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Comment by jolie | Hacker News Reader

Is it really, really so bad to wait a couple days or weeks longer to get your precious fucking iPhone?

I hate queuing in general, but this is the kind of line-waiting that literally makes no sense at all to me.

> but this is the kind of line-waiting that literally makes no sense at all to me

This is a cultural thing :) put a couple of us brits together and we will form a queue. And we will do it with minimal fuss and lots of solidarity.

We are damned good at it - and very proud of that.

(my "best queue" was 8 hours for a Leeds Festival ticket :))

East Germans were also quite good at queues. But they had to be.

yeah, but I'd rather queue with you guys for an admission ticket to the Championships (Wimbledon) than for an iPhone...

8 hours for a Leeds Festival ticket is borderline understandable. It's a possibly one-time event (for that particular lineup), and you can only get the ticket if you wait in line.

But standing in line 8 hours so that you can have twice the pixels on your phone a week before all your friends?

Oh, I totally get lining up for an event. It's a one-time thing, and you literally HAVE to line up to get a ticket/get in.

But a phone? It'll last a year or so, depending. And it's not necessary to queue.

If I could sum up my thoughts in one word, that word would be "GAH."

Pish. Who cares what it's for, you can't beat the beauty of a good queue. :-p

You hit on the key word right there in your 1st sentence: precious.

It's precious to some people. Goes beyond rational or objective value. Gets into emotional experiences, and heck even just having fun, getting a thrill, the excitement. That's why they feel they cannot wait, or choose not to wait.

There's also precious in the Gollum sense:

"What has the nasty Bagginses done with my preciouses?"

In most of my friends who are interested in the iPhone, it's mostly just impatience.

So that sounds like the Gollum case. Impatiences for the preciouses. :P

You see the same sort of thing and worse in new game console launches and (big) movie release dates. People camp out for days sometimes. A few hours is nothing, these Apple fans are either line-n00bs or flat out moderates compared to those.

Also remember that some of these may be developers, so getting it before their customers could be very important to their bank account.

Apart from the developers, does it hint at a certain emptiness in those people's lives?

Whatever man. That's an unfair and negative value judgment. Everyone's identity comes from somewhere. For some people it's from being part of the elite Geek crowd. For other people it's their sports team winning. For other people it's their business making millions of dollars.

Just trying to understand. I could understand if the queuing was fun, but as that doesn't seem to be the case?

Yes, for 10 hours queuing, you get to be cooler than everybody else for 10 minutes, until the rest of the world has received their iPhones in the mail?

It has nothing to do with enjoyment in the moment. It has everything to do with validating their self-image/social identity.

Maybe it is the same thing as football fans (soccer) then? I could never relate to them, either. Although I admit it seems to work - they have fun, get drunk, make friends, travel. But it all seems fake in the end (they are not good at sports, just because their team is good at sports. Their friendships would probably not last if they left the "club").

I think the un-funness in this case stems from people not expecting the line in the first place. Movie-campers sometimes literally camp out in line, tent and all. It's a different experience entirely.

If you were asked at the beginning of the line, are you willing to wait for 10 hours, these people would say no.

Maybe you could read up on sunk costs, if you are actually after understanding, rather than being a dick.

And it's a sad thing when someone's identity hinges upon his being part of the elite, his sports team winning or making lots of money. Those are things to enjoy, surely - but if they get to be cornerstones of your personality, it's time for a reality check.

Sure, that is the way life is for many people, but ... to think that Apple intentionally makes thousands of humans waste hours of their life doing something they hate. A company that is not inherently evil would strive to make the consumer experience joyful and uplifting. But this ... reducing humans to masochistic consumer zombies with large bladders instead of brains - it's a waste of life.

It's just as sad when your identity hinges upon thinking you're not part of social groups you've imagined. But "masochistic consumer zombies with large bladders instead of brains" is RAD hyperbole. My 12 year old self just wrote that on my trapper keeper with a sharpie next to the A inside of a circle.

OK, this discussion is way too big for HN, and I'm writing up a massive blog post explaining it, but you really can't blame Apple because the problem is way bigger than that.

Please post your blog post here (on HN) when it's ready.

http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/release-yourself-to-the-c...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1460649

And it's a sad thing when someone's identity hinges upon his being part of the elite

If being one of the elite means she/he is accomplished in something, and that's truly the root of identity, then that's not a sad thing at all.

Well, that's really just an unfair value judgment.

True, everybody's identity comes from somewhere. The question is, where they get it from? My identity tells me that waiting in line for 6-10 hours for an iPhone is ridiculous ... categorically rejecting it. Life's too short to derive meaning or identity from an iPhone. You shouldn't rationalize by arguing, "Everyone's identity comes from somewhere."

Does driving or flying for hours to go on a holiday hint at emptiness? It's basically the same thing — putting up with a mostly unpleasant wait for an enjoyable experience — just the details of the fun time at the end are different.

(Incidentally: I have never waited in line for an iPhone. But I do wait in line for hours every year to see Joss Whedon at Comic-Con, so I understand why somebody would put up with an extended wait for something.)

The difference is that presumably for both holidays and Joss Whedon, there is no less painful alternative to getting what you want.

Back when I was younger, I'd camp out with friends because it was part of the experience. I mean, sure I was excited and eager, but camping out and getting home at 2AM and playing something nobody's played before until noon the next day with your close friends was great fun.

I'd argue the inherently social component available in game consoles makes it (potentially; depends on the person or group of people) a little different from the phones, which are purely personal.

You mean, the phones that you can do video chat on, with someone else who owns one?

I think there's a lot more depth to the social interactions of a party game with up to four then a video chat that only involves two. I just can't see anyone staying up from 2 am to noon on video chat, but someone with Monkey Ball and 3 friends could do this easily.

> Also remember that some of these may be developers, so getting it before their customers could be very important to their bank account.

I'd pay somebody to wait for me in the queue, then.

But maybe those guys were paid..

Your logic is spot-on. It seems like so many young intelligent people would question the opportunity cost of all that time lost versus the gain of having the iPhone a few days early?

The situation seems to point to the lack of the "intelligent" component.

Did the UK not have pre-order for delivery? I had my iPhone 4 a day earlier than they were released in the store, and I never had to wait in any line or even leave the house.

They don't deliver to hotels, so the guy from Norway was out of luck. Some ppl don't have bank cards or don't trust e-commerce security. Some don't want their partners/parents to know they bought a new expensive toy.

For the latter, lets hope they won't be seen on the news or mentioned in these kinds of articles.

When the first iPhone came out I was a senior in college - one of my buddies stood in line like a schlub and bought the damn thing as soon as it became available. A month later, I actually watched him try to pick up some girls in a bar by showing it off. I died a little inside.

Did it work?

No. If it did I probably would have dropped out of college and joined a monastery.

You see the same thing with people who pays thousands for the phone on ebay, rather than wait a few weeks. I too think it is a little crazy, and do not understand it. Some people like to wait in front of apple, I guess. For me, the free water and cofee was not enough.

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