Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by threeseed » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

techdragon wrote: post #155

threeseed wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where to start with this comment. a) Meta can be accused of so many things but failing to build new, ambitious products is not one of them. They are literally pivoting the company to AR/VR and betting the future of the company on it. Quest2 is a huge success and their demoed R&D work on new headsets looks genuinely exciting and innovative. b) You are clearly ignorant of how product management works in a…

Small caveat there… they didn’t build AR/VR … they bought it then poured tons of money onto the smaller and more innovative company to get growth before trying to put a bullet though it’s customer base by forcing Facebook accounts in order to get greater synergies with the rest of Facebook only to backflip because the gaming market hates it so much it was hurting sales.

Oculus was acquired in 2014. Meta deserves all the credit for the success of Quest2 and unquestionably for all the R&D work going on at the moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zHDkdkqd1I

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

#182

Post by loudmax » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

Jasper_ wrote: post #50

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #9

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…

The ones coming up with products are usually executives looking to advance their career. e.g. everyone I know who worked on Google Stadia who cared readily pointed out all the problems from idea to implementation. Management & product design waved off the concerns, said they were in for the long haul, and that the product would be a huge success regardless. And then they got cold feet after realizing how much of a fl…

I was actually impressed at how well Stadia worked. My impression is that they did an excellent job at the technical implementation. A lot of games don't require millisecond response times or amazing graphics and Stadia would have had one of the best anti-cheat systems for multiplayer games, basically for free.

What sank Stadia before it even launched was their asinine pricing strategy. It should have been clear to anyone with a basic understanding of computers that playing a game over the network will be inferior to playing local, but they could have made up the difference with pay as you go pricing and an emphasis on multiplayer games where the graphics don't matter as much. Of course they did the exact opposite, and then decided to double down on bad ideas by ignoring indie developers.

I still think the technology has a lot of potential (well in Stadia's case had a lot of potential), but with that kind of management, even the Covid lockdowns and the GPU shortage weren't enough to save a product that was designed to fail.

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

#183

Post by fdgsdfogijq » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #176

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #9

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…

It sounds like you have an irrational grudge against Leetcode-style interviews. > Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. As does Tik Tok, perhaps even more so. > lower level engineers hired ten years ago do rise to the top and run whole divisions Engineers have little say into product decisions, even if they run whole divisions. Nobo…

I have worked at two big tech companies, and previously worked on an ML research team for an investment firm. I am speaking from first hand experience

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

#184

Post by anoonmoose » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

MikusR wrote: post #145

Ensorceled wrote: post #97

All of social media is broken right now. Instagram actively hides pics from my step kids, nephew and niece to show me "reels" from people I don't follow. Last night a photo from my step daughter flickered briefly and then was lost. I couldn't find it again until this morning. I literally can't find their content anymore without scrolling and dodging videos that keep popping up. Youtube broke entirely a few months ago…

Youtube has a whole section with all the people you follow. https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions all the videos are in reverse chronological order. Twitter has a button with stars where you can select to show only the tweets of people you follow in reverse chronological order. Called Latest Tweets.

I got super excited for that YouTube functionality, then I clicked the link and realized that either I follow way too many people for this to be useful, or the people I follow are producing way more content than I can handle. I guess maybe if I "un-ring" the bell for a few of the bigger channels this could be useful...

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

#185

Post by chadlavi » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #109

Ensorceled wrote: post #97

All of social media is broken right now. Instagram actively hides pics from my step kids, nephew and niece to show me "reels" from people I don't follow. Last night a photo from my step daughter flickered briefly and then was lost. I couldn't find it again until this morning. I literally can't find their content anymore without scrolling and dodging videos that keep popping up. Youtube broke entirely a few months ago…

I agree that they're "broken" in that they don't work the way I want them to - but they're functioning perfectly normally to maximize profit. I think TikTok kinda broke the dam on this and we see it in more apps now, but it seems like we've found out that people will spend more time on the app when you show them random new people based on their interests compared to showing them just the people they chose to follow.…

This. They're not broken, they're working as intended for their customers, who are quite emphatically not us.

