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Something about this comment sparked a bunch of nasty nitpicking about who understands breast pumps better. I think the fault lies (first) at the root. Had you posted more thoughtfully, instead of dropping several conversational land mines, the conversation would not likely have turned toxic.

Other commenters have shown themselves to be quite capable of this, even when the subject is breast pumps, so I'm sure you are too. Would you please re-read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the principles of this site to heart?

Most of the time, when things go flameways, the push in that direction was unintentional. The solution is for us all to consciously hold an intention for higher-quality discussion here. This does make conversation a bit less spontaneous, but since the alternative is tire fires, there is little choice.

I won't comment any further on this story but my point was that the article was written in bad faith with a flawed premise - clickbait if you will. Given that it was the top comment there was seemingly a lot of agreement with that take.

I'm afraid that's a non sequitur. Snarky/indignant comments routinely get "a lot of agreement" (i.e. upvotes). So do insinuations about PR, flamebait about divisive topics, etc. Such upvotes are not evidence that a comment was good, they're evidence of something wrong with homo interneticus.

We all need to control this lower nature, so to speak, when posting here, or the site won't survive. HN has survived semi-intact for this long only because most people are willing to make that effort, but it's not a huge majority and we're always dangling by a thread. Contributing to the solution requires a conscious effort at self-reform, at least for a while. Plenty of users here have made that effort, including me; my comments used to be a lot worse than everything I've objected to here.

I'm sure you could have made all your substantive points without the bits that turned the subthread nasty, so there's no significant loss in this.

This. Exactly. A breast pump at the cost of 4x the regular price, which is already expensive, that adds a thing you can easily do yourself and don't really need at that. If you would like the functionality there are a large number of (good looking) apps that keep these statistics at the cost of entering 3 digits every pump session.

But even worse. You don't need the functionality at all. You don't pump just because stock gets low, you pump to relief yourself. Breasts don't follow your app, it's the other way around. It's not like you can skip two sessions because you have plenty in the fridge. No matter what an app tells you. Your body will simply produce. It's a beautiful thing really, our bodies.

Overal it's a product that tries to follow the IoT hype. Guess what, the market is changing and connected boots that buzz you to go left or right (OK kinda cool), connected shavers that tell you you need to shave (O my God, how did I survive? I was doing hand to chin, yup need to shave all this time. So stupid!), and connected breast pumps are simply not good enough.

For giggles. You can buy the medela and buy the iphone8 and use a free app To track your production.

Well that's a bit of a gross generalization, wouldn't you say? Try to imagine for a moment that you might be over looking a very important feature of any breast pump: comfort. This is the main reason my wife chose this pump. It's the only pump on the market that doesn't use air. Air imposes a much different discomfort relative to the Naya, according to my wife. She's very pleased with the product. The price? Sure, expensive. We're lucky to be able to afford it. The app? Don't care about it. Consider us your exception.

Yes. You are right. I didn't give that part enough credits because of the focus on smart pump in their PR and the poorly written article that agitated me more than it should. My bad, apologies.

I think the problem there is that VCs are mainly interested in potential big hits instead of niche markets. From my experience, there are not many complaints on the comfort of the pumps. Or, let me correct that, not at the size of $750,-. If they would drop their price to be high-end but in range of current offerings it might work. Just like any other high-end line of products it's a quality vs price trade-off. Right now the balance is skewed.

Some other issues I foresee:

- they say they save 10 min cleaning after use. Cleaning ours does not even take 10 mins. Disconnect, throw in steamer. Done.

- they use water instead of air. When water stays behind it gives fungus. Doesn't this require more cleaning? (Did not check how it works).

- setting up now takes 10 more minutes if i watch their movies. Filling with water, no bubbles..

P.s. Did your wife try another brand? So is she pleased comparing it to other top brands or just pleased without comparison?

The water can stay in the tubes for up to two weeks. She tried the Medela and the Phillips and while they were decent, ultimately felt the Naya was better for comfort.

You don't know the market, you don't know the product, and you're making a lot of assumptions.

EDIT: Knowing HN's audience, I expected the downvotes. What I don't get is why my comments are being flagged. Please stop abusing HN's tools to silence dissenting opinions.

I'm keen to hear your counterpoints?

EDIT: I realize I'm responding to someone who wasn't the original commenter. This comment is written saying "you", etc, but I'll leave it as-is, with apologies to iamdave.

> Oh ok, so VC's do like it

Some VCs liked it enough for an initial round. But you're using that to imply that the article's claims about VC reactions to their current attempt to raise money is "spinning a yarn", with zero evidence that this is true.

> Ah, got it. Their product is too expensive for too small of a market.

No it's not. Hospital-grade Medela pumps are much more expensive than the prices listed in the article. I don't know how the Naya compares to the hospital grade pumps, but the current crop of home-grade pumps are really really crappy, and if the Naya can improve on them, it can absolutely demand a higher price. And I don't know how large the pump market is, but given that pumps are something that every single mother can use (whether or not they choose to do so), I don't think that's a particularly small market.

The real problem isn't market size, it's competing with the free home pumps many parents get, and convincing people who do buy pumps that it's worth paying for the better pump. If their product is significantly better, they have a chance.

> I'm male and I've been sexually harassed or had a casually racist comment lobbed past me more times than I can count by a potential investor. It sucks.

Cry me a river.

In the context of this article, this line is actually pretty insulting. You're casually dismissing a really serious problem that female CEOs face on the basis that men occasionally see crappy behavior too. It's not at all comparable.

> It is not however why it's proving hard to close a massively risky, and I assume hugely expensive A round.

