality that is most notable. More annoying is that everyone is trying to compete on weird angles and perspectives, andY YT shills push attachments and niche features vs. photographic quality
Yes it's possible, and yes it's time-consuming.
If you're willing to put a little time into video editing, a 360 cam is great. The insta360 tools can make that a little easier if you want something simple.
If you just want to store a snapshot of the moment as it was captured, a regular camera that you pointed in the right direction is better.
The downside is the 360 editing tools are kind of sluggish and not great to work with, and even at 8k res in-camera, the export for a 'normal' looking FoV is pretty low quality compared to a normal action cam recording in 4k.
I have an insta360 X5, it's neat and there's a lot of flexibility, but it does have downsides.
The app is also a pile of crap, it's crammed full of ads, social media junk I don't want, it's slow as molasses, and the size of the app is massive.
Have you tried resolve's 3d editing?
I'd love to film in 3d. But being dependent on a single app of a single company (that is not even a good app right now) is literally the worst feature for a hardware I could imagine.
Why are you dependent on a single app? Pretty much any NLE has ability to edit 3D footage.
I didn't know that. I've got told it's a proprietary format while got shown the insta360 app.
Good to know, and reconsider!
One cool feature I've read about is that (at least some) GoPro cameras can save high-resolution IMU measurements to the recorded video files, timestamped and interleaved with video frames. This can be useful for mapping applications, e.g. https://joshi-bharat.github.io/projects/gopro/
Are there any competitors on the market that also have this feature? I've looked around a few times in the past and haven't found any. Many cameras say that they have an IMU, presumably for image stabilization, but they don't seem to record or expose that data.
Both Insta360 and DJI cameras save IMU / magnetometer data to their video files.
It really didn't help that the HERO 13 changed a bunch of stuff for the worse, like incompatible api and other issues.
>other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper
Would you mind providing a recommendation you have first hand experience with?
It's mostly FUD and/or paid reviewers. Both DJI and Insta have good products, but also very good at sponsoring in a way where things get reviewed very in their favor, making people have an impression that doesn't quite match reality. So the meme one constantly read online about how gopros are so much worse is false. They have their issues, but mostly trade offs.
I bought one back in 2018, curious what brand would you recommend today? I wouldnt mind upgrading to something more modern but I dont care about GoPro for brands sake. Would love something I could take in the water like the GoPro.
A gopro isn't worse than the competition, nor at a premium.
What makes gopro the standard in proper productions (and science etc) is that they're so hackable with the gopro labs software. With that, all the other cameras are toys in comparison for professional usage.
The bulk of the market is toys for aspiring content creators. Professional usage is pocket change subsidised by tiktokers.
It also doesn’t help that you could probably get by with a hero 4 black even today lol
Man I still can’t believe how bad the rollout of the karma was. I remember at the time everyone in my professional circles was buzzing about it. Then they started literally falling out of the sky. Feel like they never recovered
Eh, I have a Hero 4 black. And if you as the other commenter only think about resolution it can look like that, but the difference is enormous.
4k on a gopro 13 is far far far clearer. And the stabilization is night and day. Half my hero4 videos are mostly blurry shakes and quite jarring to watch, with a bad fov. The stabilization on modern gopros is magical. The bitrate and quality is orders of magnitude better. You can now pull good quality stills from the video if you want. Hero4 can't handle anything but perfect blue sky in the middle of the day. Etc etc
> Then they started literally falling out of the sky.
Yep, something must have gone horribly wrong with QA.
Apparently (checked with AI), Hero 4 Black was the first camera with 30 fps 4k video and was released 12 years ago already (how time flies)
Frankly, after 4k/30 and 1080p/60, there are strong diminishing returns, because most people these days watch videos on their phones in suboptimal conditions (or older desktops that may still be on 1080p), so what are they going to do with your 5k/6k video?
Sure, you can keep doing minor improvements to sensors and optics, but for a consumer it will not justify getting a new model for $500.
Also, competing with smartphone cameras which have gotten better over the years. I bet 99% of people would not be able to tell a gopro video from a phone video.
Transparency on AI use is a sin now, I guess.
Admitting your sins to your competitors has always been a sin.
The greatest advantage of greater resolution is that you can cut for a better framing. But who has time to go through good of video for editing?
That larger image size allows for more aggressive image stabilization as well.
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
Such as?
DJI Osmo cameras are good, I still have my original Osmo action and while the quality is a bit behind now, the battery life and general stability and menus are better than GoPro IMO.
I've found DJI cameras also don't discharge their batteries when sitting, my gopro 11 black is somehow always dead when I grab it even after a few weeks, but my osmo action is still at ~70% after a year.
Insta360 also has some neat offerings, but their software/app is absolutely abysmal, it's crammed full of ads and takes up several GB of space. It also requires an account login.
Many years ago had my first Gopro camera that seriously overheated, sent it for repairs, they said there was nothing wrong with it. It literally turned too hot to handle after taking a few clips and wouldn't work. I think there was some serious hardware issue that caused it to then drain the whole battery.
Gave the brand a second chance some years ago. Couldn't export my videos from the app, it always hanged. So I couldn't share footage. Apparently a common long standing problem on forums.
Woved to never buy anything from them again.
I missed a lot of footage last year too, after buying a newer model GoPro. Turns out, they now ship a battery that cannot handle even mildly freezing temperatures. Impossible to film while skiing. Of course, you have to buy a special winter battery, and none of their product marketing mentions this.
It's still an issue with the newest generation cameras. If you record at the highest resolution and FPS, the camera can't shed the heat fast enough.
Yeah, I've had multiple GoPros die in multiple ways, and way too quickly. They're just really poor quality and aren't suited for vibration, heat, cold, etc. -- exactly the things an "action camera" should be able to tolerate.
Extremely similar to iRobot (Roomba). They both practically genericized themselves by inventing and dominating the product category, then just couldn't keep up with the competition. GoPro does feel more self inflicted though. Their drone was a failure, and they burnt a lot of money trying to do some kind of pivot to being a media company.
Was just about to say Roomba too! Next up IMO is Philips Hue, which don't support Matter and cost $25, vs. Matter-enabled Amazon brands that cost $7.
IKEA is winning here rather than a Chinese brand.
Yeah I'm sure they are putting swedish wifi chips there and not chinese /s
Hue does support Matter. Hue is expensive but delivers a premium experience, unlike the products talked about in this thread that are expensive but not better than the competition.
Got any you'd recommend? I've been paying the Hue tax because they're the only bulbs I've had with zero connectivity issues ever across several years, whereas every other brand I've tried has been very unreliable.
I'm in the same boat. Nothing else is as rock solid or has the color accuracy of Hue. You can immediately tell when it's some random brand
Hue also peaks at 20 W sources which leave even small room in the dark (for comparison, I have 70 W of LED lighting in the kitchen central light).
Ideally for good lighting you do want multiple lower power lights than a single mini sun
Half of the sun shines upwards, to brighten up the ceiling and corners, but yes, I agree.
It sounds similar to a lot of US products. They outsource all production to China, then China essentially start making copies of their products and charging a fraction of the price.
As a cyclist (and former racer), I still want to know how to capture videos with telemetry overlays (speed, power, HR, etc) from my head unit in a straightforward way. NorCal Cycling's videos - https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling - are an excellent demonstration of this at work.
Yes, I've done the Garmin VIRB Edit thing, which is the very approach recommended by Jeff (NorCalCycling) in his tutorial videos on the subject. It feels like something out of 2005. It is incredibly labour-intensive and imprecise unless you're fortunate enough to be in relatively short criteriums where you've got the battery runtime to just record the whole race. Most real-world events and rides require one to turn the camera on and off at certain moments, which then requires _hours_ of stitching together clips and correlating them to GPS fixes from the head unit (in the FIT file), and quite imprecisely at that.
There has to be a more 2026 solution to this. All you need to do is correlate the footage to the FIT data points by timestamp, in the temporal domain.
If Garmin came out with one, it would absolutely annihilate this space. To the best of my knowledge, there is no competition that offers anything turn-key, though perhaps the best of my knowledge has not aged well and by now there is something. It's maddening.
Sounds like you want https://goprotelemetryextractor.com/telemetry-overlay-gps-vi... — feed it your GoPro footage, your Garmin FIT file, set up your gauges as you so desire and you’re off to the races (or the rendering at least). I suspect a lot of cycling Vloggers use it.
