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…
Luxury watches are a good analogy too. A $5 watch from the gas station will give you the time just fine but there’s a market for watches costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But what if I want a faster horse?
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Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#112For 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 de…
Huh, why should “continue watching” be the first row?
If I don’t care enough to finish a movie I may as well start a new one. At the very least it’s not a clear choice.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#113I also dislike the TikTokification of everything, but I also know that all of us on this platform are wrong in the sense that we're not the user being designed for. Consumer apps at massive scale like TikTok and Netflix don't design for nerds like us, they design for the average person. Actually, they design for the average behavior of the average person. And most people on this planet are more or less happy with wha…
> And most people on this planet are more or less happy with whatever they're presented with because they don't care about technology.
I think this is a debatable statement. It could be true, but I am increasingly convinced that enshittification, TikTokification, AIfication, etc. is proceeding despite what the average person wants. Average does not mean gaping, uninspired idiot. I think people in general do notice that everything is broken, short-lived, watered down and ad-ridden. But what to do? When every company does it, voting with your wallet becomes practically impossible.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume it's about papering over the gaps in their content library. You can't provide a seamless UX for turning on the TV and watching The Office if you don't own the rights to The Office. They want to habituate you to scrolling through content Netflix actually owns and picking something, because it's apocalyptic for them if you ever treat the services as fungible content libraries that you hop between month-to-mont…
Yep. If they can’t get you to watch unknown, b/c grade content - you will quickly exhaust everything on the top shelf and log off.
And even if that isn't the case right at this moment, they have to be prepared for rights-holders to fuck with them and they have to be prepared to cut production costs (or for a rival to spend big on production in a way they don't think they can match).
So regardless of the state of their content library it's necessary future-proofing.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#115Earlier 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…
That doesn’t explain why japanese manufacturers who used to make sports cars in the 90s don’t anymore. It’s a mixture of enthusiasm and conspicuous consumption. Most enthusiasts love 90s japanese cars, but the average person sees an old mazda and recoils. But put an old ferrari in front of anyone and they have a completely different reaction.
Miata, BRZ, Nissan Z, and GT-R? Toyota's GR86 is BRZ derived but still counts, though their Supra is a BMW. Honda's closest thing is the Civic Type R, but they're bringing back the Prelude soon. Mitsubishi are the odd one out, all they have is an SUV recycling the Eclipse's name.
There's no million dollar Japanese supercars competing against Lamborghinis and McLarens, but I wouldn't say they stopped making sports cars.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#116For 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…
This is the cycle I keep seeing:
Most great products start out for enthusiasts and often by enthusiasts. They’re opinionated, sharp, sometimes rough, but exciting.
Then VC funding comes in, and the product has to appeal to a broader audience. Things get smoothed out and the metrics rule decisions.
Eventually, the original enthusiasts feel left out. The product’s no longer for them.
So a new product comes out, started again by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. And the cycle repeats - unless someone chooses to grow slowly and sustainably, without raising, and stays focused on the niche.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#117I feel like they just want the era of movies that existed in 2012 (as opposed to the ones they get on the front page today). The experience hasn't changed that much
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#118Earlier 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…
That doesn’t explain why japanese manufacturers who used to make sports cars in the 90s don’t anymore. It’s a mixture of enthusiasm and conspicuous consumption. Most enthusiasts love 90s japanese cars, but the average person sees an old mazda and recoils. But put an old ferrari in front of anyone and they have a completely different reaction.
It's funny, really.
My girlfriend thinks my cheap modern shitbox is more expensive than my old 90's 4x4 truck.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#119The 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…
This is strongly in tin-foil hat territory but: streaming video costs a lot more money than streaming some JSON to populate a UI. Every minute you spent browsing the catalogue over playing a video is probably a significant costs saving for Netflix.
At this stage the cost is probably more in licensing fees and production costs than data streaming though.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#120For 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…
> if you develop your product by following your analytics, you'll inevitably converge on something that just shoves content into the faces of an indiscriminating userbase, because that's what the median user of any given service wants
Except you're making the mistake of thinking these services are optimizing for their userbase. They are not. They are optimizing for revenue and profit growth, a very different target. More ads, cheaper and easier-to-product content, lower opex.
They are converging to churning out the least offensive slop at the cheapest cost with the maximum revenue.
None of the analytics are about what people using the product want, they are about making the most money and growing the fastest. Nothing would look like the services mentioned in the article if they listened to what the users really preferred.