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The Tyranny of the Marginal User

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Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#511

Post by rglullis »

npsimons wrote: post #282
somedude895 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very good point that I think some commenters here should take to heart. No matter how enlightened we think we are, we're all part of the masses and behave this way at one point or another.

> No matter how enlightened we think we are, we're all part of the masses and behave this way at one point or another. While this is true, it stands to question: why build systems to encourage this? Shouldn't we be trying to do better? If nothing else, how can one avoid falling into these traps?

We have them, they exist for millennia. It's just that most of them are considered too boring or are judged as a whole by looking at some of its members of questionable character - who ironically are there because they know they are not perfect but trying to be better.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#512

Post by eep_social »

generalizations wrote: post #471
Vicinity9635 wrote: post #461

The question I have is why is Match Group allowed to have a monopoly on online dating? > Match Group is an American internet and technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It owns and operates the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, OurTime, and other dating global brands. I can't even name another dating site.

Bumble is the notable exception.

I had to go fact check this because I understood the opposite. And you’re right! What confused me is that Whitney Wolfe Herd founded Bumble and was also a Tinder co-founder. Bumble is owned by Blackstone Group now so they presumably have all the same incentives as Match properties under different owners.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#513

Post by throwaway2037 »

wbobeirne wrote: post #349

I worked at OkCupid from 2013-2017 and totally resonate with the author that mid-2010s OkCupid was a really special product, and that it took a steep decline as the decade went on. It's not entirely fair to say that the Match acquisition immediately caused that decline; I started a couple years after Match got the company in its hands, and only two of the original founders were still focused on OkCupid full time. But…

This post reads like Eternal September[1], and I write that without any cynicism or snark. It makes good sense that text-heavy web apps would fall prey to image-heavy mobile apps. I still think there is potential for dating apps that target higher intellect users. Most of the dominant apps today are mobile-first, largely visual, and disappointing for both sides. One idea: Could speech-to-text technology help to allow users to create OkCupid-style essays from a mobile phone? Maybe. Although, a few discussions here on HN said that speech-to-text is still a super hard problem in 2023.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#514

Post by AlbertCory »

astrange wrote: post #473
AlbertCory wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, my anti-growth example is the local family restaurant, that's hugely successful and profitable, popular, provides steady employment to new family members, and is not trying to take over the world. If it throws off profits, those can be invested in other businesses, not in growing the restaurant.

Your local family restaurant is a low-value-added frontend for Sysco. Or in Marxist terms, they're petit-bourgeois feudalists, which isn't even as good as being a capitalist because it doesn't increase prosperity.

Marxist insults: those should work /s

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#515

Post by bunabhucan »

scoofy wrote: post #441
wbobeirne wrote: post #349

I worked at OkCupid from 2013-2017 and totally resonate with the author that mid-2010s OkCupid was a really special product, and that it took a steep decline as the decade went on. It's not entirely fair to say that the Match acquisition immediately caused that decline; I started a couple years after Match got the company in its hands, and only two of the original founders were still focused on OkCupid full time. But…

OkCupid had the best damn blog on the internet. They were obviously extremely thoughtful folks. I was genuinely sad when it was discontinued.

Founder wrote a book. Blog is still at archive.org

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#516

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #375
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a convincing argument. If a dating site can't get people to match, they're likely to stop using it, just like any other product/service you pay for that doesn't work.

> If a dating site can't get people to match, they're likely to stop using it And if it succeeds in getting people to match, they definitely stop using it. "Likely to stop using it" is the better outcome for them in terms of customer retention

Most relationships don't last forever; people come back to what they know worked before.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#517

Post by carabiner »

crazygringo wrote: post #464
lr4444lr wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met my wife on OkCupid. The original format attracted a much smarter and more worldly crowd of women, to put it bluntly, than the other services. I exited the dating game before Tinder, but if OkCupid lost that quirky, artsy, college educated crowd in the chase to compete, that's a real shame.

Yup. It basically started as a dating site by Brooklyn grad students, for Brooklyn grad students. Grad students love writing essays. But if you want to expand, you have to face the fact that most people aren't grad students and don't love writing (or reading) essays. The trajectory to "just another dating app" was inevitable.

Well they started off in Boston and were MIT/Harvard grad students. And the backend was a DARPA project. So not really Brooklyn at heart, though some millennial New Yorkers pretended it was. They even had a personality trait for how much a user reminded them of Harvard girls. Like many "only in New York!" things it was really something that had mass appeal and gave a sense of quirkiness that was actually widespread in our generation.

"New Yorkers will say 'only in New York!' and it's the most normal shit ever."

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#518

Post by myself248 »

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…

> I do hope to see markets emerge that target power users

The problem is that every group of power users has their own idea of what they want, and they're _very_ stubborn about providing features that they don't personally use or like.

I've run across these, though I can't find the link now, there was a suite of "apps for power users like us", compile 'em from source, if you don't like that then go fuck yourself.

Which is a fine way to limit who asks for tech support, but it's not much of a market.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#519

Post by AlbertCory »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #450
AlbertCory wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, my anti-growth example is the local family restaurant, that's hugely successful and profitable, popular, provides steady employment to new family members, and is not trying to take over the world. If it throws off profits, those can be invested in other businesses, not in growing the restaurant.

If local familiy restaurants worked like apps and had no virtually no marginal costs to feed another user or serve a new entree, then it would stop being an anti-growth example. Cheesecake Factory+ would scale up and then the market would clone and chase them.

I don't even understand the point of this. If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bus.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#520

Post by bc11hn »

wvenable wrote: post #481
wbobeirne wrote: post #349

I worked at OkCupid from 2013-2017 and totally resonate with the author that mid-2010s OkCupid was a really special product, and that it took a steep decline as the decade went on. It's not entirely fair to say that the Match acquisition immediately caused that decline; I started a couple years after Match got the company in its hands, and only two of the original founders were still focused on OkCupid full time. But…

I don't understand why so many companies are against simply developing a new product with a new brand instead of lobotomizing their own product. It seems to have over and over where a product and brand that makes decent profit is utterly destroyed in an attempt to acquire a new market.

Because creating a new product is harder and more expensive than changing an existing one, even if it does destroy it.

Advertising, novel technical infrastructure, new branding, etc... all of this needs to be done for a new brand -- and then who knows if any one will come visit?

Or, you can just make whatever short-term changes to your existing successful product, juice the metric you're looking to juice, and (in theory) cashout before the long term repercussions take affect.

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