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Comment by imgabe | Hacker News Reader

He’s not saying functional though, he says the worst version of something, which usually means crappy and unpleasant. Things like that make your life a little worse every time you use them. If it’s something like a fork that you use a lot every day, that’s just adding a lot of low-grade background unpleasantness to your life that is completely unnecessary.

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He is using the hyperbole and contrast to "best" to make his point.

"The okayest" would have made for a much better article. I get what he means, but it's really not an argument for the worst thing, and I suspect that if pressed, even Moxie wouldn't deliberately e.g. buy a boat with a gaping hole in the bottom! But generally buying an okay version of something, which has no glaring problems and is available right now for a reasonable price, works pretty well.

“Satisficer” and “maximizer” are more useful concepts I think.

Perhaps the comparison between cutlery and motorcycles in the article is a little unfair, because (I imagine?) few people develop experience, knowledge and deep insights into cutlery that lead to a sense of blissful freedom, whereas that can probably happen to someone who gradually learns motorcycle maintenance by overcoming a series of practical real-world challenges.

Don't forget, worse is better

That explains a lot about the user experience of Signal the first and last time I used it.

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