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Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

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Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#81
post #53

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

You really think Google have a failure to innovate? Obviously search was their first, core innovation, but over the years they’ve delivered so many other successful products (many acquired, true, but even those they’ve evolved really well). Off the top of my head: - Maps - AdWords - Gmail - YouTube - Analytics - Translate - Calendar - Sheets - Docs - Drive - Meet - Slides - Drawings - Forms - Trends - Alerts I’m sure…

That list would be a lot more informative and accurate id you include the launch date of each

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#82
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there not a physical mute button on your phone?

Instagram ignores the mute button on my iPhone. I have to manually turn the volume down to zero to consistently get no sound. It’s a real jerk app.

I feel like it’s even worse. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t and I haven’t figured out how to get it to do what I want 100% of the time. Just have a mute button on the player!

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#83
post #69
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think Google have a failure to innovate? Obviously search was their first, core innovation, but over the years they’ve delivered so many other successful products (many acquired, true, but even those they’ve evolved really well). Off the top of my head: - Maps - AdWords - Gmail - YouTube - Analytics - Translate - Calendar - Sheets - Docs - Drive - Meet - Slides - Drawings - Forms - Trends - Alerts I’m sure…

Ads is the only thing on that list that brings in revenue.

Drive (and docs/gmail) is also profitable. So is maps and youtube.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#84
post #22

“I guarantee that every single person who liked and shared that post about bringing Instagram back to what it was, would spend way less time on Instagram if it reverted back to how it used to be” Sure, because they could get the information they want without having to wade through the mountains of crap you’re pumping out of the septic tank into your users faces. You’re optimising the wrong metric you fucking clown.

"We listened to the customers and they were wrong"

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#85

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

That is a hopeful idea but I feel it might be our naivety that propagates it.

To my understanding Google's interviews have gotten easier and more arbitrary perhaps over time. The competition is high and thus there is the expectation of having studying to pass. Google is famous in the end.

Consider there are the following cases (kind of complete):

a) New employees hired are not brilliant

b) Google doesn't want to hire brilliant employees thus the leetcode interview

c) Leetcode has little effect on "they are brilliant" check, so a different trait is selected and indirectly brilliance distribution inside of Google is different but not the main one affected

d) Even if Google was full of brilliant people it wouldn't matter; they have no power over what happens by design (or inadvertently)

Google is huge. The main job of everyone there, I claim, is to not screw up the money maker: ad auctioning. After that they can do as they wish. The job of every manager there is to make sure that doesn't happen. Innovation is next. And they do innovate but not on things that make enough money to sustain. There is no direction thus.

As evidence I provide the following. They have been throwing ideas at the wall for years trying to see what else sticks even as close to the ad auctioning and data collection scheme and they kill what doesn't appear to. Thus, their reputation of killing things.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#86

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

Having spent a good number of years in these companies, I can say that there is no shortage of creative and skillful employees there. What kills innovation is the lack of real ownership and the feedback-driven politics. Employees with great ideas and ability to execute can't go ask for funding and work on their ideas - those ideas would be either stolen (politics), or priorities would change (no real ownership), they would still have a manager to answer to, and they'd still have to be careful to not cross anyone's feelings for the inevitable complaint will wreck their careers (no real competition). So everyone plays it safe, wears a fake smile and cheers the team even when that team is surely going to sink the ship. The bigger a corporarion gets, the more pronounced this risk-averse safetism becomes. The terminal stage of such corporations is a gov-like bureaucracy where safety is the idol and risk is a slur word.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#87
post #34

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

> They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. I don't think this is necessarily true because the people designing products are not the same people creating/implementing them. Even…

Don’t fall in the trap of thinking creativity nescessarily applies accross borders.

Being creative with coding is not the same as being creative with painting or inventing new products.

Of course smart and well trained techs can be creative, it just may not apply as well to creating new products line other types of creative minds.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#88
post #47

If at least the algorithm was any good, people might not have complained as much. Like, I only follow sport stuff. Some triathletes, professional bicyclists, skiers etc. What does Instagram then decide to show me? A female cyclist with her zipper down and lots of cleavage, a skier in bikini, ass pics of swimmers etc.. Probably that's the most trending stuff related to my interests, but I follow no accounts related to…

When Twitter forced the algorithmic timeline on people, someone tweeted: "Is the algorithm based what everyone else likes, or what I like? Because I hate what everyone else likes, and I don't know what I like."

I don't have TikTok, but for 2 years this is what I've been hearing from people who love it. They figured out a way to show you exactly what you're interested in, without you giving them any specific input

There have been many articles about the phenomenon of the "For You Page"[1][2]. But the funny part is Meta sees this and figures - people are looking at videos, we'll do videos. And not - people are seeing what they specifically like, lets do that

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/business/media/tiktok-alg...

[2] https://repeller.com/tiktok-algorithm-bisexual/

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#89
post #53

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

You really think Google have a failure to innovate? Obviously search was their first, core innovation, but over the years they’ve delivered so many other successful products (many acquired, true, but even those they’ve evolved really well). Off the top of my head: - Maps - AdWords - Gmail - YouTube - Analytics - Translate - Calendar - Sheets - Docs - Drive - Meet - Slides - Drawings - Forms - Trends - Alerts I’m sure…

I agree with you on how much innovation occurred at google, but I think the timeline of when these innovations occurred vs when leetcode interviews really took hold is what the commenters are addressing. In the old days they had crazy hiring processes where riding a unicycle helped your case. This ushered in a group of very brilliant creatives that innovated. Now, most hires are required to memorize data structures and algorithms- things that a lot of the smart creative people loathe to do, and as a result the pace of innovation has slowed to almost a halt.

My personal opinion is that there were too many chefs in the kitchen and google is now trying to optimize the “creative leader” to “can pump out rote code” ratio.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#90

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

They keep the talent from doing their own thing, basically innovate. That's how you choke innovators. Give a fat paycheck, a sense of accomplishment, while bleeding them out. That's all.
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