- pieberry@lemmy.todayEnglish4 hours
Didn’t GoPro start requiring online activation of their cameras a while back? Like customers couldn’t use it out of the box until they installed the smartphone app and activated it?
Edit: Looks like GoPro did try doing it by using dark patterns first and then getting more aggressive.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gopro/comments/16n6xyr/so_you_need_the_gopro_quik_app_to_activate_the/
3 hoursHah, and here I was thinking of getting a GoPro as a dash cam/rear cam. Sucks to suck GoPro lost another customer.
- Kaligalis@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
Nice to see that at least in the hardware market, competition still works. It is normal for companies who don’t offer competitive value for the money to just fail. This is how market economies are meant to work.
- Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish8 hours
GoPro hasn’t really done anything for the past 5 years at least. Totally on them.
- Nalivai@lemmy.worldEnglish6 hours
What should they be doing? They are an action camera company, they make action cameras. Do you think they needed to branch out to do energy drinks and lunchables or whatever?
- SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish2 hours
They could try and make a camera that doesn’t overheat and shut down.
- JordanZ@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
They doubled down hard on editing via the phone app with cloud storage via subscription. I have zero desire to edit video on my phone. Their desktop apps are frankly horrendous. They have cameras that capture footage at higher than 4K but their phone app only allowed export at 4K at least on an iPhone. This seemed to be a limit on the h265 libraries on the iPhone so it might be different on Android.
If you wanted to export their 5.6K 360 footage on a desktop from a GoPro Max you couldn’t do that in any sane way. You had to export it in their cine* whatever format and an hour of footage was over 400GB. This also used your graphics card to accelerate it. You could export the h265 files in 4K if memory serves which was obviously smaller and faster but you dropped the resolution as a trade off.
YouTube in a desktop browser supports 360 footage in 5K+ resolutions. I believe the mobile app is still 4K only.
- friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
If they have a solid product and do not want to make “energy drinks and lunchables”, the best financial move would be to optimize it. Find ways to make it smaller, lighter, and most importantly, reduce costs.
But if I were in charge, I’d seriously think about trying to eat DJI’s drone lunch now that there are FAA rules around foreign drone companies. GoPro is headquartered in San Mateo. Drone design is well known enough that there aren’t any hard problems in the way of introducing a decent DJI mini replacement. There may be patents or other non-technical stuff in the way though. But if they could get in on that, it could be immensely lucrative, especially if they can get government contracts.
- chiliedogg@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
They’re still feeling the burn from when they tried entering the drone space. The GoPro Karma almost bankrupted them on its own, and marked the end of their perception as a quality brand. It was a disaster they never recovered financially or reputationally.
The concept was great. The gimbal and camera could actually be removed from the drone to use independently. People were excited for their entry into the space, and they built a TON of the drones.
But they were also missing features. They didn’t have an API for third-party integration and flight automation like DJI. They had no collision avoidance features, which had started to become standard in the market by the time the entered. Their battery life was pretty bad.
Oh - and upon release the drones constantly lost connection to GPS and would suddenly shut off mid-flight and fall out of the sky. The FAA actually advised all users to ground them.
They eventually recalled all of the Karma drones over safety concerns, took a huge stock hit, and went through a round of layoffs.
- jj4211@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
Frankly, that second idea seems really consistent with whatever residual brand value they have.
Unfortunately, they got burned by doing it poorly around 2017 and seem to have been scared off of playing in that space ever.
The first is probably already done but maybe not enough to keep the niche afloat. If the GoPro’s need replacement, then they won’t have a reputation for durability. If they keep going, then why replace your old one when it already does 4k 60fps? Problem is either they need replacement and erode brand strength, or are durable and can’t compete with already owned product. That path probably most likely ends with selling themselves to some other company that will probably slap the name on random Chinese cameras.
- quarkquasar@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
Mini drone that follows/records the user and wide angle panoramas of the surrounding area at the same time.
Get to it, gopro. Be the change you wish to see.
- TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish6 hours
make action cameras that people want to buy?
instead of pushing the same product with minor updates for greater costs which bring no benefit to the consumer?
- SirEDCaLot@lemmy.todayEnglish2 hours
make action cameras that people want to buy?
instead of pushing the same product with minor updates for greater costs which bring no benefit to the consumer?
They might try making cameras that don’t overheat and shut down after 10 minutes…
- TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
Precisely. They used to make better products than they do now.
The problems with their products got worse generation on generation. Their older products were more reliable.
- Unstoppable_Flop@lemmy.zipEnglish2 hours
Same as it ever was. Line must go up.
