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Comment by bob_theslob646 | Hacker News Reader

Why would they do this?

They're finished as a company. They never were able to innovate beyond "it's an HD camera with wifi", and low priced competition ate them up.

Exactly, a hundred Chinese companies can pump out cameras like theirs. What they had going for them was their genericized trademark of a name - people calling all action cameras GoPros - which eventually would have or did come back and bite them. Their stock price is less than a tenth what it once was.

People are buying Chinese action cameras in such droves? Everyone I know with an action camera owns a GoPro. Something seems amiss to me, though perhaps things are different in California. But then why just these cameras? There are plenty of types of devices that have viable Chinese knockoffs for cheap, yet the non-Chinese brands thrive or at least sustain.

> People are buying Chinese action cameras in such droves? Everyone I know with an action camera owns a GoPro.

At least in my circles of people who are relatively well to do, yes, quite a few bought Chinese knockoffs on online retailers like Amazon. Hell, when you search GoPro on Amazon Canada a Chinese knockoff is the first result and has over a thousand more reviews than the actual GoPro!

You live in a rich environment where people can afford gopros - where I'm from(Poland) for a lot of people even the cheapest Session camera is 1/2 of your monthly salary. I've got some friends who work as C++ programmers, and for them the Black 6 is 2/5 of their salary. It's just completely unaffordable for vast majority of people, but there's plenty of Chinese knock-offs around, re-branded by local companies(Manta for example), and those sell a lot. If you go to an electronics store looking for an action cam, 95% of their stock is gopro knock offs, if you want a GoPro it's not that easy to find.

If you own a GoPro, you probably have had to buy a second one. I personally do not know of a single GoPro owner that has not damaged/lost/whatever their camera. After you buy the first one at full price today, do you buy a second one or go out and buy something else? It used to be that you could only get another GoPro, so GoPro sales looked good. Now, for $70, why not try the something else? Based on sales, looks like a lot of people are choosing the latter.

For most people the latter option is most useful. I bought already 4 SJCams because I end up losing them. The pictures are acceptable. Sound is not needed if underwater or while driving. So all good.

The only reason I own a 4 is because it was bought for me. Otherwise, the price point was high enough, and my old 2 was "good enough", that I just didn't see the point to upgrading that often. It's not going to compete with my phone upgrades. And I suspect repeat customers would have to be a significant portion of their business sustainability.

I imagine now or sometime last year would have been about when I naturally would have upgraded, and I suspect if I had seen a ton of reviews favoring cheaper models from competitors, I probably would have jumped ship.

That's why I said would have. I don't know whether this has yet occurred to a significant degree or not. I just can't imagine any investor confidence in something that's so easy clones by generics, especially when people were using the trademarked name for the general product category.

I just don't think the company had the leadership or vision to move outside of their core competency. It should have been obvious that today you aren't going to get very far with a hardware product that is easily copied and difficult to differentiate. At the very least you have to build a whole ecosystem that sells the hardware for you.

Maybe that is just a hindsight is 20/20 situation since I work in a tangentially related industry that is also greatly affected by Chinese companies pumping out cheaper products. But they have had plenty of time to realize this and change course.

Can you show me a Chinese company that is making an action camera that can shoot 2K60 that is waterproof and small form factor like GoPro?

The Yi 4K+ action cam ... https://store.yitechnology.com/

I bought a Chinese 1080p action cam for $30 about 3 years ago... is there some kind of competition issue in this market? (and it came with the waterproof case and various mounts)

I'd say there's a competition problem in that there are too many very poorly made "me-too's" that aren't even worth the 30 bucks. The Yi's come pretty close quality-wise to GoPro, have excellent build quality -- and frankly I like the Yi optics better than GoPro's... but they ain't 30 bucks. Disclaimer: I used to design camera systems and used to work in Hollywood so I can tell the s* from the Shinola, so I consider myself fairly picky.

I'm fairly picky too, I tend to compare everything to my Nikon D5100 (maybe not as picky as Q. Tarantino). This $30 action camera has decent image quality but the physical build feels cheap... but it hasn't broke yet.

i assume you mean 4k60?

the yi 4k+ also does that but no it isn't waterproof by itself, however you can see the hero 6 got a $100 price cut because of the stiff competition

They have a Yi 4k+ kit with a waterproof action case, much like the GoPro Hero line does.

Maybe as a hardware company, but what if they just became a content producer? They already have a GoPro channel. Although, I think RedBull has them beat. RedBull uses lots of action cam footage, but what makes their footage great is that they take full cameras and rigging out to crazy places to get that cinematic look as action video. Yeah, maybe they are finished...

I had applied and interviewed with them right about when this was breaking, and it's on my list of "dodged a bullet". The manager even mentioned that there was the very real possibility that the budget requisition for why I was there might be pulled soon... and it's clear how that turned out.

They're getting ready to sell themselves.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gopro-shares-pare-huge-los...

I've got my money on Redbull buying them.

GoPro has a huge professional market as well; you might be surprised at the amount of footage you see on TV and in movies that's shot on a GoPro. If I had to guess on an acquisition I might look at Canon or Nikon, but the reality is probably PE.

I wonder if quiet negotiations are already happening and this shutdown was to court a potential offer.

My money is on DJI buying them.

I wouldn't be so sure DJI already makes better cameras. For whatever reason, DJI made a decision to go their own way. Maybe irreconcilable differences with GoPro, maybe GoPro unwilling to work with them, whatever the reason, DJI cameras have long since marginalized the need to a GoPro on their gear.

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