Top all-time · #249
Dustin Curtis
Personal blog · dcurt.isdesignstartups
Dustin Curtis's personal blog at dcurt.is covers design and startups. Since 2011, 193 different Hacker News readers have linked it 250 times, most often “Apple Card Disabled My iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID Accounts”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-05-16, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 7 of 40 sampled comments recommend it, 4 are critical?
Why HN links it
Linked for his essays on Apple Card and Apple account lockouts, Google Glass, Facebook's redesign and UX, and Svbtle; some mock 'The Best'.
- Recommended for · 7 comments
- Excellent Google Glass review; eloquent on Snapchat; good HBO write-up; agreed with on Twitter, liked on 'your' UX.
- Criticised for · 4 comments
- Says 'The Best' is meaningless and trolling, and that the posts show off and read as elitist.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Dustin Curtis | Designer, hacker, investor, nomad. Founder of Svbtle.
Most-linked posts?
- Apple Card Disabled My iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID Accounts10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2021-03-02
- The Best10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2016-10-18
- /unkudo7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-03-22
- The Best7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-11-07
- Pixel-fitting – how antialiasing can ruin your logos and icons7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-05-09
- 3.5 Inches6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-09-12
- Codename: Svbtle by Dustin Curtis6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2012-03-22
- Why HBO's president panned Internet streaming (and Forbes' linkbait)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2012-05-11
- Dustin Curtis' new site5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2012-01-23
- Apple TV, Apple TV, Apple TV, and Apple TV+4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-11-04
What Hacker News says?
Dustin Curtis wrote about a similar incident at https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account Slightly different issue involving the Apple credit card, but it’s just as insane that there’s no separation between the different parts of Apple. For that reason I will never have an Apple Card, and I guess I won’t be redeeming Apple gift cards with my Apple ID.
Comment linking /apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
on “Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help”Submitted The Fight as a story · 734 points
HN discussionOP said something similar about writing blog posts when he found himself doing twitter a lot, back in 2013. So whatever he did to cope with tweeting, he can do the same with LLMs, since it seems like he's been writing a lot of blog posts since. > I’ve been thinking about this damn essay for about a year, but I haven’t written it because Twitter is so much easier than writing, and I have been enormously tempted to ju…
Comment linking /what-i-would-have-written
on “Thoughts on thinking”Submitted Thoughts on thinking as a story · 721 points
HN discussionhttps://dcurt.is/apple-tv-all-the-way-down
Comment linking /apple-tv-all-the-way-down
on “Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio”Submitted Apple Card Disabled My iCloud, App Store, and Apple ID Accounts as a story · 676 points
HN discussionEDIT I'll leave my post as two people were kind enough to point out that I was just flat out wrong. I had originally thought that the below post was a parody. I'm told it wasn't, though in my defense it definitely reads like a parody... I mean the perfect cutlery... the most meaningless item in anyone's house?? This reminds me of another parody post here a while ago about someone who said they'd bought the perfect c…
Comment linking /the-best
on “High Frequency Dating”Submitted Whatever goes up, that’s what we do as a story · 609 points
HN discussion> Snapchat, which thrived partially due to 'offensive' content Assuming you mean sexting, I think the percentage of sexually explicit images sent on Snapchat has been wildly exaggerated — by tech journalists looking for clicks, and by older folks not in Snapchat's target market who don't really get the point. Snapchat's appeal for everyday, non-sexual use seems to go over the heads of most tech people I know, but ha…
Comment linking /photos-for-communication
on “Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me”Submitted What a stupid idea as a story · 517 points
HN discussionWe’ve been talking about this for a while, but it’s always fun to revisit in the context of the latest advancements and trends. I always liked the conclusion that Dustin Curtis came to which is: if you can use “your” in the UX it acts like a conversation with the user. This is even more appropriate as UX is becoming literally conversational. https://dcurt.is/yours-vs-mine
Comment linking /yours-vs-mine
on “"Your" vs. "My" in user interfaces”Submitted Apple TV, Apple TV, Apple TV, and Apple TV+ as a story · 491 points
HN discussionThis is simply a vehicle for the author to show off about how he was consulted by well-known startups before they were big. These articles by dcurtis are a very ugly portrait of San Francisco tech culture. For example it beggars belief that this one was not written as a parody: http://dcurt.is/the-best
Comment linking /the-best
on “What a stupid idea”Submitted The Best as a story · 403 points
HN discussionI've written before on this very topic - not building your house / business on other people's platform. That said, I think there's a real opportunity for Twitter to grow via third party apps by being more open, they just haven't straddled the line of being both a consumer app and infrastructure company well previously. I agree massively with lots of what Dustin Curtis has previously written about his vision for the…
Comment linking /twitter
on “Twitter CEO Dorsey Apologizes to Developers”Submitted Glass as a story · 401 points
HN discussionApple's card wouldn't seem so bad to me if they didn't treat debt to Apple differently [0] & lock people out of all of their Apple services when there's a payment overdue. It's crappy enough to be behind on bills without that sort of pile-on, not to mention the Kafka-esque process of fixing the issue. [0] https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
Comment linking /apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
on “My bank sent me 64 copies of the same debit card”Submitted Web Standards as a story · 358 points
HN discussionThis was a good write-up of an interview with the HBO co-CEO: http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes-journalism Worth reading before spouting the typical "I don't understand why HBO doesn't want my $5 a month."
Comment linking /hbo-forbes-journalism
on “Take my money, HBO”Submitted Fixing Twitter as a story · 308 points
HN discussionWithin the context of redesigns I think there exists some value in looking at Facebook's failed card-based redesign back in 2013: https://dcurt.is/facebooks-predicament Essentially this big, beautiful design driven redesign ultimately never shipped because users spent less time on it. Certain design 'improvements' like increased padding between stories reduces density and as a result tends to reduce readership, for…
Comment linking /facebooks-predicament
on “Reddit raises $200M at a $1.8B valuation”Submitted 3.5 Inches as a story · 302 points
HN discussionIn the past week, Dustin has posted a few articles [1,2,3] that have gained a massive amount of attention here, which all try to drill home the point that we should be out there living our lives as if they're going to end tomorrow. We shouldn't put off decisions, we should act on impulses that will make our lives better in ways we won't even realise. In summary: Life's too short, so get on with living it. Now he giv…
Comment linking /do
on “The Best”Submitted Pixel-fitting – how antialiasing can ruin your logos and icons as a story · 291 points
HN discussionProps for the URL - http://dcurt.is/the-best My bet is he dreamed up the title and then wrote an entire meaningless post just to sneak it in. Y'all just been trolled good.
Comment linking /the-best
on “The Best”Submitted Codename: Svbtle by Dustin Curtis as a story · 274 points
HN discussionWell, Apple has no qualms about it[0] so why should Google? [0] https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
Comment linking /apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account
on “How Telegram Messenger circumvents Google Translate's API”Submitted Stealing Your Address Book as a story · 239 points
HN discussionIf not intentional originally, defiantly intentional now: http://dcurt.is/unkudo/
Comment linking /unkudo/
on “What Twitter could have been”Submitted The Waiting Place as a story · 229 points
HN discussion