1- make good product, make money
2 - make product worse/charge for standard features
3 - cripple existing products, force people to buy new version
- Yaky@slrpnk.netEnglish5 hours
pushing the same product with minor updates for greater costs
Works for smartphone manufactuters though
- TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
the smartphone space has way more competition and their market is literally everyone on the planet. there are 6 billion smart phone buyers.
the vast vast majority of whom, do not need the power in most phones. there is no demand for improving phones, they have peaked. Phones are a commodity at this point, like your average desktop/laptop.
- AbsolutePain@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
My old Hero 7 is going strong. Yes, there might be cheaper options now, but they were strong options at some point at least.
- jj4211@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
The paradox of a good company and product.
Make a good product with good ownership terms by the customer, and why would there be repeat business?
- farmgineer@nord.pubEnglish12 hours
I’m on my second gopro (a hero 10). It will overheat in the shade outside in summer. The battery also crapped out quite early, though they did find another one to send me (I bought it new from them directly, but after newer models released). I don’t see myself buying another of their cameras.
How did they fuck it up that bad. All thry need to do is keep selling an ok camera
- SirEDCaLot@lemmy.todayEnglish2 hours
They stopped selling an OK camera and started selling cameras that overheat in the shade with dark patterns to try and force you into using their mobile app for video processing.
- stealth_cookies@lemmy.caEnglish14 hours
I disagree there, the market of people who record their outdoors activities was always limited and quickly got boring. Eventually, competitors caught up and many of them focused on products in better form factors for non-extreme sports that were better for a wider range of people. There is a reason why the likes of DJI and Insta360 are the goto products for those that don’t utilize larger cameras.
- magnue@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
Yeah I got my hero 7 many years ago and have sat on it. Does the job. If I were to upgrade I’d go the i360 route.
- fubarx@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
Between DJI Action 6 and Insta360 X5 on the high end, and the cheap knockoffs on the low end, GoPro is in a big pinch. Unless they pull a totally new rabbit out of the hat.
- betahack@lemmy.worldEnglish18 hours
…sooooo what you’re saying is they’ll be coming out with a GonePro soon?
thank you, thank you…I’ll see my way out
- jim_v@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
I appreciate a good amateur comedian, but I really think you have the chops to GoPro.
- XeroxCool@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
Gone Pro sounds like maybe they leveled up from amateur. A lack of them in the future would be NoPro
Everyone is talking about how bad gopros are? My 11 has been fine. Only overheated once on a hot day. My only other complaint is that occasionally the stabilisation doesn’t work.
Their cloud storage is completely shit though, didn’t use it even when I had it for free.
- FatVegan@leminal.spaceEnglish12 hours
That sounds pretty bad, since you can get a better camera cheaper
- 21 hours
What a crazy fuckup. You have a household name almost for action cameras and you keep releasing overpriced crappy products.
- chillpanzee@lemmy.mlEnglish16 hours
They’ve always been kinda crappy. I don’t think that changed so much as competition got better. And then as competition got better, they started doing things like stupidly priced dongles for external audio input. This has been a slow burn in the works for a long time.
Meanwhile my old GoPro Hero 4 is somehow the most reliable action camera I own, and my newer one constantly stops recording due to something. I bought an Insta360 as an alternative a couple years ago and the batteries are all already toast, and last maybe 30 seconds of recording.
- saltesc@lemmy.worldEnglish18 hours
my newer one constantly stops recording due to something.
For a while they kept putting the same old processor in that couldn’t handle the load. GoPros shutting off due to overheating or recording too long was just normal.
Dunno if it’s still the case. I switched to DJI and you can’t even compare the two. Quality, smart design, price, reliability; these are not GoPro things. I record for an hour plus sometimes and just flawless. Don’t have to think about it.
- Pycorax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish17 hours
I really regret not buying one of the earlier GoPros. The Insta360 frankly has been a huge disappointment. The batteries are really awful.
- scytale@piefed.zipEnglish21 hours
I see a lot of action cams on the used marketplace selling for cheap. What’s a good one to buy? Or are they all toast?
Theyre all really good now, and all priced very similarly. All have strengths and weaknesses but you can’t really go wrong with any of them.
Unfortunately they all require a proprietary app and associated account so I’ll never buy another one.
GoPro rested on their laurels and DJI and Insta360 are eating their lunch now.
- sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish16 hours
I got a gopro for a project and basically gave up on copying the video files to my computer…
- iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.worldEnglish18 hours
Insta360 really wants to take the higher end of gopro. As in, beating them at quality. There’s a bazillion lower end models with varying quality, some rather decent.
