Every time I see a comment accusing HN of having some specific consensual position like a hive mind, I go back and see comments both contradicting and supporting the stance. In other words, different opinions. Every single time I check, and every single time it shows the original commenter engaged in selection bias.

This case is particularly wrong, as that iPod quote is from Slashdot. HN didn’t even exist in 2001.

https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

After trying to set up wireless on my printer interface and enter a password with up and down arrows rotating through an entire set of keys, I'm fairly convinced that no wireless on the iPod was massively correct. If people were expected to set up wifi by entering a password with a rotation device adoption would be miniscule.

Dunno why the internet enjoys dunking so much on a poor anonymous poster who guessed wrong about a product that would catch on, whether that's the iPod, the iPad, Dropbox, etc.

We don't seem to spend half as much energy taking major news outlets to task when they similarly guess wrong, unless we feel that somehow adding a question mark negates any responsibility (i.e. "The Ouya will revolutionize gaming" vs. "Will the Ouya revolutionize gaming?").

It's a recurring cognitive dissonance between cynical tech people and the actual mass market. I mean I'm cynical about most things but the ones that aren't and who get onto the hype train earn big money off of it.

To be fair, the iPod comment was on Slashdot

Fair, but other than browsing the web, a Blackberry was superior for communications than an iPhone back then.