That’s really impressive - to anyone passing through, the video is with a watch.
Thank you! This looks like it might be the ticket.
Dunno if useful, but in RC hobby area we have had OSD (on-screen displays) for decades. Both in analog and digital video, with recording (analog OSD there's just a small chip). Although analog is probably not relevant for you -- quality is crap and you don't care about milliseconds latency as we do, so go with digital (and not HDZero, they are technically digital, but heavily invested in low-latency, for pro racers).
Just don't buy DJI -- they absolutely want lock you in to their tools, parts are often not compatible even within DJI, require to create an online account, require an app (from a custom .apk on android) and in general have questionable privacy.
Of the open-source systems there's a new OpenIPC system with a most popular implementation of RunCam WifiLink 2 that supports onboard SD card recording [1] [2].
More proprietary (but still cross-compatible with others) is Walksnail Avatar V2 [3] with 32GB of internal storage.
For your case, you don't need a VRX (receiver), although you can totally give it your your buddies to see your race (with OSD) in real time. VRX can be built-in to goggles (if the same company), or as a separate module that connects to your preferred goggles over mini-HDMI, also with recording. [4] [5]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP7Ns7H9wvI&t=49s
[2] https://shop.runcam.com/action-camera-categorie/
[3] https://www.caddxfpv.com/products/walksnail-avatar-hd-kit-v2
[4] https://shop.runcam.com/runcam-wifilink-rx/
[5] https://www.caddxfpv.com/products/walksnail-avatar-fpv-vrx-o...
Insta360 does this out of the box.
Does it?
I guess I should say it has some capabilities in this area.
Been a while since I used it, but it will generate the overlays and you can sync it with your ride data (eg Strava or Apple Health in my case, but iirc it also supports Garmin Connect).
There are some capability differences between the mobile app and the Insta360 studio desktop app.
I'm pretty sure it handled multiple files, but in my case they were the chunks that the camera splits its recording into, which is a bit different than than having multiple clips as you described.
No, it doesn't. Gopro actually hss gps and sensors built in, most dji cameras don't (does any?). You need extra hardware, or provide the data yourself. While in gopro you just enable it on the clip.
Of courses, for more advanced stuff you might want to provide the telemetry yourself (like the gopro doesn't know your wattage). But it does have much more than dji out of the box.
Am I wrong in thinking you could do this with ffmpeg, your video files, and your data from Strava/Garmin/whatever? This feels like a program an LLM (or human!) could write pretty easily
You would think it would be that straightforward. However, accurate synchronisation on GPS or temporal attributes would be required.
Judging by the paucity of software to do this, historically, it is not a straightforward problem, or all the devices involved don't generate all the data points required.
The real mess is when you have 26 clips from a long event to string together. It can easily take a day and a half to make a 3 minute montage out of that.
it's not as hard as you're making it seem, you just allow for a positive or negative time offset and rely on the devices counting seconds similarly, which is mostly a given now.
I did this with raw footage and a VESC speed controller dump to overlay a bunch of motor stats on a prior project, this was pre-AI and it was still only an afternoon project.
ffmpeg/image-magick do all the real heavy lifting out of the box.
This sounds like something Claude Code could do very easily. If you need to actually look at the videos that's harder but still possible, but if it's just aligning GPS times and timestamps with reasonably accurate clocks, Claude Could probably do the ffmpeg commands unsupervised. I wouldn't be surprised if Haiku (the cheapest model) could do it, or an open-source agent harness with another small 30B model.
Just prompting claude (probably I would start with Opus) "I would like a HUD display of the following metrics from my Fit file overlayed on these GoPro videos, and I'd like the videos stitched together (there are some gaps, I want seamless playback) it would probably do it in 30 minutes or less, and the majority of the time would probably be ffmpeg.
Yeah I had a little script to do something similar (no video, but merging data) just for Strava recording a while back. Had forgotten all about it until this description & 'FIT files'.
Video's a bit more complex no doubt, but like you say all the pieces are there, SMoP.
I truly hate to suggest this, but the meta vanguard nails this to a tee.
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/10/oakley-meta-vanguard-rev...
Hey, there has to be a legitimate use-case somewhere. Thank you!
When I was looking to buy an action camera last year, I was deciding between Insta360 and DJI, with many YouTubers suggesting outright against GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality.
Action cameras sound like a tough business, since most of them are built to last ages, and they need to keep the vast majority of content creators happy trying to increase image quality in a small form factor.
Anyway, I bought the Insta360 Go Ultra I had my mind on from the start, which I'm still reasonably happy with.
So you don’t realize most you tube influencers using dji or insta360 are being paid to use them? That’s the main reason I’ve seen YouTubers switch. The Chinese brands absolutely flood content creators with free gear and support.
Having owned a number of GoPros, I made the same switch last year.
The Insta360 has super annoying/intrusive software that always feels like it's trying to sell me something, but it's pretty excellent in terms of actual video quality.
I don't really use the software, not even for updates.
I copy out the footage directly using a USB-C cable (wish it had USB 3.0), and do firmware updates by just dropping the update file into the microSD card.
It's friggin' fabulous that everything is doable without having to use an app. (Also the app takes up somewhere between 1-2GB of storage on my phone, and I don't have that kind of space.)
That's fine for flat videos, but 360 videos usually need processing before they're usable. I'm unsure if there are other software options that handle Insta360 360 videos well.
When 360 videos first started to become viable, all we had were looking at the flattened image. It took a bit to get used to. Eventually, the filters caught up so you could slide the rotation around to keep action centered which made things simple in comparison.
> many YouTubers suggesting outright against GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality.
Fyi: This is a lie, the youtubers are paid to tell you this.
Yeah, but I also looked at many different videos to evaluate quality myself, and GoPro wasn't great.
Your statement is so broad that it cannot be true.
It's factually incorrect that gopro hasn't kept up with image quality. One independent comparison I saw for instance put the gp13 in front of the others in most situations except low light. So if anything it's contested who's better/worse, far far from the statement in those videos.
It's factually correct and widely known that lots of tech "reviewers" get paid by the competition to shill products, was a whole scandal even with how Insta360 was caught telling reviewers not to mention their sponsorship. The contracts also often forbid them do do direct comparisons. Also funny how there will be a hundred identical reviews, as they all got the same script.
So, my statement is true. If you've watched a couple of videoes telling you to buy dji/insta360, it's very very likely you've been lied to.
So, ball is in your court.
It’s the classic situation. China can outcompete all this stuff. It doesn’t really matter. Roomba, GoPro, they’re all going to be crushed by Chinese manufacturers. You just can’t get the margins to work anywhere else and if you do the R&D you’re a sucker.
I’ve had a few GoPros and a few GoPro 360s. I also had Roombas so you can blame me as the brand killer.
If you look at these US high-tech consumer products, many companies started out much “simpler”. GoPro was a disposable film camera and a wrist-strap, and iteratively got to where it is today. The iPod came out much before the iPhone. As you say, the R&D is a hard sell when you have to go from 0 product to a fully featured state-of-the-art. Somehow, these Chinese companies can spend years copying and then once locked in go on a new-features blitz.
So why doesn't the US do it in reverse? Surely there's some R&D going on in China that US can reverse engineer.
They need to learn Chinese first, then to watch Chinese forums.
Bad examples. Roomba and GoPro failed to their own complacency while competition jumped over them.
Car industry is better example, west tech export just to get cheaper prices fueled the growth of local companies that then outcompeted the west by just industrial might.
Is GoPro not manufactured in China?
Some in China, but also Thailand and Mexico. They seem to be playing whack-a-mole with manufacturing contractors and changes to tariff policy.
I'm just surprised that an American brand making electronics lasted this long. Even Japanese companies are giving up. No one can compete with China.
Apple somehow reigns supreme still. Anyone else?
A whole bunch of American and Western multinational companies design hardware in Western countries and manufacture them in China.
The manufacturing isn’t usually the most valuable part of the value chain. E.g., Apple makes the most money when you sell you an iPhone, not their Chinese and Indian factory suppliers and assemblers.
GoPro isn’t failing because they’re an American brand. They’re failing because they’re mismanaged and they made a bunch of product mistakes.