I have the insta360 acepro 2, and recording quality is really good, i think better than gopro. But it’s a brick of a camera to hold, rather heavier. I didn’t have issues with batteries myself, i have an original one and 2 off market ones, so far all working Ok.
- phant@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
I still have an original GoPro HD Hero and it still works fine. Battery is like 50% capacity as expected, but yeah, otherwise still working.
- 21 hours
Agreed. I have a Hero 10 Black and basically every time I go to use it I wind up wanting to hurl it into the sun by the time I’m done. My wife bought it for me as a birthday present a couple of years ago because I asked for one specifically (I didn’t know any better, apparently) so it would probably be rude to do so, though.
It overheats, it randomly shuts off, it routinely experiences a firmware crash that renders all of its buttons inoperable and requires pulling the battery to cure. Oh, and it also has a battery life best measured in seconds so you need to keep it plugged in to external power all the time which requires an aftermarket accessory. Brilliant.
With any luck mine will get taken out in some spectacular and marketable fashion, preferably while recording at top quality so I can post it and use the video revenue to buy an Insta Ace or something.
- 21 hours
Cries in Hero 7.
I can’t even plug mine into my PC and use it as a 4k webcam :/
- Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.worksEnglish20 hours
Not almost, “GoPro” is absolutely a household name, they were the only realistic choice for action cameras for an incredibly long time.
It’s also a verb, I’ve heard people talk about “GoPro-ing” something many times before.
Absolutely nuts how far they’ve fallen.
Now that they’ve milked the brand dry, my bet is they’ll either:
Let it go bankrupt and walk away with the profits, or
Sell to someone who will use what’s left of the brand’s credibility to drain any remaining suckers hoping for a revival.
- Unstoppable_Flop@lemmy.zipEnglish2 hours
3 Get a government bailout and then walk away with the profits
- OR3X@lemmy.worldEnglish21 hours
Not surprising, honestly. DJI had been eating their lunch and GoPro never could figure out how to keep their damn cameras from overheating all the time. Everyone I know switched to DJI.
- Mantzy81@aussie.zoneEnglish21 hours
This is what seriously limited my use of the GP10. It’s a real shame as I love the camera but it just stopped me from using it due to that unreliability.
- ramenshaman@lemmy.worldEnglish17 hours
The specs on that new camera are insane. It can do like 1000 fps.
Edit: 960 fps @ 1080
- 4 hours
By the time I gets to frame 900 it will just overheat lol
- BigTrout75@lemmy.worldEnglish13 hours
I had one a awhile back. The videos looked great but battery life was a joke. I remember behind baffled by how un-user friendly it was. For a $400 dollar item it’s felt oddly outdated when it was new. I just preferred using my phone.
- 20 hours
My last experience with gopro was many years ago trying to get a firmware update for one of my hero 3’s. The download links for the firmware was there, but broken. It needed the attention of someone on their web management team.
I tried to get support via email but was told I had to go to the community forums for the issue. I found a thread of dozens of other users also pinging support and complaining of a broken link.
That thread went unanswered by support for months if not a year or two. I think it eventually got fixed, but it put such a bad taste in my mouth that so many people reported that their site was broken and they just ignored it. It was probably something simple like a bad character in the page code somewhere. I decided I wasn’t going to support this sort of behavior and have not spent any additional money with the company since then.
It’s no surprise to hear they’re struggling financially. When you cater to the premium market space, you have to provide premium service.
- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish18 hours
So many people go to years of business school to get specialized degrees in very specific aspects of business.
When I was younger, I thought they must know what they’re doing.
Since then, in the past 20 years I’ve watched so many huge companies that are too big to fail, go under and cease operations.
I mean for christs sake! How the fuck does SEARS go under???
For any Gen-Z people who may not be firmiliar with Sears, I want you to imagine if you get to age 40, and Amazon just stops existing and goes out of business. Personally I think SEARS in its day was bigger than Amazon is now. You used to be able to buy HOUSES from Sears.
So now I’m older, and I realize one thing. These businessmen with all their degrees and training and world of knowledge don’t know the simple fundamental basics of business.
Step 1) Sell a quality product for a reasonable price.
Thats it. There is no step 2. You can try all day to fidget with the numbers, and raise prices, and shrink portions, and decrease quality. All you’re doing is nickle and diming your customer base. You’re destroying any good reputation you once had. You make an extra 5% profit on that singular sale…and then lose a customer.
