>Swiss Army knives seem to be as popular as ever.

It isn't as popular as ever, at least not in the Western world. I don't know what your frame of reference is, but it is positively non-existent compared to a couple of decades ago. Approximately zero kids, give or take a few, put one on their Christmas list, where when I was a kid it was many kid's dream item. I would say the most common buyer today are middle-aged men who buy it just as a thing to own because they remember how desirable they were when they were in Scouts in their teens.

>A tool of "last resort" seems to miss the point

It is quite literally a tool of last resort, and in practice people who actually own one (such as myself) have often never, ever actually used any of the options available on it because they're terrible options and we always have something better available.

Like a legitimate folding camping knife, which we all have in our camping supplies. An infinitely better knife. A tiny multi-screwdriver kit. The Leatherman brand went big by making a legitimately good, well constructed pair of pliers that they add some "in a pinch" options.

Serious campers who portage and go deep country have a proper assortment of gear and never lean on their SAK. The rest of us usually get there in a car and have a...proper assortment of gear.

But again, if you're in a situation where you have to use one of the tools on a SAK, you probably screwed up and it's a serious compromise. It just isn't a compelling metaphor for software tooling.

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crazygringo 3 hours ago | parent [-]

See my other comment for its popularity statistics. Victorinox is literally the #1 multitool brand by market share. These are facts.

Your take is idiosyncratic. Using a SAK doesn't mean "you probably screwed up". That's truly a bizarre thing to say.

A SAK is a perfectly fine metaphor. That's why it's a popular one. It's a small tool that does lots of things. I think you're overthinking this.

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llm_nerd 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>Victorinox is literally the #1 multitool brand by market share

This doesn't repudiate anything I said, and it's a particularly weird canard.

>That's why it's a popular one

Increasingly the only ones I see leveraging the metaphor are English as a second language writers (note that the idiom originates in English and is a calque in other languages) who perhaps came across it somewhere. I would hardly call it "popular", and I pointed out the reality that many readers, such as myself, find it a negative description, similar to someone calling themselves a "jack of all trades". Your defensiveness of SAK does not change this, and your attempts at invalidating my statement borders on bizarre.

Feel free to continue. I'm done here.

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crazygringo 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> are English as a second language writers who perhaps came across it somewhere

Your prejudice is showing. Where would you even get an idea like that?

I hope you understand that people whose first language isn't English also use SAKs. It's not just an English thing. They're not trying to repeat some unknown object they've only encountered in metaphor. The tools are literally Swiss. And popular around the entire world.

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hbarka 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You’re absolutely right. I was just in Switzerland and I’ll tell you the Victorinox shops have endless visitors from all kinds of tourists. Swiss Army knife metaphor is timeless, at least for those who go out. Maybe there’s a generation where outdoor activities is an unknown because computers. At this point the other person is just being argumentative.

	▲	llm_nerd 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm being argumentative? Uproarious. Arguing that my observations are invalid because you were in a Victorinox shop in Switzerland is the chef's kiss on this ridiculous discussion. In the future, just move along. The other argumentative guy had no reason to get defensive about SAK, and this whole worthless discussion, from a basic observation about idioms and ill-suited tools, is a waste of bits.

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gpvos 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> This doesn't repudiate anything I said, and it's a particularly weird canard.

It does repudiate it, directly. What are you on about?

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llm_nerd 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It doesn't remotely repudiate anything I said, more than saying that Gpvos is the #1 seller of buggy whips ergo ipso facto buggy whips are super popular. This is not a hard logical chain to follow, so good god.

But secondly, even that site claimed they have what, a 20% marketshare of multitools from once owning the market entirely to themselves? Even if we were so profoundly simple that we believed that being the biggest vendor in a market validates the market, this particular example is hilarious.

	▲	crazygringo an hour ago \| parent [-]
		If you opened the link, literally the first line says: > The Swiss Army Knife (multi-tool) market, currently valued at $402 million in 2025 Nearing half a billion dollars doesn't sound like buggy whips to me. And the bar chart clearly extrapolates the market continuing to grow. Not shrink. But you still think nobody's buying the #1 brand in a large and growing market...? Again, for convenience: https://www.marketreportanalytics.com/reports/swiss-army-kni...