If you want more examples I can give them to you: Google hardware/phones, HP, Dell, Sonos, Bose, Ubiquiti, Cisco, Nvidia, Qualcomm.
Most Japanese corporations still do a lot of their design work in Japan. Sony even does manufacturing of Raspberry Pi devices in Wales.
And of course, speaking of Sony, the money maker for that console is in software, and most of Sony’s studios are in Western countries like the US and Japan. The manufacture of the console is the lowest value part of the business.
Companies that have significant manufacturing and fabrication outside of China/Taiwan: Intel, IBM, GlobalFoundries, ON Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Whisker (Litter Robot), and a very large percentage of the automotive industry.
Large appliances brands have a heavy presence in the US, Canada, and Mexico, including LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, GE appliances, Speed Queen, SubZero/Wolf/Cove, BSH Home Appliances (Bosch/Thermador), Electrolux.
KitchenAid mixers, Vitamix, Viking Range, BlueStar.
Igloo coolers, All-Clad, Lodge, Post-It notes, Darn Tough Socks…
That’s a great list of targets to kill. Things like Vitamix should get undercut by 300 % with same or better quality.
Some of them are expensive luxury items like Vitamix but a whole lot of cheap appliances that compete with overseas brands are made in the US.
When you have an item that is big and heavy to ship, it doesn’t primarily involve electronics fabrication work, labor time per item is relatively low, and you build it in Tennessee/Alabama, making it in the US isn’t really a cost problem.
Most of those appliance brands have become expensive enshittified garbage, or are legendary brands that have been bought up (e.g. KitchenAid used to be a Hobart brand, it's now owned by Whirlpool. Their stand mixers used to last generations; the new ones have a lot of plastic parts inside them). I have one of the original Cuisinart food processors that my mom bought in the 1970s. The base/motor unit is heavy and it still works today. The brand today is now just a label on Conair kitchen gadgets.
Some have held out. Speed Queen are still made in Wisconsin. I will be looking at them when I need to replace my laundry machines, which I expect in the next couple of years.
A lot of what you’re saying is essentially not relevant, because even the enshittified brands are still designing and manufacturing/performing final assembly in Western countries.
Not their entire product lineups, but still a good chunk of them, especially for heavier and physically larger appliances. Your future speed queen might be just as American as if you had bought a cheap GE.
I don’t know where it’s made (probably not the US) but Cuisinart still makes the classic heavy AF food processor, if you’re interested in that.
As a side note, I don’t find that heavy weight or an older design/more metal parts has that much to do with quality or longevity. A lot of old stuff was heavy because material science had fewer options to work with. A motor assembly being made of cast iron doesn’t make it magically last longer. For example, my KitchenAid stand mixer is definitely the newer kind that has plastic parts inside, but it has never needed service and has been getting regular use for a decade with no degradation. Believe it or not I even have a notoriously unreliable Samsung washer and dryer from 2012 that are still going with zero maintenance. It even has a stupid touch screen and, yep, that works flawlessly.
Maybe the bar is low to consider that impressive but I think the point is that a lot of things getting cost cut has been somewhat logical. I see new buy it for life toasters on the market like the Lotus brand selling for $350. I just replaced a $40 Cuisinart garbage toaster that lasted 3 years and died. Chinese off brands built to similar quality by the same factories without the western brand name cost about $20.
So, do the math on that. The Lotus toaster has to last somewhere between 25 and 50 years to reach cost break-even compared to a cheap toaster.
The same math maths for speed queen washers and dryers. They are a great kit but they cost 4x more than a normal washer and dryer. If you conservatively estimate that a cheap washer/dryer lasts 6 years, you’re at 24 years before that speed queen breaks even.
If we are going to combat the economic reality of numbers like these then we need to start taxing disposal.
This puts no value on the costs that unreliable and poorly built appliances add to your life.
A dead toaster is a minor inconvenience. You can go without toast for quite a while. and a toaster can be replaced at any department store. You can carry it home and plug it in. Or order one online and have it at your door the next day. They are cheap enough and unimportant enough that there's no real downside to making price the dominant consideration.
A dead washing machine is a bigger deal, especially if your household has a few kids. You can't go without doing the laundry for very long. Replacing a large appliance involves scheduling a delivery and possibly installation, and maybe the schedule is already full until next week and you'll have to take a day off work to be home for that. I'll pay quite a bit extra to avoid that any more often than necessary. And that doesn't consider the value of the daily satisfaction of using well made appliances. They feel solid, they work without glitches, they are quiet, they are consistent, you don't worry about them.
Even with a toaster some of that applies. I've had toasters that were a daily annoyance to use. They burnt the toast, or toasted unevenly, sometimes randomly, or if you were making a lot of toast the subsequent batches would come out differently from the first. It's worth something to have a toaster that just reliably makes toast, the same way, every day.
What you’re saying makes sense. Obviously changing out appliances is a big hassle.
I would also say that a whole lot of people really either can’t afford to drop $2k on a washing machine or would much rather spend that elsewhere, inconvenience notwithstanding.
At the toaster level, at least in my case the cheap toaster isn’t a daily annoyance, the only annoyance is that it broke. In the modern day that means a replacement arrives at my door in less than 24 hours.
It is a bit dystopian/Cyberpunk-ish, yes. We aren’t getting the Star Trek vision of the future unfortunately. We can see how both corporate incentives and market preferences have spoken.
I will pick an odd example. I was shocked to learn that SpaceX manufactures its ground satellite dishes (that customers need to buy) in Texas. They make more than five million units per year, and are looking to double that number. I am surprised that they did not outsource it to China. Maybe they are concerned about intellectual property theft. Still, that must be a hefty "tax" to pay to manuf in US instead of China.
A common theme between Tesla and SpaceX is obsessive vertical integration. SpaceX is building liquid oxygen (not sure about methane) production facilities at Boca Chica. That way they can make their own and not have to pay for the margin. As for Starlink, they must have found a way to do it better or cheaper or both. On a tangent, the manufacturing expertise in both companies is as impressive as their end products.
Apple is China.. hence "Designed by Apple in California"
The GoPros aren’t manufactured in the US either.
> The GoPros aren’t manufactured in the US either.
True. Virtually nothing is.
Though its probably worth noting that Apple's approach to China exists at a much more integrated and larger scale than your average US (or other western) electronics company and is more akin to a fully integrated partnership with various entities like Foxconn than the typical "let's offshore the manufacturing stage" that most other companies take.
Apple isn't exactly competing with China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China
At the manufacturing level it largely isn't, no, though as others have pointed out Apple at least still has the ability to explore options outside China. But Apple represents a lack of vertical integration for its big Chinese suppliers like Foxconn, an American middleman taking a big slice of the revenues and profits which come from the customer. One thing to note is that Android isn't all that different, as phone makers still have to tithe to Google.
One factor (mentioned at https://bsky.app/profile/rajakorman.bsky.social/post/3mqubnh... for instance) is Western distrust of the Chinese government and the regulatory barriers erected from both sides. TikTok's probably a good case study. There was a conspicuous lack of Chinese software companies having success in the Western consumer market before TikTok. Building TikTok involved creating a new product aimed at RoW which was separate from its original Chinese model, Douyin. And then after TikTok Western success was still elusive, to some extent, as the US government snatched away Bytedance's toy.
Though even beyond tech and other politically sensitive areas China's generally been pretty slow at generating RoW-consumer-facing products and brands. There's also the slightly remarkable fact that historically (and even to some extent still today) GUIs have been extremely, mysteriously hard for large companies worldwide to do well. The main exception have tended to either be called "Apple" or have dedicated themselves to copying Apple's homework: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22288221 .
(I am not an expert on anyhthing.)
Apple manufacturing is entirely Indian and Chinese.
While GoPro is made in Thailand.
America is just where their marketing teams hang out...
Mac Mini will be made in Houston (they already make their own servers there) https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...
Is it common in American factories to have US flags hanging on the walls similar to how dictators like to hang their portraits in factories? Never seen that in the (admitted small amount) of factories I've visited around in Europe, but tends to also give off a bit of "too much nationalism" vibe around here unless there is a special event, the US flag seems to be treated differently in the US so maybe it's a common sight?
