Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Product Quality and Competition

  • Many commenters say Roombas were mediocre for years: easily stuck, noisy, bad navigation, poor with clutter, cords, and pets; “novelty” more than appliance.
  • Others report excellent long-term performance and repairability on older models (e.g., 600/900 series), praising easy part replacement and offline operation.
  • Chinese brands (Roborock, Dreame, etc.) are described as dramatically better value: lidar, mapping, zone cleaning, strong suction, often at one-third the price.
  • Some note all brands struggle with hair and rollers; design choices differ (Roomba brushes vs others), with recurring frustration over “MAIN BRUSH JAMMED.”
  • Robot vacuums remain inherently limited in cluttered homes and multi-level layouts; a few say a broom or stick vac is faster unless you have kids/pets.

Wall Street, R&D, and Strategic Choices

  • Core claim discussed: activist investors pushed iRobot to dump defense/robotics R&D, offshore manufacturing, and focus on short-term profits (including buybacks), weakening its long‑term moat.
  • Supporters see this as a textbook case of “extractive” capitalism: pressure to cut exploration and favor quarterly results over durable innovation.
  • Critics argue the expensive defense/space R&D did not improve vacuums and was a rational cut; deep-tech, grant/defense-funded research and consumer-appliance businesses may belong in different firms.
  • Some note the defense unit was sold and is now doing fine under other owners, underscoring that vacuum and military robots were diverging businesses.

China, Offshoring, and IP

  • Offshoring to Chinese contract manufacturers is framed as teaching future competitors how to build robot vacuums.
  • Several participants emphasize asymmetric IP enforcement and regulation: US firms pay licensing and comply with labor/environment rules, while Chinese rivals allegedly ignore much of this.
  • Others counter that no one forced US companies to move to China; they knowingly traded tech transfer risk for cheaper production and higher margins.

Amazon Acquisition and Antitrust

  • Strong disagreement over whether US/EU regulators “killed” Amazon’s acquisition:
    • One side says FTC/EU scrutiny, delays, and implicit threats effectively blocked the deal and thus bear direct responsibility for iRobot’s collapse and eventual Chinese sale.
    • The other side stresses no formal US challenge was filed; Amazon walked away, likely judging Roomba not worth a court fight.
  • Debate over whether blocking the merger protected competition or simply removed a plausible “rescue” for a mismanaged company.
  • Arguments about “socialism” are rebutted: participants distinguish regulation/antitrust from state ownership.

Capitalism, Markets, and Blame

  • Some see this as a broader indictment of US capitalism’s short‑termism: share buybacks, rent extraction, and tolerance for offshoring that undermines domestic tech leadership.
  • Others insist not every failure needs a villain; multiple actors (management, investors, regulators, trade policy, and Chinese competitors) all contributed.
  • A subset questions the article’s author as partisan and factually loose, arguing the story is oversimplified into “Wall Street bad, Khan bad” without sufficient quantitative support.