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Comment by tomcam | Hacker News Reader

> Boosted, the company known for making the best all-electric longboards on the market

There's some serious free press. Are they indeed all that and a bag of chips, or can Verge be bought that easily, or what? No agenda here; genuinely curious.

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It's definitely more contentious than saying Apple makes the best smartphones, but they do have arguably the most refined product; it feels a lot less like something from a kit compared to their most serious competitors (though their serious competitors can beat them in one or more technical categories).

Saying Apple makes the best smartphones has been very contentious for years now.

I agree, but it's more contentious that Boosted makes the best electric skateboards (sorry if that wasn't clear).

Journalists often use "best" and "most popular" synonymously, although they shouldn't.

I think they are pretty good at making electric skateboards. Youtube star Casey Neistat is always seen riding a boosted board. He has test driven a lot of electric boards and has told that nothing else comes close to the boosted board multiple times[1][2]. To be honest Casey Neistat appear to be a type of guy who tells what he belives in even if it means loosing subscribers. He gets a lot of hate sometimes because of that.

[1]$450 BOOSTED BOARD REVIEW - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zDZ3clucMI[1]

[2]THE ONLY THING BETTER THAN A BOOSTED BOARD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2JbfugMGP4[2]

I'd like to know why people downvoted you, I can't see anything wrong with your comment.

Because "I have no experience with the product but here is what I think based on what my favorite youtube star says" is not a great contribution to a conversation.

He is an adviser or is on their board or something like that. Big surprise he likes it. It seems on the surface like a scam designed to avoid FTC paid endorsement disclosure requirements: just give the ("non")endorser a stake in the company instead of money.

That's not to say he doesn't also legitimately like it.

88% of the 200 buyers which made a review on Amazon give the boosted board a score of 5 out of 5 stars. That's not something you see everyday.

https://www.amazon.com/Boosted-Dual-2000W-Electric-Skateboar...

If you go on the subreddit for electric skateboarding this would be quite a controversial topic. No I don't personally think they are the best, unless we talk about marketing, then yes they are the best at that. You can find faster, longer distance, and cheaper boards from other manufacturers. They do make a well refined product from a visual standpoint, however they were rife with problems (this is not something exclusive to boosted boards either).

This product segment will take a couple years to get better I think. It still feels very 'beta' product all around.

I'm interested in getting an eboard. can you name some of the better competitors? particularly faster.

At a minimum, they must be the best at marketing because I have absolutely no experience or knowledge in this space (electric or non electric boards) and I have heard of their company/product.

How much of that is from all the overheated Hacker News and YC Partner boosting (pun intended) of them back when they first launched and were going to reinvent personal transportation rather than just be a sub-type of skateboard?

That press probably wasn't free. This article reads like it was written using a press release as it's sole source with the author doing a favor to someone at a PR agency.

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