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But what if I want a faster horse?

rakhim.exotext.com

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Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#41

Post by pharrington »

furyg3 wrote: post #9

The TikTok-ification of advertising supported platforms is terrible, but makes sense to me. LinkedIn pivoted from making money on subscriptions and fees for job postings to ads, which mean the leading drivers are 'engagement' e.g. time you spend doom scrolling on their platform. This will end in disaster for the platform as a place to find jobs or employees. Netflix I understand much less. They make money from subscr…

As is always the case, they are high on their own supply. Netflix, and a ton of other companies, are terminally ill gambling addicts.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#42

Post by yakkomajuri »

jgilias wrote: post #33
yakkomajuri wrote: post #24

I feel like this with my (current) bank of choice here in Brazil. They were one of the first to focus on being digital-first and allowed opening an account without going to a branch etc. They grew fast and became one of the largest banks in the country and generally considered pretty solid. I've been banking there for like a decade. Now they've decided to be what they call a "SuperApp". This goddamn super app has a T…

That’s because WeChat has really taken off in China. So there are companies in different markets trying to replicate that. And, well, from business perspective it does make sense. If you manage to pull it off, the reward is massive.

Yeah definitely. I'm not oblivious to the potential gain to the business. I'm just frustrated with the user experience of the core banking products. And it seems like this is the direction other banks might like to follow.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#43

Post by ks2048 »

Taek wrote: post #31

The root problem seems to be monopoly and fragmentation. When Ford was working on a car, people who wanted a faster horse could go to the horse store. There were reasonable alternatives to Ford's new method of transportation. But here, you can't recreate Spotify from 2015. You'll never get the rights to play the music for users. Same with Netflix, you'll never get the rights to show the movies. Same thing with Twitte…

Maybe it depends on your listening habits, but for me, Spotify and Netflix are very different experiences.

Spotify has almost anything I look for. Netflix I struggle to find anything of interest.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#44

Post by _kush »

soco wrote: post #30
cjs_ac wrote: post #16

For any given thing or category of thing , a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing , but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing . For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into car…

Then, how could a business identify its (or market's) trend-setters, enthusiasts, or whatever we call them, which will push towards something new? I see this as essential for either making the business better, shinier, or to avoid losing users.

It has to be built by those enthusiasts

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#45

Post by another-dave »

cjs_ac wrote: post #16

For any given thing or category of thing , a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing , but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing . For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into car…

which is also what I feel about the Spotify algorthim at times — no matter what I'm listening to, it invariably brings me back to what it thinks are my "old reliables" once it gets onto recommending stuff.

I might just listen to it, if I have it on in the background, which then in turn feeds the algorithm that it made the "correct choice", but it's a million miles away from, say, listening to a radio DJ where you like their rough output but they're cherry-picking what to play next.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#46

Post by mxfh »

arkh wrote: post #4

All the result of A/B tests. Everything will converge to give you an engaging experience for most people. The only not too bad student is reddit which lets you keep using their older UI if you want to. But everything else is pushing new driven by A/B tests UI optimized for engagement.

Not just A/B test but all happening while cost optimizations happen.

The key metric seems to be no longer how many users you can make sign up, but how can I keep an subscription running at lowest cost to serve possible.

The UHD price is not worth it for a long term subscription, and the HD quality is subpar.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#47

Post by ozim »

soco wrote: post #30
cjs_ac wrote: post #16

For any given thing or category of thing , a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing , but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing . For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into car…

Then, how could a business identify its (or market's) trend-setters, enthusiasts, or whatever we call them, which will push towards something new? I see this as essential for either making the business better, shinier, or to avoid losing users.

That’s leg work you have to do on your own.

Just like football scouts need to actually visit some niche teams and watch not that interesting stuff to find talent before it is too late.

With tech it might be easier because you might create niche groups so those people come to you.

Just like PG created HN. Nowadays HN is too mainstream so all ideas here are seem already popular so it is like going to scout high school t am that won local championship everyone already knows which players are lined for pro contracts.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#48

Post by petesergeant »

sanderjd wrote: post #22
furyg3 wrote: post #9

The TikTok-ification of advertising supported platforms is terrible, but makes sense to me. LinkedIn pivoted from making money on subscriptions and fees for job postings to ads, which mean the leading drivers are 'engagement' e.g. time you spend doom scrolling on their platform. This will end in disaster for the platform as a place to find jobs or employees. Netflix I understand much less. They make money from subscr…

I guess my thing with LinkedIn is that there's just no reason to use the feed. It's still a place to connect with people I've worked with and keep up with what they've been doing. It's incredibly useful for that. I really don't find the feed to be either a boon or a hindrance in that use case. I know it's there, I know it annoys some people, but it's just irrelevant to me.

For some reason I kept opening it up and the feed would irritate me. This has fixed it:

    www.linkedin.com##main[aria-label="Main Feed"] .scaffold-finite-scroll__content

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#50

Post by thih9 »

I wouldn’t give TikTok too much credit or blame. The process started earlier, with snapchat stories UX dominating platforms, and feeds UX becoming popular before that, etc...

There is an aphorism that with enough A/B testing every website turns into a porn app or a gambling app. I guess we’re observing something similar.

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