I keep forgetting that there is a requirement to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in US schools [1], which is just mind-boggling to me, and it's never something they proudly advertise through their propaganda arm of Hollywood. In hundreds of US-produced shows set in US schools, that detail is always conveniently omitted.
Here's how it works for the non-Americans of us:
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart.
Remembering this often-forgotten detail puts a lot of US culture and behaviour in perspective. Also let's not forget the Bellamy salute, in use for 50 years until 1942: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
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1: and in congressional sessions, government meetings at local levels, and meetings held by many private organizations, according to Wikipedia
> I keep forgetting that there is a requirement to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in US schools
There most certainly is not. The pledge is common in schools but the Supreme Court has ruled no one is required to participate and cannot be punished for non-participation. Is it still weird? Sure. But it’s not required.
"Not required" but my teachers made it abundantly clear what they thought of being forced to allow ungrateful troublemakers to disrespect their country.
I always disliked the Pledge and began to strongly dislike it after moving away from the religion it tries to establish as the national religion, but I was keenly aware that picking this fight would cost me considerable political capital and chose not to.
Somehow nobody ever bothers to mention to the kids that it's not required.
How many schools still do it, though? Honestly you could tell me it was almost universal or very rare, and I'd have to believe you either way.
Of course, Canada was doing the freaking Lord's Prayer in schools until freaking 1988. I don't know about other countries, but wouldn't be surprised.
In the US schools I'm familiar with, it's "not required" kind of like how it's not required to attend meetings at work. Nobody's forcing you, but it will be noticed and there will be consequences.
> there will be consequences
What sort of consequences? I'm guessing the US got rid of corporal punishment, and since it's optional, could they give like detention and stuff for it? Or is this more about being bullied/similar by peers?
When I was in school decades ago, the consequences were that the teacher would single you out and scold you to “follow directions”, maybe they’d do whatever write up for not following directions. I’m sure in some places kids got detention or letters sent home to their parents, etc.
Also the US did not get rid of corporal punishment entirely, the south still has it in some places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment_in_...
Sometimes it's not even direct consequences. You stand out as "that kid" and suddenly, you aren't given the benefit of the doubt the next time there is some kind of conflict at school. Or you are held to the rules -just a bit- more strictly than everyone else. Or, if your grade is on the border between a B+ and A-, they'll give you the B where they give the more obedient kids the A. When you become "that kid" the consequences can be almost invisible and insidious.
At least in the US, teachers and administrators are given rather broad latitude to treat students differently, without requiring justification and very often based on their own personal biases and prejudices.
The irony of (teacher) reciting a pledge in support of 'liberty and justice for all' and then falling apart because a child has tried to use some of that liberty, then wishing and perpetuating injustice upon them in retaliation, is strong.
If one's ideals fall over so easily, what would happen in the event of an actual serious attack on those ideals?
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I had to do the pledge in early elementary school. It didn't continue forever. Not sure if people still do it. I do agree it's disturbing. Interestingly we once read a book in school that featured a character who refused to say the pledge and got in trouble for it. IIRC it was a case of "you aren't technically required to do this but they'll give you a hard time if you're the only one not doing it".
I stopped doing it when I was in high school (I just stood there) and no one cared. This would have been about 22 years ago
It didn't seem mind-boggling during the cold war. But I guess it does now.
In general, we Americans really, really love our country. Our flag still represents values tied closely to our revolutionary war and and independence. Obviously the flag gets wrapped around all sorts of causes, even contradictory ones, but that core kernel of shared values is truly universal.
So as individuals we choose to fly the flag a lot.
And if you don’t worship the flag in just the right way you suffer the consequences.
I much prefer this over how scared we are here in Sweden of our own flag.
> "but that core kernel of shared values is truly universal."
Which values? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." does not seem to be upheld very strongly in the USA.
What about women's rights and abortion upturned by the current government, why are Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality needed 50 years after Martin Luther King, what about thousands of people disappeared by Trump's ICE, what about the enormous wealth inequality where the wealthy seem to be a lot more 'equal' than the plebs, what about nobody being punished for the 2008 financial crisis or the Epstein events or the Jan 6th attempted coup? Or the unwillingness of so many people to wear masks during COVID out of respect for their fellow Americans?
How can you claim a "core kernel of universal shared values" without nation-wide universal health care, workers rights, liveable minimum wage, things that demonstrate a fundamental belief in equality and shared values??
> How can you claim a "core kernel of universal shared values" without nation-wide universal health care, workers rights, liveable minimum wage, things that demonstrate a fundamental belief in equality and shared values??
Because the US shared values are not your values. Everything you mentioned are socialist pipe dreams, especially the equality one. None of us are equal to each other. Some of us are good at something, others at something else. This equality crap needs to die rather sooner than later.
Make America Great Again!
I'm not american but afaik it's very common. The US is on a different level though, see the flags in the suburbia, the pledge of allegiance in school's every morning etc.
But I'd say it's not "too much nationalism" rather the average american is defintiely more patriotic than an average european (who can then again be anyone from the UK to Poland to Moldova) but you get my point
I am American who has lived in many countries around the world, and I think this is distinctly wrong and the source of many problems in the US.
It would be more correct to say that the average American values outward displays of nationalism more, and has a more negative perception of those who do not appreciate or want to participate in those displays than people in most other countries. And yes, they conflate this with 'patriotism'. However, this is almost completely performative and lacks real substance, as is proven by the typically far more selfish attitude towards their fellow citizens, and is exemplified by the constant historical failures to provide significant funding for projects designed to help rather than harm others.
Europeans and people from other countries around the world are often fiercely in love with their countries. They just tend not to love the idea of noisily jumping up to gaudily beat their own drum. So yes, the average American thinks they are more nationalistic, when in fact they are just more tribal and crude about their nationalism than what is typically found in other countries around the world. If only our nationalism were taken a bit more seriously than our affiliation with a sports team, which is in theory just for fun and entertainment, that would be an improvement.
I disagree with this, I've noticed that the countries rising to prominence are quite nationalistic and the ones fading into obscurity are very post-national.
> Europeans and people from other countries around the world are often fiercely in love with their countries.
I would also disagree with this, I think it's profoundly uncool to love your country in many parts of Europe—think the UK and especially Germany.
The Europeans that did actually fiercely love their country that I've met were all Poles or Serbs that were gaudily beating their own drum.
What problems do you think arise from nationalism in it's current form in the US?
> I think it's profoundly uncool to love your country in many parts of Europe—think the UK and especially Germany.
I think that's because you're focusing on outward displays in exactly the way GP was talking about. It's profoundly uncool to be a flag-shagger, but Brits do very much love their country deep down, in the ways that really matter.
I don't think they value displaying nationalism more, nationalists tend to be very vocal and visible, it's just that the US is full of nationalists. It really is the biggest issue with the US, and why the orange man is president.
I think you missed my point, which is that in the US, people typically described as nationalists tend to be pseudo-nationalists who value pomp and ceremony, but not substantial concrete actions to better their country or actual real care and love for their fellow countrymen. In terms of percentage of the population who value and love their national identity, we are no different than anywhere else.
See https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/02/17/what-makes-peo... and especially note that the US is one of the top countries for percentage of population with primarily negative views of their country, at 20%.
Leadership in European countries is so routinely in conflict with their people who understand the inalienable rights of the people so well. I wonder where that comes from.
You're not wrong that the American public is largely out of touch with the fundamentals of a free society.
> Leadership in European countries is so routinely in conflict with their people
> I wonder where that comes from.
> Leadership
Democracy is great but that elected leaders seek reelection at the expense of the common folk isn't something new, those in power will naturally seek more power.
The problem is that Americans look at vulnerable people and billionaires like they individually deserved their fate. The cult of merit.
If the current events don't make you think it's not nationalism, then I'm wondering what nationalism even is
Nationalism is just one of the many vehicles here used to try and grow power and influence by people that seek it. For many in power it's not even real nationalism - it's not love for the country and the people in it, it's a type of tribal drum beat. It's just a symbol to attach to.
When I was younger, I would have thought that, but now I have trouble distinguishing nationalism and white supremacism when I see enthusiastic usage of flags/pledges.
Patriotism is soft nationalism, and any of either is too much.
It is common but I think these displays in the press release are for the photo. I would expect to see a large flag on a tall pole outside most large factories, but inside the decorations will range from bland, to company-oriented, to patriotic.
