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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?

#61

Post by cjs_ac »

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.

By participating in the community. Content moderation on HN is so much better than on Facebook because dang is one of us, whereas on Facebook, it's a team of people in a developing country, in a different cultural context. Netflix needs to be run by film enthusiasts, not UX engineers trying to disguise the fact that all the good IP has been pulled back to the streaming platforms of the original producers. Spotify needs to be run by music enthusiasts, not people pushing covers of pop songs to avoid paying royalties to the original artists. And so on.

Indie Hackers is full of people trying to flog their shit AI-powered marketing SaaS, because they've never done anything other than software engineering, so they don't know any good problems to solve. There are uncountably many good problems out there, each with thousands of people who would pay you money to solve them, but those people don't know their problems can be solved by a computer, so you have to go out into the world to find them yourself.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#62

Post by SamBam »

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…

> However, that analysis will aggregate its results over all your users, and won't pick out the enthusiasts, who will shape discourse and public opinion about your service. Consequently, your results will be dominated by people who don't really have an opinion, and just take whatever they're given.

> In all of these changes, most of the userbase didn't really care what browser they were using: the change was driven by enthusiasts recommending the latest and greatest to their less-technically-inclined friends and family.

I'm confused as to whether your saying change is caused by catering to the median who doesn't care, or the enthusiast who recommends the latest and greatest. You seem to be saying both.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#63

Post by gnatolf »

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…

Mostly it's to cover up that the catalogue isn't as great anymore, isn't it? Since almost every big label took back the rights and started their own streaming service, Netflix simply doesn't have as much content (that anyone would want to see) anymore.

I quit all those platforms recently and I'm not missing the frustration of having to 'switch channels' through their incomprehensible categories and views anymore.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#64

Post by spicyusername »

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.

I think it's very likely this kind of optimization is giving people want they "will" want, instead of what they "do" want.

If you ask a heroine user if they want to use, I suspect most will say no.

But if you A/B test their behavior and build a product based on what they actually do, you're going to start selling more heroin and encourage more heroin use.

To everyone's detriment.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#65

Post by cjs_ac »

SamBam wrote: post #62
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…

> However, that analysis will aggregate its results over all your users, and won't pick out the enthusiasts, who will shape discourse and public opinion about your service. Consequently, your results will be dominated by people who don't really have an opinion, and just take whatever they're given. > In all of these changes, most of the userbase didn't really care what browser they were using: the change was driven b…

Yeah, I could have been clearer there. The browser developers started by catering to the enthusiasts, who switched. The enthusiasts then told the majority of the userbase that the new thing was better, and so the majority switched, causing the large-scale changes in market share.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#66

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#67

Post by scarface_74 »

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…

You’re giving it way too much of a positive spend. None of the companies are using analytics to increase the desirability for the majority of users.

They are doing it to increase “engagement” and so more people will stay on their site longer.

Why else wouldn’t Netflix show the “continue watching” row first instead of forcing you to scroll past algorithmic generated crap?

It is the same reason that Google went from describing success as people getting off their site faster and going to one of the “ten blue links” to the shit show it is today.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#68

Post by thfuran »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #52
sokoloff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them). My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful…

I would say they're popular because they are expensive. It's bragging rights, conspicuous consumption…

If they were cheap, I might have one. As is, I never will.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#69

Post by totetsu »

I was just thinking today about how much better my media experience had been in 2010s with XBMC on a spare e-waste even then pc plugged into the TV than anything available today, and how much I enjoyed listening to the music of my music neighbors last.fm from my listen history I scrobbled from foobar2000..

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#70

Post by robofanatic »

ozim wrote: post #55

I hate algo feeds that change each time I refresh. On LI I lost already like 3 articles that I really wanted to read but I clicked notification and I can never get that articles back.

Its like when I go bird watching and finally see that elusive bird. but if I lose my focus for a split second, its gone, never to be seen again.
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