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The Tyranny of the Marginal User

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Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#181

Post by LorenPechtel »

Kapura wrote: post #20

Feels like this is tyranny of easily measured metrics. If your north star metric is something more focused (number of fun dates!) that incentivizes features and experiments that push that number up, but if the number is DAU, suddenly you've decoupled "success" from the actual intention of the website or app. Obviously, "number of fun dates" is a lot harder to measure, relying as it would on surveys with low response…

And note that the incentives for the user and the company are at cross purposes with dating apps.

Users use dating apps with the intent of not needing dating apps. A dating app that works well destroys it's user base. Their desired user base is people looking for hookups. Is it any wonder the apps have degraded into stuff pretty much only useful for hookups?

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#182

Post by adasdasdas »

This is how Lyft and Uber works too, they build their incentives to buy the marginal driver/user. So if you are a reliable Uber-only or Lyft-only driver, you get screwed out of incentives. However, if you switch around, Uber/Lyft will bid for your next ride.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#183

Post by fouronnes3 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #123
bdcs wrote: post #98

The tyranny of the marginal user reminds me of population ethics' The Repugnant Conclusion.[0] This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10 N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100 N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness. Substitute profit for happiness, and you get the tyranny of the ma…

Many versions of utilitarianism never specified the function to compute the sum for the many. Your example assumes that the function is simple addition, but others have been proposed that reflect some of the complexities of the human condition a little more explicitly (e.g. sad neighbors make neighbors sad).

Assuming linearity of utility either in individuals or in aggregation is a very common straw man of utilitarianism.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#184

Post by autoexec »

sanderjd wrote: post #146
freedomben wrote: post #6

> Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together about the marginal user. Let’s call him Marl. The first thing you need to know about Marl is that he has the attention span of a goldfish on acid. Once Marl opens your app, you have about 1.3 seconds to catch his attention with a shiny image or triggering headline, otherwise he’ll swipe back to TikTok and never open your app again. This is hilarious and sad because it fe…

This is why I like to pay for things. This dynamic only really exists for things that are given away for free.

I think paying for something does encourage users to be more invested in it, but paid software can neglect their power users too if they're comfortable being "good enough for most people"

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#185

Post by tshaddox »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #123
bdcs wrote: post #98

The tyranny of the marginal user reminds me of population ethics' The Repugnant Conclusion.[0] This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10 N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100 N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness. Substitute profit for happiness, and you get the tyranny of the ma…

Many versions of utilitarianism never specified the function to compute the sum for the many. Your example assumes that the function is simple addition, but others have been proposed that reflect some of the complexities of the human condition a little more explicitly (e.g. sad neighbors make neighbors sad).

Which conceivable method of summing is the least problematic? Depending on the summing method you might find yourself advocating creating as many people as possible with positive utility, or eliminate everyone with below-average utility, etc.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#186

Post by patmcc »

mvdtnz wrote: post #149
bdcs wrote: post #98

The tyranny of the marginal user reminds me of population ethics' The Repugnant Conclusion.[0] This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10 N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100 N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness. Substitute profit for happiness, and you get the tyranny of the ma…

Why would anyone think that a large overall pool of happiness is somehow better than a high per capita happiness? This seems like the kind of thing that's incredibly obvious to everyone but the academic philosopher.

Maximizing for per-capita happiness just leads to the other end of the same problem - fewer and fewer people with the same "happiness units" spread among them. Thus we should strictly limit breeding and kill people at age X+5 (X always being my age, of course).

It's actually a hard problem to design a perfect moral system, that's why people have been trying for literally thousands of years.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#187

Post by salawat »

tyre wrote: post #156
bdcs wrote: post #98

The tyranny of the marginal user reminds me of population ethics' The Repugnant Conclusion.[0] This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10 N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100 N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness. Substitute profit for happiness, and you get the tyranny of the ma…

The Repugnant Conclusion is one of those silly problems in philosophy that don’t make much sense outside of academics. Utilitarianism ought to be about maximizing the happiness (total and distribution) of an existing population. Merging it with natalism isn’t realistic or meaningful, so we end up with these population morality debates. The happiness of a unconceived possible human is null (not the same as zero!) Comp…

>We really shouldn’t get ourselves tied into knots about the possibility of pumping out trillions of humans because an algorithm says they’ll be marginally net content. That’s not the end goal of any reasonable, practical, or sane system of ethics.

Are you sure you aren't sharing the world with people who do not adhere to reasonable, practical, or sane system of ethics?

Because, ngl, lately, I'm not so sure I can offer an affirmative on that one, making "Getting tied into knots about the possibility of pumping out trillions of humans because an algorithm says they’ll be marginally net content" a reasonable thing to be trying to cut a la the Gordian knot.

After all, that very thing, "pump out trillions of humans because some algorithm (genetics, instincts, & culture taken collectively) says they'll be marginally more content" is modus operandi for humanity, with shockingly little appreciation for the externalities therein involved.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#188

Post by iamwil »

This reminds me of the post on Product Market Fit the other day.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37490300

That PMF is never done, and you are just chipping away at more and more market segments. There's no negative feedback for people to think that they're done with a market and they're starting to squeeze blood from rocks.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#189

Post by epivosism »

Could it be something simple, like how as companies grow, the average company knowledge about the product decreases?

Both at IC and exec level; the new people coming in are more likely to just be good general operators. Plus the CEO and leadership gets tired or retire.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#190

Post by [deleted] »

Kapura wrote: post #20

Feels like this is tyranny of easily measured metrics. If your north star metric is something more focused (number of fun dates!) that incentivizes features and experiments that push that number up, but if the number is DAU, suddenly you've decoupled "success" from the actual intention of the website or app. Obviously, "number of fun dates" is a lot harder to measure, relying as it would on surveys with low response…

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