aayush's comments

Hi, I'm a founder of piq. I'm sharing this with the community to ask a few questions.

1. We're launching a Kickstarter in about 10 days. If you like the idea, do sign up to our list so we can reach out to you.

2. Does the website explain our idea and concept to you?

What we're trying to communicate is: piq is a little hardware device that's essentially a Roku box for audio -- except, it allows people around you to participate and choose what's playing.

Here's a video where I pitched piq -- http://goo.gl/NFbSH

3. Pick a song for our jukebox! -- http://www.piq.fm/try

We use Facebook for our voting system right now, and I assure you that we do not use any personal data at all {I'd be skeptical if I read this too, but we really mean it} This is an alpha version, but critiques of design and experience would help immensely.

4. And if you made it this far, here's a sneak peek of our Kickstarter video: https://vine.co/v/bjp3aQeEYdj

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Thanks! Great start there.

MUJI does this often, looking at small, often over looked devices and objects, and re-imagines them in a blue-collar yet poetically beautiful way. Their products often strive to be invisible for the same reason.

The third paragraph on that link really sums it up by opening with "MUJI has always been dedicated to the pursuit of adequacy, of designing products that are truly fit for their purpose." Their view of the term adequate is in stark contrast with a modern representation (say, a minimum viable product). Adequate is good.

In a similar vein (from a different perspective), Milton Glaser's 10 Things I have Learned (http://www.miltonglaser.com/milton/c:essays/#4) says the same "Just enough is more"

I can't remember a single case of patenting improving consumer experience in the modern era.

The way I see it, patents are designed to improve capitalist behaviour, once where your ideas are protected: the march towards innovation is strictly optional.

It's time instead to consider how dependent our world is on iterative practices. Everything we build on and upon is no longer unique: it's all inspired, and improved.

Jim Jarmusch said this once:

>Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows.

To embrace iteration, we need to get rid of patents. That much is certain.

The reactions across the board are quite disappointing, to be honest.

All you can do as a customer (or as anything, for that matter) is give up the illusion of control.

This is the Sparrow story: A fantastic product was built, and exchanged for money. The people behind the product were recognized, and were acquired for a significant amount.

Everyone is a winner, and customers move on to the next thing.

What's more worrying is our reaction to an email client going under: it's clearly a sign that we don't have enough well designed products for a system that's been in mass use for more than a decade.