Vinh is a really nice guy doing what he loves for a living.
He may seem a little confusing to us on BLF though, because of cultural differences. Someone mentioned that BLF is like “monkey see, monkey do” while CPF is more like “monkey see, monkey buy”. While this is massively oversimplified, I think it points toward the core of the matter.
The two forums have different values and different norms, so what makes sense on one may be confusing on the other. BLF tends to behave a lot like a makerspace, with a lot of value placed on giving, collaborating, and sharing “how”. CPF tends to behave more like a marketplace, with more value placed on having, showing, and sharing “what”. While on BLF we might say “hey check out this awesome thing I figured out”, on CPF it’s more along the lines of “hey check out this awesome thing I found”.
On CPF, “proprietary” means something is exclusive, which makes it desirable because no one else has it, and if you have your own proprietary stuff you’d have to be dumb to reveal your secrets. On BLF, “proprietary” means incompatible or secretive, which makes it undesirable, and if you make a discovery the obvious thing to do is share it with everyone.
On BLF, we may sometimes be a little suspicious of new people and new companies at first, but are generally more welcoming, and almost always ready to dive into something new and give it a try. Some of our favorite brands and vendors didn’t even exist a year or two ago… and some of our past favorites are barely even mentioned now. We welcome the new and aren’t shy about leaving the old behind. CPF tends to take a different approach though, where new brands are risky and not really worth paying attention to until they’re proven. And once established, a brand can generally count on people being pretty loyal unless the brand really messes up. It’s hard to get in, but it’s pretty stable once you’re there. They look after their own.
This is long and rambly, but I hope it helps explain about Vinh. He’s doing a very good job of what he does, but coming from a BLF perspective it may not make sense because he’s not operating in BLF’s culture. In the culture he operates in though, he’s a rockstar.
There are more than two cultures in the flashlight community though.
For example, Fonarevka is pretty different than both BLF and CPF. At first glance, the main thing which probably stands out is that people there communicate in a much more abrasive manner. Opinions are strong and claws come out frequently, and that’s just normal.
But there’s a lot more to it than that. Like, take the concept of simplicity. On BLF, simple means elegant, refined, or easy. If it’s easy to use, that means it’s well-designed. But on Fonarevka, simple means primitive, and if something is easy it’s probably not worthwhile. Sophistication is more desirable, and you have to work hard to get the good stuff.
So on BLF, we say things like “for a good result, follow these three simple steps… sorry it requires soldering; we’re working on getting it produced so more people can have it”. And on Fonarevka it’s typically more like “for a good result, carefully follow these seventeen steps and their sub-steps… and when you finish making this thing very few people have, enjoy it because you’ve earned it”. If it’s hard to do or hard to use, that means you have skills and intelligence. Simple is for simpletons.
These values are seen even in commercial offerings like Lux-RC lights and the Meteor.
I can’t fit a full cultural analysis into a single post, much less three complete cultural analyses… and I’ve no doubt oversimplified or misrepresented some things here, stereotyping to make differences more clear. But I hope the general idea is clear — different communities have different cultures and different values, so they reward different behaviors and different designs. If something on another forum doesn’t make sense, it’s probably not because it actually makes no sense… it’s probably because the person looking at it doesn’t have the cultural background to properly understand it in context.
