Hacker News Reader

Comment by fuzzer37 | Hacker News Reader

Seriously, a million square feet to build stationary bikes with a screen attached? Does anyone have any predictions when this market will be saturated? It's not like exercise equipment is a recurring purchase.

View on HN

Just goes to show there's no winning with internet opinion. Building stuff overseas at the lowest possible price is exploitative and sacrifices American jobs, but then when a company wants to build more expensive, higher quality stuff in the US it's a waste of resources.

Well yea, different people have different opinions. I think globalization is a good thing that provides cheap goods and better jobs for the global poor. Others think globalization is a bad thing that offshores American jobs and exploits workers. I don't think either side is wrong.

> Well yea, different people have different opinions.

Yes but the fact that either extreme can bubble up to the top such that if you say anything you immediately get hit with the strongest disagreement, is I think one of the hallmark properties and biggest problems with the internet/social media

The idea that overseas manufacting in poor countries is exploitation is such obvious BS, given that you can observe the hundreds of millions that were lifted from poverty as a direct consequence, and without which would still be in poverty.

The service is the real product here - the equipment just helps with lock-in. They do seem to be spending the money in the right places- their instructors and production are second to none.

I recently watched a preview for an Apple Fitness spin class and I could not believe how cheesy and superficial it appeared. Apple! I never really appreciated how good Peloton is until Apple helped me see how bad it could have been.

IMO, Apple goofed by not buying Peloton to bootstrap their Fitness they same way they bought Beats to bootstrap music.

This is like replacing a CRT with a high def flat screen. There's millions of them out there in gyms and schools and hotels, and these are WAY better.

People are used to paying $100+/mo for a Gym, if Peloton can convince them to work out at home thats worth the $2500 they charge every 3 years or so. They can make the equipment free or cheap with multi-year subscriptions.

My wife was dumping 50-100 a month into a gym. I said "I will buy you whatever equipment you are using there and if it breaks you can go back". That was 15 years ago and the stuff is still in good shape and used daily.

Renting makes sense if you can not afford it at all or only will use it for a small period of time. If you are going to use something long term you are usually better off buying that thing.

Also try to buy used equip. Many times people realize they did not really want to do it at all but made an excellent coat hanger. Usually it is in very good condition and you can save a decent amount of cash.

I think also there is this idea that it's the machine or the equipment you need, but all you need is the movement and resistance. When the pandemic hit I bought resistance bands instead of expensive free weights. $60 later I'm squatting, deadlifting, overhead pressing, curling, bench pressing, shoulder pressing, calf raising, lat raising, doing everything really with a rubber band instead of a hunk of metal, doing the same movements and getting the same pump for half the price of a monthly gym membership around here.

I agree. For me it was mostly just to stop her renting the machine. I personally just use simple stuff you learn in PE and some isometrics. Using bands would be a nice augment to that.

You do not need a lot of money to exercise. You can get in cheap. Mostly it is about setting up a routine and doing that. Basically 'procrastination is the thief of time' and 'by repetition I get things done'.

I suspect that your assumption that this facility is just to make stationary bikes might be a little off.

Part of this investment is likely to be expansion of their product range.

But you'll have to buy a new bike in a couple years when they stop updating the software on the old ones.

As a consumer, this is the bit that drives me crazy about most of this stuff: a part with a lifecycle of a few years (CPU) is attached to a part with a long lifecycle (cycle, fridge, display/TV), thus making the whole thing effectively have the short lifecycle.

I wish they'd use something like a Pi CM4 that could be upgraded at least once or twice over the 10+ year lifecycle, but I also understand why this will never happen.

Did you think they were only going to make 10 a day? Depending on volume a million square feet might not be enough.

You are thinking with a static mindset.

Its clear that they are thinking of a broader market and company.

Its not hard for me, for example, to see how they can scale this to rowing and treadmills and beyond given their strong brand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com