A defense plant probably has more outward signs of patriotism.
If you dig a little you will find that the US is a very nationalistic country, more so than even communist countries.
US flag is everywhere. Indoor weightlifting gyms, hanging inside large hangers for aircraft, in schools, factories outside your company HQ on the flagpole, etc.
It is not uncommon to have national and state flags, but it is not similar to how dictators like to hang their portraits. It is meant more to show pride of what you build together as a people, rather than to evoke fear and obeisance.
That said, this may have also been a photo op, and given the image is from texas, there are probably portraits of a dictator hanging around, too.
Also he dictatorship are (officially) pride of doing their work for the state as Americans work multiple jobs in fear of losing their paychecks, their health insurance.
Do you really think someone waving their country's flag is the same as waving a flag with the face of a dictator? Worldwide?
This thread was about omnipresent flag presence in factories and such. And the way it's done in America is different from many other countries.
It was actually about the occasional presence of a flag in a factory, particularly in photo ops.
Is it? The car dealership near where I grew up had a 100 foot tall pole with a Canadian flag at least 10 feet wide, probably more. And that's a car dealership... Flags were everywhere: gyms, offices, banks, schools, etc... Can't say I toured any factories to specifically know if they were there, but I'm guessing yes.
Of course now it's different, the flag is less common, to the point in my home province (Alberta) you see more Albertan flags than Canadian ones...
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So we Americans love our kickass flag…so what? It wasn’t until relatively recent times that it became intertwined with whatever the fuck our current president stands for (for the next 12 seconds).
I’ve had a US flag up on my house for the past 15 years. This country has been good to the son of European immigrants. It’s far from perfect but I love my country. Meanwhile my European cousins, aunts and uncles are scraping by.
Why do Americans think their flag is kickass?
The US is weird about its flag, I think because nationalism wasn't seen as a bad thing up until recently. These days it's much weirder to see an American flag, and usually you know it has something to do with MAGAs. The weird thing to me is how you see one massive one in the luggage retrieval area when you arrive in JFK (in New York). Always makes me sigh
>These days it's much weirder to see an American flag, and usually you know it has something to do with MAGAs. The weird thing to me is how you see one massive one in the luggage retrieval area when you arrive in JFK (in New York). Always makes me sigh
This has to be a troll post. Associating the US flag with MAGA? Sighing because a major international airport has a large flag hanging over the baggage area? Come on.
Yes. The right wing in the US has spent a lot of money and time co-opting the flag as a signal.
To not realize this to me means you either haven't been paying attention, or very much live in a bubble. This is not new.
https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/02/...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/the-changing-meani...
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/some-trump-supporters-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/style/donald-trump-americ...
More than half of US independent voters and more than 70% of Democrats believe the flag has right wing, negative connotations now. Only 26-27% of Democrats believe flying the flag would be seen in a positive light now.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/05/poll-patriotism-pol...
In Canada it used to be common to have Canadian flags everywhere. It's only recently that we became a self-hating country.
> similar to how dictators like to hang their portraits
Insane comparison as the idea of a free country is fundamentally different than the cult of personality that dictators create.
you have no idea. lol
The fact that the European flag isn't seen anywhere in Europe tells you a lot about how people really feel about the E.U.
People in these comments are saying the US flag just represents white supremacy to them now...
The media has really done a number on us, basically throughout the West. I don't know enough about other area's media to comment.
In my country you, as a civilian, fly the national flag for the equivalent of July 4th, and for big personal events like graduations. Flag merchandise is of course also worn in support of the national sports teams.
Outside of that the main people flying national flags are government institutions, who usually have it up right next to a European flag and a flag of the institution, like a local municipality.
The European flag is also plastered over billboards next to all kinds of EU-funded construction projects, of course, and is on literally every single Euro bill.
So no, someone's feelings about an institution are not inherently linked to the success of its empty propaganda campaigns.
I'm not a friend of nationalism, but I believe that it's a trade-off: of you want to be open to immigration, of the kind that pulls in newcomers, inviting them to become a part of the place they move to, instead of remaining outsiders, you have to give them plenty of opportunity to identify with their new home. Of course these days, we see the American flag used a lot in ways completely opposite to this, but that does not change the great progressive value national symbols could provide.
I'm looking at GoPro packaging here that says "Made in Thailand".
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.
Apple reigns supreme because of China - and the two are inextricably linked. China would not have its high-tech manufacturing prowess if it were not for Apple. The book Apple In China [1] highlights how millions of cheap laborers and the country's engineers took the lessons of working with Apple to solidify its edge in this space in a way nobody can catch up to today.
China took the long-term greedy approach to invest in the relationship. We see the US today taking equity stakes in Intel and trying to play catchup by using elements of the same playbook. The US's advantage remains in the more "intangible" side of the process: creativity, design, new tech. In a global economy with free trade, this is all fine. But China never "westernized" itself as was expected from the increase in global trade. Now the US is back pedaling, trying to jump start its manufacturing. It will take a long time...
The book is a good page-turning read. I recommend it.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668053373
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.
That's because America ban anything that starts to compete, like Huawei or Chinese car companies
Huawei had spyware and backdoors in their gear, and they use forced labor in their factories. I think they earned a ban.
is the spyware in the room with us?
Consumer electronics, yes. For defense, though, American companies very much still make electronics.
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.
Largely because they've been producing in China for quite awhile. Now India too.
Apple reigns because you can't buy Chinese brands in the US
Apple still stand because of Software which China sucks at. Good thing the US is not about to destroy its software industry by investing all of its money on AI.
Apple has an excellent mobile OS, which is enough of a loyal userbase that they can make a hardware mistake once in a while and still retain customers. They're less hardware-dependent than most device manufacturers. This also enables them to lag behind the state of the art if it means more reliable/consistent performance. Which is why you don't see a folding Apple phone yet, and why Samsung was able to score points against Apple by having longer battery life and a better camera. This also allows them to demand high quality from their factories.
Is apple making electronics? I thought they are made in India and China.
Manufacturing is primarily in China - that's true for Go Pro & everyone else and almost needless to say. The point is China usually eats the design layer too, making Apple a little unique in that they survived Chinese competition completely unscathed.
Mac Mini will be made in Houston (they already make their own servers there) https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...
Apple is one of the few brands I completely expect to be able to genuinely pull this off.
Their volumes are high enough that they will literally build an entire factory from scratch to produce a single product line, they are far enough up the luxury ladder that a few extra dollar in labour won't hurt them too badly, and the contracts with their suppliers are significant enough that they don't need the short supply lines of a Shenzhen and can just demand their suppliers Get It Done.
Having a domestic factory won't hurt Apple, and with an erratic President who'll flip on tariffs twice a week it's a sensible hedge against his inevitable next meltdown.
I bought my first GoPro for a scuba diving trip in Mexico once. Was super excited, it was my first scuba diving experience too.
As soon as we hit deeper waters the capture button pressed itself down due the pressure and it wouldn’t come back up. That, unfortunately happened in a way that I couldn’t start a capture. Lost the entire thing, despite the camera being perfectly fine after we came back to surface.
Hated them ever since.
For scuba diving you will want to have a house for the camera regardless of brand. It not only lower the risk of damages, but it is also more explicitly designed for depth without needing to compromising for non-divers.
That said, GoPro is not the best for low light environments, and the battery is a bit temperature sensitive, both which can be an issue when diving.
GoPros (at least the early generations) required a special housing for use in water. My first GoPro was a 2 I believe and I bought it for scuba and it was terrible. Then the newer models came out promising better performance for diving, so I upgraded... and it was terrible as well. Gave up on GoPros after being sucked in twice and not getting the results I was hoping for. It was ok for other things, but anything involving water was not great.
I believe things eventually got sorted out for water use, but I was no longer a customer.
Totally, I had the 4th generation one, and I used their water case enclosing. It was less than 30m deep, and within their safe range.
Hahahah. Do you seriously just take random objects deep underwater and expect them to be designed to withstand that sort of an environment?
Was the GoPro you bought rated up to that depth or something? After a cursory look online, they're only rated down to 10m, which is about what I'd expect.
It was rated 30m, I went down less than that, and I used their enclosing thingy. Yes, I did expect it to work as their marketing team managed to convince me of such.