Bullshit. It sounds (and I can very easily believe this) like the VCs aren't even getting to the point of properly evaluating the product and company, because they're too hung up on it being a female CEO with a product that the male VCs don't have any experience with and think is "gross". Here you're completely dismissing that and just assuming that the VCs are actually doing something that the article provides direct evidence to the contrary.

If Juicero can get funded, Naya should be able to get funded too. The problem is VCs could easily understand the appeal of Juicero's product, but they don't seem to be even trying to understand Naya's product and market.

I've got three kids - all who breastfed for 2+ years and am intimately aware of the challenges of breastfeeding. You could consider me a lactivist.

I can teach you how to get your baby to latch, how to efficiently express, what nipple cream you need depending on what is going on between mom and baby, when or when not to pump/breastfeed based on your diet etc...

Pretty sure I know the market bud.

Your creds don’t convince me. Maybe if you expressed how painful it was for you to wear the pump...or any of the points I’m about to make.

My wife stopped using the pump altogether because of discomfort and the knowledge that saliva-to-aureola contact is healthier for the child.

The price really isn’t the problem as insurance will cover at least part of it, and it is marketed to breastfeeding women who have jobs and health insurance (have the means to make the purchase), and the developer is sending clear signals they understand the price issue and the price will likely scale down as production scales up. And there’s also an exit strategy as Medela would probably buy them too.

The key problems for this market are breast pumps are often handed down to other families, limiting the sales potential, and there is a large segment that will prefer contact breast feeding over pumping due to the health benefits.

And why is it that when a man understands the full implications of a crowdsourcing campaign and chums the water with press, he’s a “growth hacker”, yet you employ an invective by labeling this woman’s effort as “Submarine PR”?

That's not a fair description of HN's audience. The community is divided on divisive issues, just like any sufficiently large population sample would be. It only seems to be stacked against your view because provocative comments stand out more. We can point to countless generalizations about HN's audience that characterize it just the opposite way, and for the same reason.

Edit: as one illustrative example, the top two comments on this submission are currently both by women substantively critiquing the article, one of whom happens to be using a breast pump these days (and has amazingly detailed things to say about it, very much in the spirit of this site). Surprising? Not really. HN is just more diverse than many people say it is.

(I imagine users flagged your comment because it failed to be civil and substantive as the site guidelines ask.)

HN's audience has demonstrated itself to be insensitive to women's issues in the past, and is reasonably techbro-heavy. That's why I said I expected the downvotes. It may be a large population, but it's not a particularly diverse one.

And it wasn't just this comment that was flagged. It was my other one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305765), which lays out the substantive reasons why I disagreed with the parent comment. Though that one was subsequently unflagged (and then upvoted).

> HN's audience has demonstrated itself

I can't agree with that. These perceptions are notoriously in the eye of the beholder.

Let me put it this way: HN "demonstrates" a lot of things—that's how user-generated content works. People pick the ones that stand out to them and call that "HN", but they could just as easily have picked the opposite ones, and indeed many others do.

> it's not a particularly diverse one

That's particularly off; it's hugely diverse (or at least divided), which is why the generalizations people make about it are contradictorily all over the place. At some point I need to put together a big list to illustrate this. I sometimes feel like I'm the only person who sees it, since it's my job to look at this stuff all day.

> And it wasn't just this comment that was flagged. It was my other one

It's easy to understand why it was flagged: conducting disagreement via "Bullshit", "Cry me a river", etc. breaks the site guidelines. Changing the subject slightly, I sometimes wonder whether this bullying, pugnacious approach to online commenting doesn't contribute to the very exclusionary dynamic that people on your side of the argument deplore. I deplore it too, and can't help but notice how comments on both sides can be equally bro-ey, douchey, and wincey. It makes HN less welcoming all around. Many people seem to think they get a pass for being right (one doesn't, of course), and then use that to vent what feel more like personal fumes.

In case it helps, I don't disagree with your underlying views (though mostly I don't read comments closely for that—it's too hard, and there are too many). Perhaps you noticed that I replied no less critically to the person you were objecting to, who broke the site guidelines as well.

Upon reflection, I’m actually a little concerned that you, the moderator, are calling my simple comment uncivil (and letting it remain flagged). This is exactly what I meant by abusing HN’s tools to silence dissenting opinions. I’m not calling the parent names, or swearing, or doing anything else that’s obviously uncivil. I’m just disagreeing with the parent. The only problem with my comment is that it’s very simple and doesn’t provide the reasoning to back up my claim that the parent doesn’t understand the product/market and is making assumptions (which isn’t an issue that warrants suppressing the comment). But mere disagreement is not uncivil behavior.

The comment was uncivil because it was unduly personal. Also it was harsh and unsubstantive, and guilty of its own charge (making assumptions) to boot. All that makes for a bad combo. I realize you don't see it that way, but that's because we all misjudge how our comments land with others online.

Moderating this sort of thing is routine to the point of tedium on Hacker News and doesn't have to do with your specific views, let alone 'silencing dissent' (a rather bombastic phrase which I hear a lot, from every ideological quarter). It just has to do with people's tendency to attack each other on the internet, which the spirit of HN is to try to work around, in the hope of good and interesting conversation. That's all.

Actually these attacks mirror each other across all ideological divides. We moderate them routinely as best we can, and then people routinely accuse us of siding with their enemies [1], but (a) these claims are contradictory and so cancel each other out, and (b) I'm pretty sure the majority of readers trust that we're not biased that way—or at least not ridiculously so, because our job would be impossible if we were.

1. An example from a few minutes ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310419.