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Comment by yawnxyz | Hacker News Reader

Everyone's young in some way.

I've been looking at getting a Miata, and have been eyeing a nice 2016ish Miata because their prices seem so much lower.

Then I read a post from someone saying their transmissions are "like glass" and how it's better off to pay a few more $k for a 2017+ car, b/c that's how much a new transmission would cost anyway.

If everyone were to follow Paul's advice, these kinds of posts would never have been written because you're supposed to "only write what people want"

This 2016 Miata thing is a widely known thing in Miata circles — I just didn't know about it.

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"Posts" is a more general category than "essays". A post about Miata transmission years sounds useful. An essay about it sounds boring.

PSA: I did a similar thing using Claude about buying a 2012-2016 era Ford F150 and it was so good at providing information like this about each model year. I went with a 2014 since the V8 was most mature and 2012-2013 issues resolved, and got there in 2 minutes instead of having to surf through forums for hours.

I really don't think learning to rely on these tools for product review is a good idea. The web shows how much gravity the advertising industry has. As soon as the number of people using llms like this become statistically significant, you can bet product placement will find its way into the training data. Betting on enshittification is easy money.

It's like the people who laud LLMs as a really powerful search tool.

Google used to be a really powerful and functional search tool! Then, the antagonistic process of SEO and the perverted incentives of the company building the search index also taking advertising dollars ensured it was always going to get shitty, and serve their needs above yours.

LLMs are the same. They WILL be made less effective for whatever you want. Because they are beholden to the people with the money. Those people don't want you to have an effective search tool.

Search engines were great for 10-15 years before enshittification took over. It might go somewhat faster with LLMs since the playbook is known. But that's still a long time, so why not make the most of it while it lasts? And something better may come after.

Claude only knows it because someone wrote this stuff somewhere

LLMs are running off other people's good will

You should absolutely buy a Miata. I have a 2021 Miata and it's one of the best decisions I ever made.

Essays are different media compared to comments on message boards, reddit, or hacker news... You don't need the former if the latter will suffice.

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