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TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

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Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#211

Post by ako »

kpennell wrote: post #201
ako wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that these companies go into these different product directions, while i assume they're both looking at similar metrics, and optimizing for the same outcome: engagement and number of users. Somehow YouTube is seeing more engagement by showing more of the same, and TikTok is seeing even more engagement from showing fresh content. Maybe the risk of an upward trend in outcomes, that blurs the fact that…

this is Hill climbing, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing

Yes. How do you deal with hill climbing in product management? How do you know that a 10% improvement in outcomes is bad, and a different approach could have given you 50% or 100%? More experimentation, more 'how might we'? Google is known for trying different approaches (many shades of blue for a link), but somehow none of their experiments indicated fresh content is important? Or is it just a matter of product management 'playing it safe' at Google, where they know 10% outcome improvement is good enough to keep their job?

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#212

Post by johnnyanmac »

productceo wrote: post #44

I am having difficulty finding TikTok's addictiveness. My job depends on understanding consumer apps, so in the past 1.5 years, I've been trying TikTok anew every 3 months, each day at least trying to spend 10 minutes on it no matter how uninteresting I find the content to be, but end up giving up after 3 to 7 days each time I try. I swipe quickly past uninteresting content, stay on mildly interesting ones, and make…

>I subscribe to a bunch of email newsletters and RSS feeds, check Reddit and Twitter daily, and check HackerNews morning and night, and I have no problem finding interesting content every time I open these things (Twitter being least interesting to me out of this list).

I think we have the same "problem": "content" doesn't engage us, "discussion" does. It's not so much about the exact topic as much as the ability to see other perspectives. All these modern social media platforms are awful for discussion and actively downplay it, despite all the popular ones having some form of commenting features. The closest modern analog would be discord, but discussion is almost as ephemeral as Snapchat once you get even a tiny bit active. small group servers kind of capture the feel, but still isn't meant for longform replies like this one,

Feel free to mention if I missed the mark by a country mile. But I've been thinking about this for a while on why I can browse reddit for hours but can't stand instagram for more than a few minutes (aside from my resistance to give Facebook another account to mine data from). reddit has more discussion than I could ever read (perhaps even too much). Youtube comments are pretty low quality (in both formatting and content) but does the bare minimum needed to post stuff longer than a tweet.

(That said, I've been getting way more into silly cat videos than I ever wanted to, so who knows?)

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#213

Post by captainmuon »

rvz wrote: post #82
discordance wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want to back that up? Although FSD is still between Level 2-3, the ML system and work that has gotten it this far is pretty stellar.

> Do you want to back that up? A simple question: Where exactly are the robo-taxis that were promised in 2020 alongside with Level 5 FSD for release in 2019? [0]. [0] https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-autonomous-driving-lev...

The AI people are doing solid work as far as I can tell. It is the marketing department and the twittering CEO that are scamming.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#215

Post by okasaki »

realYitzi wrote: post #174

I think the truth is pretty dark. Until TikTok most recommendation engines placed the most weight on your declared preferences. TikTok doesn't seem to care about what you "say" you like." They watch your behavior to see what you actually like. So you can "want" to be shown math videos and like tons of math videos and follow dozens of professors. But if TikTok observes that you are more likely to watch a professional…

None of this seems dark and you're using some very charged language. Showing you a video when you tap back isn't "hacking your brain". It even says "tap twice to exit". Get a grip and give humans more credit.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#216

Post by johnnyanmac »

kristopolous wrote: post #23

I've tried it a few times. Even ran an account for a project I do. I don't know. Maybe I'm not the right personality for this stuff but I found it annoying and taxing. Open it up and you get these obnoxious videos and then have to press a button to make them go away. The user-base and interaction is worthless and toxic. Lots of people love it so maybe I'm just too old. Perhaps they've "cracked some psychological secr…

>The user-base and interaction is worthless and toxic

I argue that's most modern "social" media, not necessarily a unique point of tiktok. They want the creator to be the focus, not the community surrounding them. Comments are encouraged to keep short enough to keep engagement but not take that attention away, so you'll inevitably just get some shallow encouragement as "top comments".

That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not trying to be what HN is.

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#217

Post by productceo »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #212
productceo wrote: post #44

I am having difficulty finding TikTok's addictiveness. My job depends on understanding consumer apps, so in the past 1.5 years, I've been trying TikTok anew every 3 months, each day at least trying to spend 10 minutes on it no matter how uninteresting I find the content to be, but end up giving up after 3 to 7 days each time I try. I swipe quickly past uninteresting content, stay on mildly interesting ones, and make…

>I subscribe to a bunch of email newsletters and RSS feeds, check Reddit and Twitter daily, and check HackerNews morning and night, and I have no problem finding interesting content every time I open these things (Twitter being least interesting to me out of this list). I think we have the same "problem": "content" doesn't engage us, "discussion" does. It's not so much about the exact topic as much as the ability to…

This is very insightful. I didn't think of it from this angle, but I think you hit it on the nail that I find discussions among people, not unidirectional presentations from a tiktoker, interesting.

Thanks for helping me see this!

Re: TikTok is scary good. It's digital crack

#220

Post by productceo »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #116
productceo wrote: post #44

I am having difficulty finding TikTok's addictiveness. My job depends on understanding consumer apps, so in the past 1.5 years, I've been trying TikTok anew every 3 months, each day at least trying to spend 10 minutes on it no matter how uninteresting I find the content to be, but end up giving up after 3 to 7 days each time I try. I swipe quickly past uninteresting content, stay on mildly interesting ones, and make…

Just out of curiosity what are you using to read RSS feeds

Feedly
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