It wasn't a random object, it was a camera marketed for such environment.
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I had a GoPro Hero 7 and 8. In the -10c snow they battery wouldn't even last for 5 minutes. It's a bad product and just like with cars and solar the Chinese are ruthlessly out-engineering the west.
TheOutdoorBoys youtube channel mentioned something about special batteries for cold temps. -10c for many of his hiking and camping trips isn't unusual, and (as I understand it) he did weekly videos with Go Pros for a decade. He probably knows a thing or two.
This is true. They sell special "winter batteries" now. What a poor decision...
I had the same problem with (I think) a Hero 3 over a decade ago; given snow sports is a key use case, this is poor.
I never understood if I was supposed to turn it completely off on the ski lifts or leave it in “sleep” for best battery life, and like you say the battery in the cold was just disappointing. Some irony though with another HN commenter having an overheating issue.
I stopped buying go pros when I drove from the top of Mt Blue Sky to the base. Had the camera mounted on my dashboard, planned to make a cool time lapse down the mountain road.
Turns out it overheated 15 minutes into the drive, and corrupted all the footage from my whole ski trip.
I'm also still salty that they cancelled my favorite fast video editing software (can't remember the name).
This was 8 years ago.
we barely ever use our GoPro 8 BLACK. I decided to take it with me skiing and turned it on for a crazy ride down. When I got back I wanted to show my GF the footage and it just had frozen video, only playing sound.
I thought they were meant to be really robust and hardy but it decided not to work when I needed it and now I don't really trust them tbh. It's sort of opposite of what the brand was leading me to believe.
Contrary to the popular opinion in the rest of the comments, I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware, a lot of thought into usability for professionals, many accessories, and hackable with official firmware from the company.
The "problem" is that I don't use it that often. Most people do not need action footage regularly. It was more like a impulse/hobby buy rather than a need.
>I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware
I have the same model and hate it. Damn thing overheats constantly. It has never been able to do 4K60 for more than ~twenty minutes even with a full-blast AC vent pointed directly at it. It still overheats periodically when doing 1080P60 too, but a lot less often and usually only in situations where I am also uncomfortbly warm.
More than zero overheating is unacceptable though considering I have to notice it happened, turn it back on, dismiss the warning, and restart recording. Pic from literally just today, July 18th: https://ibb.co/chPq0N8g
> and hackable with official firmware from the company.
GoPro Labs works really well, https://gopro.com/en/us/info/gopro-labs
But it's a bit sad how long their expirements lives there before making it into the default firmware.
They missed the chance to make PC camera just before Covid or during it or now as another revenue stream. They have a hacky way to get it to work but they should have made one specifically for the PC and meeting settings.. Cisco and others make a killing in that space
All GoPros since HERO 8 (released 2019) works as a webcam without any hacks, just plug it in.
not on the macos. Hero9 (or 10 i dont remember) owner here.
I loved the product early on, but they became the Adobe Creative Cloud of cameras. Play dumb subscription games win dumb prizes.
Gopro has been garbage for years now.
Heck in youtube videos you'll occasionally hear "for some reason my gopro is really hot and smells like burning plastic".
Happens to every big brand, really.
My guess is that action cameras are 20 % need (professionals, documentary crews etc) and 80 % fashion (people buying them and them using them for a few shots twice a year on the holiday), and the fashion component peak is over.
These days you can buy mini cameras for a few bucks on AliExpress, so no wonder.
any recommendation?
Are you looking for Good or Great?
If you just need Good, there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps with output that is more than sufficient for any non-professional use.
I don't have a brand recommendation off hand, because the ones I've bought have been random names, but they've all been more than enough. As a reference, I've used them for capturing footage for training machine vision systems, and some general purpose marketing videos. I'm not a "creator", so I paid no attention to editing features, clip hosting, or any of those things.
Amazon sometimes gets some hate here, but I usually just buy there because the returns process is so simple. In the random case I get a product that turned out to be deceptive advertising, I drop it at Whole Foods and have a credit before I leave the parking lot. And I have the product in hand in 48 hours at most.
> there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps
I have to very strongly disagree with this sentiment. I have personally tested quite a few no-name "4K 60fps" cameras from Amazon and AliExpress. Many of them upscale from 1080 - which is fine I guess - but then in 60fps will use a crop sensor and upscale from like ~640. Even with the more recognizable SJCam and Akaso brands, unless you're paying ~$200 - you're going to get upscaling, bad color science, bad image distortion. When comparing against a GoPro 5 (first 4k 60 entry) or 8 (first with USB C) the difference is astounding.
Though perhaps this is the difference between good and great that you refer to - but for me, it's certainly worth getting a used GoPro vs any of these modern cheap alternatives.
Unfortunately current new GoPros don't improve on their existing line enough to justify paying current prices. I wish I could get a new 2018 quality GoPro knockoff for <$200
I'll have to try and dig out a couple of the ones I bought and re-verify this. Really though the 60fps doesn't matter for the majority of users. Even the 4K aspect is overkill for most common things.
ISTR GoPro moved away from Ambarella SoCs several years ago and rolled their own, but most of the other cameras are using Amba, Novatek, etc., and certainly offer great performance for a fraction of the cost of GoPro.
It’s less that 4k 60fps doesn’t matter, but that most mobile cheap cameras are so poor quality that you don’t see much of a difference. The sensors are so small that switching to 60fps leaves less time for the shutter speed so you end up with a noisy image.
On a good camera the difference is stark.
I saw a review on YouTube of a lot of these alternatives, along with the established brands, and in bright sunlight and little movement some were ok but quality was all over.
However once it got a bit darker, or heavy movement, the big brands left the rest in the dust pretty much.
So yeah, do a bit of research and figure out your use-case.
For professional action shots people want 180 degree immersive VR video nowadays.
No one wants this, nobody is watching action footy in VR
Are you serious? Watching skydiving footage in VR is amazing. Flat pictures are nothing compared to it.
> Are you looking for Good or Great?
What about equal-or-better-than-the-same-or-similar-GoPro?
didn't they moved actual hardware production elsewhere outside of US?
typical story. first move out production, loose core competency, let competitors copy it with own brands in own jurisdictions, and shut down business.
American manufacturing is a rounding error, especially when it comes to consumer electronics.
Western manufacturing can't compete with a Shenzhen. Our supply lines suck, our labour is too expensive for any kind of manual work, and we didn't bother to invest in automation as decades of outsourcing made our manufacturers focus on low-volume high-margin products.
No need to steal when our own companies willingly export core competency for a few cents of shareholder value!
This sounds like a choose your path story…
You are a country. You have to decide on your country’s economic model before starting the game. Choose:
- a free market economy. Companies are unhindered by the state to make their own decisions to maximize shareholder value. Decisions therefore lean towards short term profit margins rather than long term success. Influence of the state via elected politicians on a short term is expensive but effective to ensure you are unhindered by regulation. Success here is not aligned with the long term success of the state.
- a quasi free market where there is partial state ownership and control, but also supports free market principles to encourage private investment. The state will heavily subsidize your economy and decisions can be made to prioritize long term global success rather than short term shareholder value.
- a state controlled and state owned economy. All decisions are made by committee. There are no shareholders apart from the state. Success benefits all within the state. Failure also tied directly to the state. Long term goals are preference over short term goals.
Choose carefully. Once your have made your decision the costs to change it are extremely high and will result in societal and economic collapse.
> All decisions are made by committee. There are no shareholders apart from the state. Success benefits all within the state.
I cannot believe there are people on this planet that still believe this. Astounding.
As a scammed customer - this was inevitable. They promised great improvements model over model and didn't deliver.
I bought model 9 and since beginning it overheats, randomly stops recording or just shuts down. There were promises to fix this with firmware updates - didn't happen.
I've owned a bunch of gopros and I feel like they've always had the same kind of bugs. Random crashes, things not working anymore. It's really bad, so bad that I had plenty of videos that were missing sound, or just corruption in general.
Then they started this subscription thing and I was like, finally, they're going the SaaS way, they will make so much money, and they will be able to improve that camera that basically never seems to improve much version after version. I bought a bunch of put options, and I lost all my money, every time I put back some in the put options.
Now I have the insta360 go ultra and... I think go pro is going to die. It's just so good.
