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Comment by mgolawala | Hacker News Reader

This is exactly their strategy, and it works to some extent. Their aspirational marketing works quite well. The people acquiring their product are aspiring to be outdoorsy, fit, and adventurous.

I bought a GoPro several years back as well, after using it on one of my camping trips and a trip to a water park with the kids, I realized I don't really have the kind of adventurous, outdoorsy life I was aspiring to. The GoPro sits in a drawer.

You actually have to be pursuing activities that you think are worth capturing on a GoPro or a drone, and then you have to have an interest in capturing/editing those pursuits.

Longer term, there is a legitimate niche for their products. It is the intersection of people interested (personally or professionally) in photography/videography who have adventurous/outdoorsy pursuits and hobbies. Whether that niche is large enough to support a company of their size (and their competitors) is still an open question.

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For me, the aspiration to own a GoPro was to capture footage in wet / water conditions. With an iP68 rating for the iPhone to makes sense for light use-cases, an iPhone is sufficient for me.

1. I think the underlying problem has been the lack of innovation from GoPro. I find that while the number of cameras in our daily life has increased, the use-case for something like a GoPro is marginal at best. Apple and other vendors have done an excellent job of improving camera technology on the iphone11 that today, I no longer carry a GoPro or even an SLR camera on holidays.

2. Another amazing shenanigan from GoPro was their accessories business. When I got my only go-pro in 2014, it required me to spend another $200-300 on some really basic accessories like an LCD screen. It just felt like the company added barriers that stopped you from actually using the product.

2a. Minor nitpick - Their packaging in 2015 was a piece of work. It took me forever to get it unpacked and even get hold of the device.

3. Mgmt focus - I live in San Mateo and the stink of constant GoPro layoffs made it an undesirable company to even consider working for. The people I knew that worked there all quickly bailed and went to work for Google or Apple. It also didn't help that I only remembered about my GoPro when I saw Mr Woodman show-up on Shark-Tank. I just felt he didn't focus on a struggling company and wanted to find other things to do.

1. They have added some newer models that are interesting, like the 360 one they just released that actually has a screen which I guess is also 2.

They're priced way out of the budget of idle curiosity for me though. Sure 500 dollars isn't a lot for a camera, but it's way out of the range for something I"m going to goof around with.

Hey, I have that adventurous, outdoorsy life life! Wanna send that GoPro over? I'll make sure it's properly utilized ;)

Kind of like those annoying watch commercials showing everyone free climbing when in reality your adventure watch is only going to be telling you how late the 4:18 BART is.

To add to this, even if you enjoy adventure sports, filming them can be a pain. A friend of mine was working on getting sponsored as a rock climber and did a lot of filming with his GoPro. Getting decent shots takes a lot of time and effort, which really cuts down on the actual climbing you get to do each day.

It's funny how when you want to essentially get a job doing something it involves actual work!

Yes, after getting one for skiing, I realized that helmet cam footage only looks awesome if you are dropping off a cliff. Even at steep pitches the perspective on the footage looks like you're on almost flat terrain. It takes real time and care to get usable shots out of the things. I've made a short ski edit for a club before and the amount of effort that goes into producing something mildly entertaining to watch is insane.

Drones and helmet cams actually seem like they have pretty niche applications when an iPhone will do great for 95% of people, 95% of the time. The need for that particular lens and shot just isn't usually called for in whatever you're trying to create.

Something about them in my experience makes it feel like you're not going as fast. I ride an electric skateboard and helmet cam footage makes it feel like I'm just walking when I'm approaching 20 mph. I guess that's why they normally use a ton of angles on most of these things.

If gaming has taught me anything, it's that a wide field of view makes it appear that you're moving much faster. I found a simple video showing a person walking the same path with three different fields of view.

The 120 degree FOV makes it seem like they're sprinting while the 40 degree FOV looks like a slow walk in comparison. Also pay attention to the little box the person walks past halfway through the below video. Imagine you're skateboarding and that is a parked car. The difference in speed and perceived danger is huge.

https://i.imgur.com/s4IrpJU.mp4

Great theory (and love the reference mp4!) but I suspect it's not fov. GoPros have a fish eye'd lens on them, and a high field of view.

I think you are on to something with the amount of stimulus though. I ride a One Wheel which... has one wheel, and the nearer I get to top speed the less speed it has to balance me.

The sensation is different. The wind is blowing harder on my face, I have to scan and process each ridge and change in the road, my balance is different, is that car opening it's door? is it going to turn, that drain cover is bad need to lean to avoid it, car behind me can't go left, does my front foot have too much force, intersection coming up slow down, speed up no cars, turn signal are they going to cut my lane... etc.

Meanwhile if I'm sitting in a car, well... 20mph is nothing, I'd barely notice it. The wind sensation is gone, I'll go straight if I don't touch anything, people respect my area since I weigh 2000 plus pounds.

The perspective is different, the level of sensation is different. It's similar how a go kart feels a lot different then a car in regards to speed despite the fact both are four wheeled motorized vehicles.

Ugh, yeah that's the other strange effect. There's absolutely no sense of speed captured. Maybe due to lack of nearby reference points and no depth perception even though it's POV? The footage is positively boring.

I suspect part of it that like... contextless footage is boring. I'm going to paraphrase Casey Neistat here: "No one gives a fuck about my time lapses or drone shots"

Who cares about the random video you took down a mountain, it's fun in the moment and no one can take that away from you. To an external observer though, why should that be interesting?

The lack of speed is one thing, the lack of context is another. They don't know about the ice patch you're watching out for, the sensation you get when you hit the powder just right, or even that you are going 10% faster then normal (sorry I'm a blue square skier and don't really know what goes through the head of people who are actually good).

I've taken lots of videos on the racetrack in my car, go-karting, snowboarding, motorcycle riding, scuba diving....

In addition to many of the things noted here (looks slow as hell due to wide-angle lens and the fact that you are, also, slow as hell)... the video editing is just a nightmare.

It's easy to capture a couple hours of footage of your hobby, but unless you ALSO have the hobby of WATCHING a couple hours of something you already did, the value is just not there.

I've watched almost none of the videos I've shot. Also, I'm still able to use my ancient Hero2. I thought of buying a newer model to get the "latest and greatest" as an impulse buy once; I can afford it, that's fine. I looked up a product matrix of the Session, Hero 5, Hero 6, black, silver, whatever products were available at the time. I just stared at the product matrix for awhile, gave up, and closed the browser window.

Honestly, if their product line had less overlap or fewer products or just.. made it easier to decide camera to buy, they'd have another $400 of my money.

shrug

They keep improving their products, but there are no real innovations or killer reasons to buy some new model. And they all basically work good enough.

Seems like TV producers (and of course YouTubers) also use them, e.g. to mount them on and in a car for a car review video shoot.

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