[nxc18]

An alternative way of thinking about this is that we're fortunate that our needs are so well provided for that we can focus on entertainment and life enrichment.

A camera at eye level is extremely useful for many reasons, snapchat is just one, excellent use case. In my own life, I have a use for that specific tool, and am glad it exists - Google Glass was never widely released. And the price is great - at $129 this seems amazingly affordable.

I expect it to be a hit.

[ddeck]

>An alternative way of thinking about this is that we're fortunate that our needs are so well provided for that we can focus on entertainment and life enrichment.

It's a nice way of thinking of it and hopefully it's true one day, but unless "our" means the typical HN reader, I don't think we're there yet. Consider that in the US in 2015, 43.1 million people were living in poverty (13.5% poverty rate) [1], and income inequality continues to rise [2].

[1] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-25...

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GINIALLRH

[nxc18]

The other part of my comment I didn't write because I thought it would basically be evident without spelling it out: problems like poverty and income inequality aren't solved by tech innovators.

The actual problems that do exist in the U.S and the rest of the developing world are social problems. No amount of big disruptive thinking (by tech folk) is going to solve them.

If you look at SV's attempt to solve medical problems, you start to see where regulation and oversight are necessary for the difficult problems. Then you see why large governments, large companies, and exceptionally smart people with the backing of those organizations are the ones who need to solve the problem.

On top of all that, there's so often no actual intent to solve those problems. Poverty in the US is a big problem because the people who are capable of solving it just don't care enough to. In the case of government, voters are too self interested in the short term to push for it - how many times do you see complaints about hard earned tax dollars being used for poor people?

Even when the tech people do try to solve a social problem because the public has decided to care about it, attempts are misled and ineffective. If you look at the problem of diversity, companies are tryin to solve their problems at demand side. Big companies compete for female engineers to boost their numbers and smaller companies can't match their offers. This looks good on Apple's diversity report, but the problem is disguised, not fixed. Actual solutions, like encouraging women to become interested in STEM when they're young are few and far between.

So yes, I'd like tech innovators to focus on solving non-problems with life enriching innovations (slack, twitch, twitter, facebook, steam, VR, AR, bluetooth audio, etc) then waste time on misguided attempts that are way out of range for them.

[madeofpalk]

Considering the snark was directed at the comments on this post, I'm certain "our" means us HN readers/commenters.

[PavlovsCat]

Don't assume all HN users are narcissists and politically uninterested. I for one have very personal needs that are directly connected to what is going on politically and socially in the world.

[madeofpalk]

I'm not - I'm just saying that, generally speaking, most of our 'needs' (the important stuff like food, water, shelter) have been met. Everything else, mostly all that's discussed on this site, is unimportant & frivolous 'wants'.

I'm not saying this as a criticism, just explaining the comment thread.

[ekianjo]

> life enrichment

Is this really what this product does?

[r0fls]

"Enrichment" isn't as strong of a word as you're thinking. If it makes life better or more enjoyable for someone, it's life enriching for them.

[Sir_Substance]

I would argue for a logical and in there. Cocaine makes life more enjoyable for almost everyone, but it's hardly life enriching.

[r0fls]

That's a good point, but "better" is a subjective word. If an individual is capable of enjoying life while using cocaine, without regrets that outweigh their experience, then cocaine has enriched their life. Drugs are always a mixed bag, and the bad generally outweighs the good, in my opinion. Others may feel differently though, so I don't want to deprive them of their definition of life enrichment. Enrichment is not enlightenment: If anyone claims these glasses will make a person's life more enlightened, I would then be skeptical. Enriched though, I can accept. Let's first imagine some of the less valuable things people may be doing with their time, specifically in the targeted age range.