You... invested in the crappy company being crappy that did the crappiest thing all the crappy companies do aka start a subscription...
and... -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- got burned by it?
???
If you thought they were going to finally improve with SaaS why did you buy put options?
"Ah so that's why I kept losing money!"
But seriously, safe to assume they meant to say calls and just accidentally wrote the wrong one.
There’s a really good video out there about how GoPro fumbled their position:
https://youtu.be/frrhSJF__Mc
Insta360 is the company that has essentially taken over this space.
I've only owned 2 GoPros, the latest one I purchased back in 2020. I use it mostly for motorsports related content and it did it's job well, but never had a need to replace or upgrade to the latest. Now there's so many options.
IMO the image quality on GoPro is still the best. I don't understand why people say it's horrible. For flat video it outperforms Insta360 and definitely DJI.
> While GoPro action cameras are built to withstand shock, the brand itself is looking distinctly shaky right now. Latest reports[1] are that founder Nicholas Woodman is propping the company up by extending it a loan of his own money to the tune of $20 million, at an annual interest rate of 6.5%, while a buyer is desperately sought. It’s believed GoPro may not survive the year without a new owner or fresh injection of cash, with Woodman’s intervention acting as a stopgap rather than bail-out per se.
$20m is really not much money to operate a company for 6 months. They must be close to break-even at least?
Tale as old as time ... Make a bunch of money from your company, run it into the ground, be the hero that gets paid to keep it afloat.
The harder path is not being a shit CEO.
Is this because of the cost of memory or because the product is no longer competitive?
This article is not very satisfying to read, because it doesn't explore the reasons why GoPro is on the ropes.
From the financials, it's a little of both?
Memory is the acute issue causing their struggles; their most recent quarter saw a gross margin of 4.5% (that's revenue minus the direct cost of producing the cameras, divided by the revenue). That's a hefty fall from their previous margin of ~31%. This contributed to their operating loss of $57M in the last 3 months.
Thag being said, they haven't had a positive quarterly operating income since the last quarter of 2022, even when the margin was higher than 4.5%. So it's not like they were succeeding before the memory crunch, just losing money slower.
Adventure cams lose a market when people can’t afford to go on adventures?
I remember using these on movie sets as crash cams - a cheap camera that could be mounted on something fast-moving so you could get cool action shots without risking the $100k primary camera. But the main selling point for this use-case is that they were cheap, and that’s a fight the Chinese companies will always win.
I slept on GoPro for a long time because, but then wanted to document some outdoor activities. I went with two Hero 5 units and as a photographer, I was shocked by how overhyped these devices seemed to be.
The first surprise was just shoddy electrical engineering: unlike any camera from a big-name manufacturer, they drain the batteries in storage, to the point where they're dead after 2-3 weeks. But that aside, image quality is just poor for the price. It's oversharpened and oversaturated to cover up deficiencies, and that may work for some YouTube videos, but it's a $400 device that's miles behind any $500 mirrorless.
So I get it that if really want to go snorkeling or mountain biking with a camera, this might be a good choice, but that's a tiny market, and for everything else, why would you buy it? If you want cell phone quality video, you can use your cell phone. If you want professional quality, you can spend the same amount of money on a mirrorless from Canon, Panasonic, Sony, or whatever.
the action part of “action camera” is the reason why you buy an action camera. if a normal camera is fine then yeah, you don’t need it.
The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an action camera - to the point that people for a long time called any action camera "a GoPro". Comparing them to smartphones or mirrorless cameras is completely missing their point: nobody would buy them for regular point-and-shoot activity.
You buy a GoPro to mount onto a dirt bike, or on your helmet during caving, or on a chest harness during a skydive, or on the front of your surfboard: all activities where a smartphone or a mirrorless would die on their first use.
GoPro isn't failing because the concept is wrong - the market is massive. GoPro is failing because its competitors started releasing clones which are both better and cheaper. They are the expensive premium brand in a market where buyers expect their product will need to be replaced when it inevitably can't handle the abuse anymore.
it’s very much like iRobot vacuums - more expensive and less performant than the chinese competitors that have totally overtaken the market. iRobot sad story, but so behind. i have a chinese robot from 3i that fills its mop water tank from humidity in the air. and my action camera is an Insta360 that does great 360 video underwater without a case.
> i have a chinese robot from 3i that fills its mop water tank from humidity in the air.
Okay, I definitely want a link for that one. That's either the most awesome hack or the biggest marketing lie ever.
Why is a dehumidifier either a hack or a lie?
smartvacuums.co.uk says a dehumidifier collects 10 - 20 litres of water a day. dehumidifier-rentals.co.uk says 8 - 20 litres a day for a domestic compressor type, or 0.5 - 10 litres per day for a small domestic type. upgradedhome.com says about 4 litres a day.
Sounds plausible for a mop water bucket to fill usefully full between, say, twice-weekly moppings.
every time i post an amazon link people downvote me but i'll do it for you. this is not a referral link, just copied straight from my order history https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGXRQQ3H "3i S10 Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop with WaterRecycle System"
it would be pretty impressive if its a marketing lie, as i've had the robot running for about a year and haven't had to refill the water tank. it's "just" a dehumidifier. i live in miami so plenty of moisture to go around.
My thought was because most cheap, small dehumidifiers are janky crap that almost always result in unhealthy gunk everywhere?
I can certainly see that Miami would have no issue with refilling this though.
No, that's precisely my point. It's only an action camera, and you assert that the market is massive, but I don't see it. Just how many millions of units can you sell to YouTuber spelunkers, YouTuber mountain bikers, YouTuber paragliders, YouTuber divers, and so on?
The reality is that even in "action" situations - the situations where normal people want to capture memories of hiking, biking, boating, etc - normal cameras, including cell phones, are usually more than enough and GoPro somehow managers to be worse.
> Just how many millions of units can you sell
Just how many millions of people do those outdoors activities?
You can't survive selling solely to YouTubers, that's definitely true, but you don't need to. Just like tennis companies don't need to survive solely on selling to Grand Slam competitors. Plenty of people are willing to spend a few hundred bucks on their hobbies if it gives them nice pictures and videos for InstaSnapBookTok and to show off at parties.
And no, normal cameras and smartphones are not enough. They'll do for a casual hike, but they will not survive being attached to a mountain bike going downhill and being shaken to bits. I found out the hard way, it is how I killed my first smartphone. If you disagree: why not try it out yourself with a $1500 flagship phone and report back how it went?
> Just how many millions of people do those outdoors activities?
Many, but that's irrelevant. There are hundreds of thousand of bicycles in my city, and very, very of them have cameras. That's kinda the point: what you're selling is the dream of being a YouTube influencer, pretty much. Otherwise, there's little value to having a big library of videos from every ride you've taken, especially since let's face it, most people ride the same routes / trails most of the time.
Now, the dream of being an influencer may be a strong selling point, but you can only do it once. People are not gonna keep upgrading.
plenty of companies seem to live just fine off selling scuba gear to divers
I use it as a dashcam.
> So I get it that if really want to go snorkeling or mountain biking with a camera, this might be a good choice, but that's a tiny market, and for everything else, why would you buy it?
I don't think people are cross-shopping action cameras and mirrorless cameras. Either you want a wearable light-weight shockproof, waterproof camera or not.
Worth pointing out that your experience is with a model from a decade ago. The current Hero model is the 13.
My strong photographer opinion is that you should buy the oldest action camera that meets any resolution/framerate needs and treat it almost like a disposable. Buy on sales or used units. Use them on shots you genuinely are unwilling to use a mirrorless for - strapped to the front of a bike, magnetically attached to the side of a car, strapped to someone jumping in a lake.
> treat it almost like a disposable
And that's why GoPro is dying: they are selling a premium product in a market of disposables.
GoPro should pivot to making robotics and ai cameras and watch the stocks fly.
Red Bull really ran the marketing playbook that GoPro should have done: become known for athletes doing extreme things. Instead they stayed too technical and product-based and didn't build a brand beyond "we make action cameras."
Red Bull doesn’t just market, they bankroll and support.
Most companies just sponsor a team or something, but Red Bull has paid for the baseline infrastructure of many sports.
