Thread

ZuckOff is a free app that sees Meta glasses before they see you

400 points · 351 comments · choult

flexagoon · 1789991418 · focus · HN ↗
Not sure why you'd use this sketchy vibecoded proprietary app over the same thing that's open source and existed for a while
<a href="https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
1. colesantiago · 1789992258 · focus · HN ↗
  Unless you're selling to grandparents over 50-70, nobody says yj_nearbyclasses or "Nearby Glasses".
  "ZuckOff" is a better quality marketing name for an app like this, vibecoded or not.
  The media and already consumers have talked more about "ZuckOff" than "Nearby Glasses" so a winner has already been chosen.
  1. gelly321 · 1789993335 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not about a winner. This isn't CNN, there's no reason, (if you know better) to use the vibe coded sketchy software like he said. We're better than this. Do you really think popular = automatically better?
    colesantiago · 1789994805 · focus · HN ↗
    > It's not about a winner.
    And it is not about being first here. ZuckOff is just a better packaged app, that's why it took off.
    > Do you really think popular = automatically better?
    If it gets the point effectively across better than the original.
    Yes.
    It is more supported than something that is OSS that will die in under a year.
    There are features that ZuckOff has that are more useful than the suggested one IMO.
    For a vibecoded app, it is well packaged with a great name.
    That is how you get people to use your app.
    pentaphobe · 1789995343 · focus · HN ↗
    I'd rather use software which was made to solve a problem than software that exists to "get" people to use it.
    justacrow · 1789996984 · focus · HN ↗
    Nearby Glasses has 100k downloads, while ZuckOff is sitting at 1k.
    getpokedagain · 1790016434 · focus · HN ↗
    Why use logic when you can use ai pixie dust and marketing and of course our good friend. Bullshit.
    pocksuppet · 1789997548 · focus · HN ↗
    popular != better but better == popular
    If you see something that is popular but you think it is worse, then your better/worse axis is not aligned with the majority.
    For example, X is better than Mastodon because you don't have to pick a server to use.
    orwin · 1790000198 · focus · HN ↗
    Untrue for sails, untrue for dinghys, untrue for foils, because price discrimination. I thought it might have been true for catamaran, but I looked it up and it seems that Hobie Cat 16 are still more popular than Nacras for some inimaginable reason, as for once it's not price related.
    If I go on another subject I invested time in, RPGs, D&D is the most popular system while inferior imho to a lot of others. Even if we have to keep the very flawed d20 system, the way forgotten chronicles handles everything is superior (and if in your bad opinion it's not the case because weirdly you like the class system, you probably would prefer pathfinder instead of dnd).
  2. dmantis · 1789993367 · focus · HN ↗
    It's a better marketing indeed, but that doesn't answers the op's question.
    Between something opensource and trusted, and a proprietary potential backdoor that can send the data back to the Zuck himself you'd probably want to choose the former (cause you never know with closed sources).
    I'm glad that he has shared the link as for me it's definitely useful. It's not a competition and I don't care what media talk, that's not about money.
    colesantiago · 1789994220 · focus · HN ↗
    There isn't any hope for something called "yj_nearbyglasses" if nobody outside of technical people know about it so OSS is kind of a moot point here.
    Outside of that, this project giving scary warnings is something I cannot recommend to others.
    > Between something opensource and trusted and proprietary backdoor that can send the data back to the Zuck himself you'd probably want to choose the former.
    Only HN veterans care about this, not people in the real world.
    dmantis · 1789994389 · focus · HN ↗
    You can expect exactly HN people to read a comment saying "why would you use smth instead of" on HN.
  3. XorNot · 1789993465 · focus · HN ↗
    I mean I'm going to install neither of these because going about my day obsessively focusing on something like this seems weird.
  4. nomilk · 1789993803 · focus · HN ↗
    ^^ this is actually a great lesson in the power of marketing. In this case, something as simple as a product name.
    pentaphobe · 1789995115 · focus · HN ↗
    Forgive me using your comment as a madlib, but one potential ending:
    (something as simple as a product name)... is enough to make someone ignore the actual point about software trust and instead argue that good marketing is what's important :)
    fc417fc802 · 1790003873 · focus · HN ↗
    Depends on the implied meaning. What technical reason? There isn't one, obviously. But what about the practical reason for the behavior we observe? That's explained by the name and marketing. And if your goal is to understand "why are people doing this" then indeed marketing is what's important and software trust only barely enters into it.
    Of course the irony there is palpable. Worry about the glasses while disregarding everything else.
  5. BonerWiener · 1789995493 · focus · HN ↗
    > so a winner has already been chosen.
    Decided by whom?
    This feels like astroturfing. The amount of new users recommending and hyping this proprietary product seems odd.
  6. axus · 1789997460 · focus · HN ↗
    Your comment shouldn't be downvoted for misunderstanding the hypothetical; you give a correct answer why "people" would choose ZuckOff. The question was why "you" (an individual from the Hacker News audience) wouldn't use yj_nearbyglasses instead.
    fc417fc802 · 1790004609 · focus · HN ↗
    True, but as far as that goes the question was a pointless one. Whereas the one that was answered has the potential to lead to productive conversation.

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