I once worked at a hotel. Every week this guy would come in, and rent a room. He barely used the room. Housekeepers always said it was like 5-10 minutes of cleaning (as opposed to 30-40 minutes). He always paid his room for the night in cash. And never was a problem. I charged $60 a night, which was on the low side for our hotel.
One day he comes in as the owner is with me. He decides to check in the regular. He tries charging $90, and demanded a credit card to be put on file for incidentals. Which is a rule we apply to most guests, but we know this guy isn’t going to be a problem. I told the owner we don’t need that for him, and he’ll pay $60.
The owner argued, so I backed out. Then he and the guest got into an arguement. He didn’t pay the $90, he never came back.
I told the owner “When I run my shift, I make sure these housekeepers are providing clean rooms. I make sure the maintence man is on call to fix any break downs. I make sure on my end the computers are functional, and I pass these guests through the checkin process with speed and efficiency. All while doing my best to make you the most money. The tools at my disposal are selling a quality product for a reasonable price. That may sound boring to you. I’m not maximizing profits on short term sales. I’m retaining regular customers through company growth and hospitality. Now I can’t do much to make this hotel any higher quality, but I can at least satisfy the reasonable price aspect and try to retain repeat customers. But if you come in here and argue with customers, and run your company with a short sighted mentality, you’ll run your hotel into the ground.”
He argued with me. And thats when I knew I couldn’t stay there much longer. I immediately started looking for a new job. I think a month later I left.
Within 2 years the city shut the place down because they failed a city inspection. Instead of saying “Yes, ok, I’ll fix the violations”, he instead decided to argue with, and threaten the mayor. Which is when they just straight up shut the property down. He paid 2 million for the property. I know for a fact he didn’t make that money back. Then argued with a mayor until he threatened her, which resulted in him losing any chance for a profit.
Now for the kicker.
That story happened in 2019. Just last year the Cleveland Browns announced they were going to build a new stadium. That stadium would be built on land that was on the other side of a highway from where this hotel was.
Meaning, in 2029, once the stadium opens, you could walk out of your hotel room, walk to the end of the property, walk under the highway bridge, and now you’re at the stadium. No need for a cab ride, it’s a 3 minute walk.
During football season, he could be charging $400 per room, per night, and still be sold out.
Or, maybe the Haslams (owner of the Browns, and also will be the owners of this stadium) would maybe want to buy his hotel. He could have sold it for 20 million. He could have had a highly profitable hotel which is sold out every weekend during football season.
Instead, he took a loss. Because every businessman right now wants to direct the world around them with ego and stuborness.
Just sell a quality product, at a reasonable price. You can use that as a baseline to grow your business.
- 9 hours
I felt sorry for you until you mentioned the Browns. Now I feel really sorry for you. Browns Bros Untied!
Where I live now (Philly suburb) there used to be a local bakery which was beloved, but their landlord raised their rent on them and they had to shut down. The location then sat vacant for about 7 years. I’m no finance wizard, but how does it make any sense to go from whatever their rent was previously to zero fucking rental income? A couple of months ago a fucking Wonder finally opened there, so maybe that explains it – no real business can possibly compete with a company burning through venture capital.
Something I’ve realized is that a lot of management for big publicly traded companies doesn’t care about any long term success of the company. They just want to turn a quick profit for a year or two, and then move on to a different company with a severance package and a raise. They will gladly steer a company towards ruin if it makes for a better financial quarter.
When I was younger, I thought they must know what they’re doing.
Same. The older I get, the more I realize like 80% of “professionals” don’t know what they’re doing.
I had nearly this exact conversation with my son on the way home tonight. Different details, but the same lesson. The world has abandoned practicality in favor of aesthetics and grift. I have quit several jobs because of the awful short term thinking, some of them good jobs that were the envy of my peers.
I start in the public sector next week, where I get to do things that have a direct impact on thousands of people in the state. I was hired specifically because of my practicality. I sincerely hope this is what I’ve been looking for.
- Rooster326@programming.devEnglish4 hours
Best of luck.
That practicality is going to hit a wall of bureaucracy and what you will find is that when you try to change the system from within, it’s not you who changes the system; it’s the system that will eventually change you.
Source: Was the practical guy. Got buried in bureaucracy and just like that…
It’s something new anyway. I’ve dealt with bureaucracy my whole career, but mostly about shuffling numbers from one spreadsheet to another. This one is about helping shuffle people from one place to another. So, I’m used to slow, deliberate pace and hitting political walls. I’m hoping this time at least it’s doing something tangible.
