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Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

This is the ultimate "parents think it's great, kids will think it's lame" product. I mean, I like it. And just the name conjures images of GenXers yelling at clouds on TikTok about how they used to use tin cans or Solo cups connected with string to talk to their friends, so it's clear who they're targeting with the marketing. But if I were 11-13yo and I got this when all my friends got an iPhone? I'd be furious.

But I dunno. Kids being what they are, seem to be developing curiosity about "retro tech". So maybe there's some sort of whiplash effect occurring among them.

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Yeah, I also pause when I read articles like this. The parent in this story is trying to go "full 90s", like that was when kids were raised the best... which just happens to be the time when they were kids. Except, when I was a kid in the 90s, the parents at that time thought the 90s things were horrible and longed for the best time to raise kids... which of course was when they were children.

The entire point of parenthood is to validate your narcissism, you can't talk reason into parents they can only be socially programmed.

I am a dad of two kids, I am doing my best to use reason.

Two use cases:

1. Allowing the kids to call parents and no one else, without all the extra baggage that comes with a smartphone.

2. Multiple families getting together and deciding this is how their kids will communicate with each other (i.e. all agreeing not to get smartphones for their kids).

> But if I were 11-13yo and I got this when all my friends got an iPhone? I'd be furious.

If you've decided they're not getting a smartphone at that age, they'll be furious regardless. They may opt for this as an alternative. Up to the kids.

These are the two uses cases we use it for: call parents, call grandparents, call friends. We bought units for their friends. No smartphones.

This is for kids who don't yet have a smart phone, not as a smart phone replacement for kids who already had smartphones. I made something similar for my kids(basically, a phone with buttons that can call a fixed set of people), and my kids love it, and use it multiple times per day.

If the kid doesn't have a smartphone, and looks around and sees kids who do have one, they're gonna be envious and pissed when their parents tell them they can't have one. I know because it's analogous to what I felt when I was still slumming it with my TI-99/4A when every other kid had a NES back in the late 80s.

That sentiment has been changing. Kids themselves are seeing social media for what it really is.

Your kid is envious about their friends who smoke all the time. Would you buy your kid some cigarettes just so they can be non-envious?

Pfft those suckers didn't have Parsec or Car Wars or Ms. Pac Man plus the hours spent typing TI-BASIC from a magazine was less frustrating than trying to get the jumps right on Super Mario Bros level 8-2. And I'm sure Demolition Division and Meteor Multiplication are why I ended up with a math degree.

For real though I spent so much time pining for Mario 3 before my parents finally did give in. But I feel like there was something good about the diversity, like when I could play Lode Runner on my buddy's C64 (actually a 128... GO 64)

Probably the best thing is a CB radio. Let them talk to any other kids in town but no chance of weirdness.

> Probably the best thing is a CB radio. Let them talk to any other kids in town but no chance of weirdness.

No chance of weirdness? On CB? Have you used a CB?!?

I had a CB in my car for a while and the majority of the talk I ever heard on it outside of traffic updates and cop reports on major interstate highways was weird shit.

Perhaps. But weirdness in a public space is superior to weirdness in DMs.

Even if they play with it for 5 minutes it's a fun little science lesson if the parents bother to explain what is happening.

$100 is a lot for 5 minutes of fun.

I read it as they were talking about the idea of having kids still go play with actual tin cans and a string in this day and age rather than it be something only old people could have done.

I just meant if they used an actual tin can and string. This is just a wired intercom. There are much cheaper ones on Amazon, several options.

Backordered until December, apparently.

If my 11 to 13 year old got furious they’d swiftly find themselves at an agricultural boarding school in the regions.

This being Australia, likely a particular remote boarding school in a particular hot part of the county.

Come back when you’ve learned how to be reasonable sort of person.

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