[VoodooJuJu]

>confirmation bias

I wouldn't dismiss HN's concerns on anything tech, finance, or business related. Fact is, much of HN is technically-inclined, many here are financially-inclined, and many are both at once.

When you have people who are both tech-savvy and finance-savvy giving their thoughts on a novel financial technology, you would be wise to listen.

And when this tech & finance-savvy community is bearish on a finance technology, you better be as well, unless you're the one at the top of the pyramid. Then by all means, enjoy your fools.

[gonehome]

HN is famously dismissive of new ideas that go on to become billion dollar companies or products (the iPod and dropbox for two easy examples).

HN is better than average, but still pretty poor at recognizing something good until there's mass consensus. Even then there's often users complaining about niche technical details despite obvious success.

[acdha]

> HN is famously dismissive of new ideas that go on to become billion dollar companies or products (the iPod and dropbox for two easy examples).

That's a pretty misleading conclusion to draw: for example, here's the whole Dropbox thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

One guy says “you can already build such a system yourself” but that point was immediately contested on quite accurate grounds. Someone else had the correct take (“This is genius. It's is problem everyone is having, and everyone knew it”) and the rest of the thread is similar – lots of use of terms like “great”, various technical questions, comments on how to improve their presentation, etc.

Re: the iPod, are you sure you're not confusing HN with Slashdot.org? The iPod launched 6 years before HN.