The Tyranny of the Marginal User • Hacker News Board

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#51

Post by hedora » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

I often wonder what the average lifetime value of these marginal users is.

When services are dumbed down in ways that chase off power users, they're explicitly optimizing for users that churn rapidly. After all, today's new user is either a customer and tomorrow's power user, or they've stopped using the the product.

If you're trying to raise a round, and the VC blindly looks at user count, then I guess this makes sense, but I'd bet VC funds that use onboarding rates (to the exclusion of churn and sustainability of the offering) have lower average returns than ones that apply basic common sense when vetting their investments.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#52

Post by jmuguy » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

lapcat wrote: post #8

> OKCupid, like the other acquisitions of Match.com The article seems to just glance over this crucial fact. Online dating sites have gotten worse because the Match Group monopolizes them. There's hardly any competition. Same with Google Search. Monopolies suck. They start out good, in order to attract all of the users, and then once they've acquired all of the users, they turn to unchecked profit maximization and st…

This kind of makes me want to just remake OKCupid. I met my wife on there. It worked, really well, as the author describes. Surely there's money to be made there without just being another Tinder clone.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#53

Post by gipp » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

xkcd1963 wrote: post #44

"A substantial fraction of the world’s most brilliant, competent, and empathetic people ... spend their lives serving Marl" that is a logical fallacy because smart people don't waste their time on something as useless as that.

That's not what a logical fallacy is

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#54

Post by flanbiscuit » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #38

postmodest wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be noted that match.com knows that it's business isn't "connecting people in stable relationships" but "luring people to pay for match.com by promising them connections that never work out." OKCupid had a model that increases the likelihood of matching with someone and ...never using OKCupid again. Match.com realizes that fundamental flaw. For their business to survive, they HAVE to be bad at the servi…

A dating site could work sustainably if it was a site for planning date nights. Make profiles based on activities and swipe right or left on the activities you want to do. Revenue sources would include: - Ads for local businesses, classes, and events. - Annual subscription which is cheaper after the first year and gives you discount codes to events and restaurants. Once you get the site to work for date nights, let p…

> Make profiles based on activities and swipe right or left on the activities you want to do.

Back in the early 2010s there was a dating site that was based around this premise. You would post a specific activity and see if someone wanted to join you for it. I didn't personally use it (as intended) but it was a great place to get fun date night activities with my partner. I think they realized that use case (date night planning) and eventually added this as a feature. I don't remember the name of the site unfortunately, someone else might. I would be surprised if it's still around.

edit: Found it! it was called HowAboutWe.com.

https://techcrunch.com/tag/howaboutwe/

https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/1...

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#55

Post by golergka » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

If you're making a product for the billions, your average user will inevitably have IQ of less than 100. And moreover, you can get much stickier users if you optimise for 80 IQ.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#56

Post by ivee » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #24

I'd arrived at a similar conceptualisation which I call "The Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User": https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://old.redd... > In terms of impacts on software / application complexity, capability, and suitability to the needs and interests of advanced users, I feel somewhat similarly. I do take exception however with the notion that serving the needs of the much larger set people…

great essay! saving people a click: https://web.archive.org/web/20230606224134/https://old.reddi...

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#57

Post by YouSuck2 » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

lapcat wrote: post #8

> OKCupid, like the other acquisitions of Match.com The article seems to just glance over this crucial fact. Online dating sites have gotten worse because the Match Group monopolizes them. There's hardly any competition. Same with Google Search. Monopolies suck. They start out good, in order to attract all of the users, and then once they've acquired all of the users, they turn to unchecked profit maximization and st…

[flagged]

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#58

Post by YouSuck2 » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

jmuguy wrote: post #52

lapcat wrote: post #8

> OKCupid, like the other acquisitions of Match.com The article seems to just glance over this crucial fact. Online dating sites have gotten worse because the Match Group monopolizes them. There's hardly any competition. Same with Google Search. Monopolies suck. They start out good, in order to attract all of the users, and then once they've acquired all of the users, they turn to unchecked profit maximization and st…

This kind of makes me want to just remake OKCupid. I met my wife on there. It worked, really well, as the author describes. Surely there's money to be made there without just being another Tinder clone.

There is, you will just have zero users because everybody uses the Match.com and Bumble duopoly

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#59

Post by YouSuck2 » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #36

postmodest wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be noted that match.com knows that it's business isn't "connecting people in stable relationships" but "luring people to pay for match.com by promising them connections that never work out." OKCupid had a model that increases the likelihood of matching with someone and ...never using OKCupid again. Match.com realizes that fundamental flaw. For their business to survive, they HAVE to be bad at the servi…

> There are some things that you simply CANNOT express in a "free market" because the measure of their success cannot be expressed in market terms. Sure you can. If you want to measure the success of your matchmaking company in market terms, you could charge users for your matchmaking service and then return their money if they don't get married. You put your money where your mouth is by betting on the success of the…

And do they return the money in the case of divorce?

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#60

Post by rurp » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

postmodest wrote: post #22

lapcat wrote: post #8

> OKCupid, like the other acquisitions of Match.com The article seems to just glance over this crucial fact. Online dating sites have gotten worse because the Match Group monopolizes them. There's hardly any competition. Same with Google Search. Monopolies suck. They start out good, in order to attract all of the users, and then once they've acquired all of the users, they turn to unchecked profit maximization and st…

It should also be noted that match.com knows that it's business isn't "connecting people in stable relationships" but "luring people to pay for match.com by promising them connections that never work out." OKCupid had a model that increases the likelihood of matching with someone and ...never using OKCupid again. Match.com realizes that fundamental flaw. For their business to survive, they HAVE to be bad at the servi…

While there are some perverse incentives, I think this is overstating it. Millions of people enter the dating market every year by aging into it or ending a previous relationship. That seems like plenty of space to make a profitable business. Of course there is the temptation to increase the churn rate, but it doesn't have to be exploitative.