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kind of illogical and confusive season ending

posted 8 years ago by pntfe
7 replies | jump to latest

It's a perfect show but in previous season finales it did't feel like unrealistic as this one. This year's finale did't seem like it slowly build on the outcome, it just happen and it doesnt make much sense like it used to have.

They had 500,00 installs but couldnt at least try and fix the problems of the platform? Did richard don't want that because... reasons?

for 3 seasons we hear that is the next big thing and it worths millions/billions but for a wrong start everything falls down? and raviga again kick them out? an idea/platform that could worth easily 250 millions is sold for 1 m. ?? they 're a big company but can' t help a new one that has a slow start but has huge potential.. even russ wanted in a week before... totally unrealistic

and from this big idea they go to video chat player? what is big and new about that?
and they' re ditching the original idea just like that?

and yeah i know it's a comedy

[–] sawatts 8 years ago

I've been involved with a start-up which has been going since before this program starts... "people" keep saying how great its concept it, how it could be the next-big-thing (whatever), etc, etc, but still haven't produced the funding to boost it into orbit. Still, we're not in SV or even the US, so wallets are rustier.

So I can well believe that bragging-value does not equal hard cash.

Oh, and Richard didn't try to fix the interface because he's a pratt. May be unacknowledged arrogance. He was more intent on "teaching" users how it worked, rather than giving them an experience they could understand. Suggests lack of understanding of his potential consumer base.

There's a reason why you shouldn't let techies design consumer interfaces.

(speaking as a techie)

[–] starwolf 8 years ago

Oh, and Richard didn't try to fix the interface because he's a pratt. May be unacknowledged arrogance. He was more intent on "teaching" users how it worked, rather than giving them an experience they could understand.

I agree on the arrogance and pratt part.

But Richard may not be able to conceptualize a platform at the base level the public needs. That's actually a quite useful, and not common, skill - writing useful and useable UIs. In his arrogance he likely thinks he can, but PP needed to hire consultants to help design the UI.

I have multiple degrees in math but once when my older son came to me with some questions on basic pre-algebra I found myself unable to explain it at a basic enough level for him to grasp it. I think maybe it's the same with Richard.

[–] RoseMaryLavender 8 years ago

Exactly what I was thinking. It's arrogant of Richard to assume educating the public on the use of his new software would be easier than hiring a UX/UI experts. That's the biggest mistake any company can make. I think they were trying to make a point with this scenario. However, in the real-world, educating the public to use your software or device will never fly. Nobody want's to learn "new methods" for something already familiar. Who'd care about the better compression at that point,...actually what is the point if it takes longer to navigate the Interface? It kind of negates the time savings in their "superior" compression algorithm. LOL It's like how Microsoft copied Apples drag-n-drop,... before then you had to type DOS commands. LMAO Luckily Bill Gates was conscienceless and stole the exact interface from Apple.

[–] animositisomina35 8 years ago

I don't understand the pivot to a video chat player either. They're saying it's much better than Hooli's video chat player, but what about Skype? What's so revolutionary about their video chat player?

I believe the issue with trying to fix the problems associated with the platform came down to time and money. They had already burned through so much cash and needed a certain number of daily active users before they would get another round of funding. They really didn't have the time or money to tweak the platform, even if they wanted to, which Richard said he would have done if that was an option. It wasn't at that point, however. The only thing they could do was attempt seminars in order to educate the public and that failed miserably.

Raviga did care about the potential, but the bottom line for them was return on investment in a finite period of time. They had already sunk a lot of money into this platform and given how it had failed to attract a decent rate of daily active users, they decided to move on. The world of investing is filled with wins and losses. This was a loss for them and they moved on.

Russ and other investors were only interested if there was actual traction in the gain of daily active users. The uptick wasn't real, however, which is why people moved on from Pied Piper. Theoretically, they could have gone back to the drawing board and tried to make it more user friendly, but how much more time and money would that have taken?

[–] starwolf 8 years ago

What's so revolutionary about their video chat player?

Well, presumably it's the fact that it is using PP's compression algorithm on the video frames so that it can produce clearer, cleaner video even in lowered bandwidth situations.

Theoretically, they could have gone back to the drawing board and tried to make it more user friendly, but how much more time and money would that have taken?

Yes, I agree. Creating a "good" and "useful" UI is expensive and time consuming. Companies spend millions on UI design and still sometimes don't get it right.

Plus, add in the negative connotations associated with PP. ("Yeah, I tried that software once. It was a POS. Now I use xxx.")

[–] fakeslashdash6 8 years ago

I don't understand the pivot to a video chat player either. They're saying it's much better than Hooli's video chat player, but what about Skype? What's so revolutionary about their video chat player?

Even funnier because Danesh was bragging to a girl that he did a video chat app and she said "oh, so you invented Skype"?

Yes... The video chat usage is absurd. Even if Hooli's version is terrible, there's still decent enough ones in the market.

I still don't understand what happened to the video compression angle in season 2? They did amazingly well with the eagle egg thing, they were about to get loads of money from the porn company (the "delete" thing was the dumbest thing this show ever did) so they clearly had a viable angle to sell things.

Even if Laurie forced the box guy down their throat, why did suddenly stop with the video stream? The infrastructure was never part of their plan throughout season 1 or 2.

[–] crayola14 8 years ago

I think that is the point, the irony of the situation. They spend all this time and had all this buzz for something average people didnt want, cause they are living in this bubble of SV and VC.

The video chat app had no funding, no "launch", no anything, but people really loved it and shared it and it took off by word of mouth only

VC throws big $$ at things that are not monetizable and people dont even care about, like the moustache thing, instead of building actual "products" that people can make use of.