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

#186

Post by barnabee » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

chadash wrote: post #123

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #9

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…

This seems like wishful thinking. Why assume that academic intelligence makes you less creative? Do you think that people who graduate with high grades out of Harvard/MIT/Stanford are less creative than people who graduate from second-tier universities because they are too bookish? I think the reality is probably that it's hard for any large company to be truly innovative. Once you get to a certain size, red tape and…

> Why assume that academic intelligence makes you less creative?

Perhaps it’s not the academic intelligence that makes you uncreative, but the lack of willingness to play those games means that anyone who does endure the process is bound to be both intelligent and uncreative.

The most intelligent and creative people I know are beyond uninterested in big tech (one even went as far as foregoing millions of dollars after their company got acquired by a FAANG because they couldn’t motivate themselves to turn up after their induction and quit). They have plenty of career and lifestyle options, and most of them are way less driven by money than the average.

You won’t find any of them at Meta.

I don’t think this is just about the environment you find once you get there. I suspect these companies are unwittingly selecting for dullness and failure to innovate from the very start of the process.

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

#187

Post by threeseed » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:15 PM UTC

nprateem wrote: post #172

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #9

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…

Facebook is in one industry. Amazon just keeps expanding into more and more.

Meta is also in the AR/VR space.

And expanding into more and more industries is not necessarily a good thing.

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

#188

Post by fdgsdfogijq » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:16 PM UTC

nprateem wrote: post #172

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #9

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…

Facebook is in one industry. Amazon just keeps expanding into more and more.

Right but the question is, what in the DNA of Amazon allows them to expand like that?

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

#189

Post by klabb3 » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:16 PM UTC

throwaway29303 wrote: post #124

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #9

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…

Google failure to innovate I disagree and, in fact, there's a whole website dedicated to its failed innovations[0]. Google's problem is not a technical one. It's a social and cultural one. Google is way ahead of the pack in terms of innovation but it's stuck in the past (and by past I mean present). Remember Google glasses? Remember how that turned into the Glasshole meme? (And apparently it's coming back[1].) The ra…

Google in particular is great at tech but grew from a very simple product (simple as in product surface area - a search box – the supporting infra is a different story). Their biggest issue is inability to deliver complex products that are coherent (1) with each other and (2) with itself, over time. I think mainly this is because they're not respecting the user (ironic, since that's officially their core tenet). Why? Because they are evil? No, mostly because they don't understand them. Employees live in a different world, demographically, socially, economically, everything. They've also never had a strong culture of truly understanding and embracing their user base. So they decide everything upfront without validating it externally first, and are genuinely surprised when they miss the mark. "That's so weird, all the execs & directors thought this was a good idea. Well anyway, I got my promo, better move on to the next team."

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

#190

Post by giobox » Wed, Jul 27, 2022, 8:16 PM UTC

benbristow wrote: post #91

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #9

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…

Definitely can't be helping. I saw an ad on LinkedIn a few months ago for Coinbase and applied out of curiosity. Was very intimidating as a British 'commoner' who went to a very average university to be being grilled on Leetcode/Hackerrank questions by fresh male-Asian Stanford/MIT/top-US-university graduates (not being stereotypical - this was true!). Didn't stand a chance really as I don't do well with algorithmic…

> One answer I was expected to answer the complexity of my code to which the answer was something involving logarithms which I genuinely don't have a clue.

Being asked the logarithmic time complexity of some code you just wrote is literally one of the most common interview questions in Software Engineering, no? I'm assuming at least this is what you are referring to. All the well known interview help books in the industry ("Cracking the Coding Interview" etc etc) and websites like Leetcode spend a lot of time teaching it for a reason!

I've never had a software engineering interview where I wasn't asked to discuss something related to time complexity of a given bit of code, and given the regularity in which it will crop up its worth just spending the time to learn.