There is an old saying that Red Bull is a marketing company that happens to sell energy drinks
Well that is pretty much true. It's founder was a marketing director for a consumer goods brand.
yep, and there's no reason why a company with that brand couldn't be selling action cameras, or shoes (Nike), or anything adjacent to extreme sports
GoPro would fit right in there with the Red Bull brand, as a matter of fact.
They really have tried.
They don't have the type of insane cashflow that RedBull does to sponsor tons of athletes and weird events, but their video contests are kind of a big deal in the action sports community.
AKA, their Line of the Winter[1] competition for skiing, or their Best Line conest for MTB[2] that they used to run. And they're the title sponsor for the GoPro Mountain Games[3].
They're still THE action sports cameara carried in a lot of outdoor equipment stores, but the Insta360 has really dominated social media recently, and their products are currently a better value for cost/performance.
[1] https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter [2] https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-b... [3] https://mountaingames.com/
It’s not just the cash flow, it’s the margins.
Redbulls gross margins are probably 90%. It’s basically just water, sugar, and caffeine sold for $3.
You can do a lot of great promotions if the cost of your product is a rounding error.
> It’s basically just water, sugar, and caffeine sold for $3.
... and some of their products don't even have sugar!
you have to pay extra for that
So how many minutes of that playbook do you suppose the annual budget of Gopro would be able to pay for?
I had no ifea they were struggling. Tldr; their competitor Insta360 is battling them, and they have YoY revenue drop.
Gopro has this cool reliable aura around them. How could they he struggling? So bizarre
They rode the novelty train so hard they missed that everyone is doing it better than them now.
Their hardware is unimpressive and expensive, and their software is horrible.
> and their software is horrible
As a long-time GoPro owner who recently added an Insta360 X5 to his collection, I can't really see any meaningful difference in software horribleness. They are both really really bad, with ads everywhere constantly pushing subscriptions to their cloud services.
At least with the normal cameras the software can be entirely ignored, I can take video from my Hero5 straight in to any ordinary NLE and go from there, but the 360 camera requires their software to convert from the native format to anything usable, even if I'm keeping it as 360 footage.
The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
>The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
This was my main gripe, but also:
* Image stabilization (Hypersmooth Pro/ReelSteady) as a subscription feature.
* Auto-rotate and orientation lock don't work in streaming mode. (I reported this as a bug on the Hero7, was told it was being looked at, still a problem on the Hero10 when I stopped paying attention)
For what it's worth, DJI does offer desktop software for their Osmo action cams. They also have a direct NAS/cloud storage upload option from the camera, as well as allowing normal transfer over USB or by pulling the SD card.
> The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
This is my biggest issue as well. It's actually the one "real" thing I use the iPad for. It still gets the mobile app interface whilst being on a bigger screen and being almost usable.
Agree. Gopro recently released a DaVinci plugin for 360 videoes, which is great. But I often would like something in between the advanced DaVinci and the simple mobile editing. After the release of Max2, the Quik app got a big overhaul and is quite capable now. But it's still mobile, and Gopro Player (for desktop) is then now even further behind on capabilities. Same issue with Insta360 (both mobile and desktop, never tried Dji's apps)
Another area where an American technology brand is losing to the Chinese alternative. Alongside EVs, drones, robot vacuums, solar panels.
Not surprising, it's a commoditized sector.
On top of that, when GoPro first launched mobile phones generally did not have cameras capable of producing production-quality images, and especially video. 20 years later, the game is much different.
Remember the Flip video camera that was all the rage for like 2 years and then just disappeared when cellphones could shoot video? GoPro is like a rugged Flip, so it took a little longer for the world to catch up to them, but now there are lots of options, and a "cheap" sports camera that is 1/4 the price of a GoPro is good enough, even if it only lasts 1/2 as long.
It's honestly embarrassing that our leaders still haven't realized why this is happening, and still aren't taking any actions to prevent it from getting worse.
Giving billions of free money to shareholders of Intel & friends is going to do absolutely nothing to change the tide. Want domestic manufacturing? Invest in building a JLCPCB alternative: automated to the fullest extent possible in order to save fractions of a cent on ops, then operated on a razor-thin margin but making up for it in volume.
Chinese people aren't the lazy dumb manual workers we have long pretended they are. After we have freely given them all of our engineering knowledge with outsourcing, they are now beating us on the free market. If we don't internalize this, stop with the silly competition-destroying tariffs, and try to compete again, we are doomed to slide into irrelevancy - and we've got only ourselves to blame.
Beaten on quality and price by competitors.
The same thing is happening to BMW, Toyota,Mercedes...
> How could they he struggling?
They are just not as good. I bought GoPro10 ~5 years ago and it constantly overheats. Very unreliable. It was the first and last time I bought GoPro.
It's a testament to how broken modern business practices are that GoPro can sell 1.2 Million cameras per year and still go out of business.
It's possible they are just poorly run, and they spend more in R&D than they recoup in revenue, but I strongly suspect they were set up to only be profitable if they sold millions of cameras per year as an attempt to maximize profits at that volume, without consideration of other scenarios.
My only gripe with GoPros is lack of external mic like dji ecosystem.
no one is mentioning DJI? they are also crushing go pro with DJI Osmo lineup, action or nano.
What does one buy if they want a 1080p60 action cam with stabilisation that doesn't overheat, has good battery life and acceptable low light performance (think rainy day in the woods)?
Ah damn I just bought their new Mission One a few weeks ago (upgrading from a Hero 10). Already quite angry though since it seems the batteries are basically the same shape for both, except the connector is in a different location, so the 3 existing batteries I have for the Hero 10 are not compatible, which is a shitty move from GoPro. Well I guess either way I won’t be buying gopros anymore in the future.
Only reason I'd choose them over Insta360 for example is that weird manual phone app permissions to activate the camera Insta does. I don't know if go pro doesn't do that, haven't bought a modern go pro in a bit.
I will say the Insta 360 Go 3S is an amazing camera physically it's so small and convenient. They could improve the algo when you pan over a pavement that conglomerate pattern looks sickening when you pan.
the end of GoPro happened with the first DJI Action
They could spur a lot of innovation by open sourcing their firmware or introducing plugins. They don't really have a channel to take asks like "ring buffer style recording" but I would do it myself.
They already have Open GoPro: https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro
Idk if the firmware is open source, but there's a whole SDK you can use to implement stuff like that
I would want to put stuff on the camera, which this SDK doesn't do. But it's good it is part of their DNA.
Yes.
This has been on the cards for about a decade. I guess Insta360's YouTube advertising barrage worked.
Saw some sponsored videos on YouTube where they out GoPro compeititor (Insta360 with it's logo) on a Korean/Chinese baby, and the baby enjoying his day.
Very good marketing I would say.
Attached Example (you will find many such videos on Social Media)
https://youtube.com/shorts/2KNOx5oMXWk?feature=shared
Betteridge enters the chat. GoPro's market is changing: strong competitors now make solid, low cost alternatives. GoPro is moving deep into professional markets where margins are high, and leveraging their position as a US company whose products can be utilized by sensitive customers.
GoPro will be fine. They just won't be the go-to for every YouTuber any longer.
Not to mention that they're now competing with fake AI slop videos. People don't have so much interest to record their sporting achievements anymore since the video no longer serves as social proof.
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He’s good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
Rather than actually getting real on China and their abuse of the postal system, it’s all about tarrifs on penguins.
Biden did far more with the chips act, but rather than building on that trunk failed to enact any meaningful change. And of course make billions in the side from bribery.
Imagine if he had effectively coordinated with Mexico, Canada and the EU to curb Chinese trade practices.
I don't see a use case for these cameras. Phone takes amazing pictures and videos and is always on hand and if I need something more polished, I just get DSLR. Sure DSLR is more expensive, but if I want to do something well, I'd rather go all in.
When you want to film your kid jumping into a pool (from inside the pool), do you do it with your phone or with your DSLR?
Phone
It doesn't work, as one can't control a wet screen with wet fingers.
The use case is niche but there. I ride mountain bikes and off-road motorcycles and have a GoPro on my helmet. A phone is the wrong form factor and a DSLR is too heavy.
Same with surfers, or people who race cars etc. Having a physically small camera, with robust mounting and stabilization is not something a phone in a gimbal or a "real camera" can provide.
Who is mounting a DSLR on bike, helmet, chest? Taking it in the ocean, etc.