Why is everyone so obsessed with what this costs? I'd imagine a lot of us have couches with a similar price tag, despite much cheaper options being available.
This is likewise part of someone's living room, they can spend whatever they like on it as a matter of taste.
Because many here dearly would like to have this setup, but cannot justify the price tag. A couch is a daily used piece of furniture, basically something essentially needed for comfortable evenings. A good couch you can use for a very long time. This is gorgeous, but just a toy without filling a daily need.
Also it is the frustration, that eInk prices should have come down further and there should be more eInk powered devices available on the market. There are a lot of really great things one could make, if eInk would be more widely available.
If a lot of great things were built and bought by customers, eInk would be more widely available. :) If you want to make eInk happen in other applications, just go and buy the devices that are out there.
You can be the visionary that makes the segment happen. :)
I'm on the other end: Why is furniture so damn cheap? It uses natural resources, causes waste, needs transport, and above all, needs manufacturing, by craftsman and women.
My wife repairs (upholstery) furniture and car interiors; with european wages, refurbishing, say, your designer-office chair or sofa easily costs upwards of €2000
(the answer, I'm afraid, is that "manufacturing" is cheap because of defacto slavery (sweatshops) of state subsidy (China), that "waste" and ecological footprint is not included in the price, and transport also subsidised by both the far-too-cheap "overseas" labor, and often even direct from states.)
It'd be cool if couches came as a kit with an order sheet for you to source the foam locally. The frame and coverings would fit in a door-sized package. Hmm.
Because I come to hacker news wanting cool DIY tech I can do something with in my home. At $2300 this article is interesting but not what I was hoping for.
"Oh that's really cool I could do X with it." Looks up price -> closes tab.
It is art, but the author also said he reads it daily to get a news digest. It is full-sized and sharp, so just as easy to read as a newspaper, and also hanging at eye-height.
I can also see it as part of a news diet: get the headlines and major trends of the day while waiting for your coffee and toast in the morning, then you don't need to be distracted by news websites when you're working. That's actually how the morning paper was meant to be consumed: get info early in your day. If you want the whole paper, the software could be modified to load the entire paper PDF and have a control to page through.
I wouldn't call it envy. It is just the frustration that eInk screens are still so expensive. This display is gorgeous, but I cannot justify the expense in the grand scheme of things.
Because this Hacker News, where you have to be either cynical or pedantic in all your comments. This project is very cool, so the only major downside (the price) is used to fuel the cynicism.
It could cost 15 bucks and people would comment about the fact that it uses a cloud CMS. Or be disgusted by the PHP snippet.
It’s just the culture of HN. You can’t change that anymore.
This is likewise part of someone's living room, they can spend whatever they like on it as a matter of taste.