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Comment by energy123 | Hacker News Reader

Blue light blockers are a scam that was created when some circadian rhythm research went viral (in a highly misrepresented way) online a few years ago. It's a stunt to make some quick cash from unwitting buyers.

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"It's a stunt to make some quick cash from unwitting buyers."

I've used a number of blue light filters, and I've never paid for them.

My Gunnars give me immediate eye relief after a day of work looking at a display. Are you sure it's a scam?

To the extent that there's some sort of clinical statistically significant lift over, say, however you might control for a placebo here, who knows? To the extent that it's working for you in a meaningful way, placebo or not... does it even matter? If they're working for you, they're tautologically not a scam, except insofar as you find yourself missing out on benefits promised that aren't being realized, or you feel that the price you've paid is disproportionate to the benefit because some much cheaper option exists in some sense.

Put another way, placebo or not, if there's an effect, and it's a positive one for you, it really doesn't matter. It's working.

The same could be said about homeopathy, but homeopathy is a scam.

The problem is, how do you define "if there's an effect"? A placebo can not have an effect, yet, it has.

The whole point of placebo is that it has an effect though, just not one based on a real change.

That won't work for immediate relief; placebo is studied statistically as a cumulative change over a period of time. Not when I put Gunnars over my sore eyes from computing too much and get immediate relief. Frankly, I find this discussion a bit insane, a bunch of people trying to persuade me "it's all in my head" because they align with the opposite opinion, not with reality.

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