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Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

dcurt.is

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Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#211

Post by kenko »

baddox wrote: post #164
kenko wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of room between "exist to make money" and "must make money in order to exist". Like, a staggering amount of room.

I don't really see much of a difference. If a company must make money to continue to exist, then I think it's reasonable to say that company "exists to make money." Of course, that doesn't mean is exists only to make money.

Lots of bookstores, cafes, antique shops, whatever, are labors of love. And not only things like that. A bakery---a good bakery!---exists to make good bread. It has to sell that bread and cover its costs, etc., in order to do that, but it doesn't exist in order to make the money necessary to cover its costs. If that were why it existed, it would be easier to abandon the end of making good bread!

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#212

Post by sliverstorm »

steven777400 wrote: post #201
crazychrome wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is not the worst. In-App purchasing is. It turns the whole thing into endless ad stream. Every purchase confirms the success of previous efforts as ad, then what to do next? hit the f*cking user harder!

Yesterday I was sitting with a friend's young boy who was showing me some math games on a tablet. These are games designed to teach simple addition, subtraction, etc to young children. What amazed me was how intense the push for in-app purchasing was! Every one of the several games had a popup after each level or activity that would offered some in-game "power-up" for just $0.99 or various amounts. It wasn't just tha…

I would think you could defund the account...? I am not familiar with iDevices, but with Google I could just remove payment information from my account, and that would pretty much put a stop to accidental purchases.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#213

Post by andrewflnr »

mcherm wrote: post #196
z3phyr wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the apps must have 'Manual Override'. Save is desirable in ethical scenarios.

What? I don't comprehend what you mean by "manual override", nor how saving can have any ethical implications whatsoever.

I'm pretty sure it's a joke, probably a reference.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#214

Post by happyscrappy »

steven777400 wrote: post #201
crazychrome wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is not the worst. In-App purchasing is. It turns the whole thing into endless ad stream. Every purchase confirms the success of previous efforts as ad, then what to do next? hit the f*cking user harder!

Yesterday I was sitting with a friend's young boy who was showing me some math games on a tablet. These are games designed to teach simple addition, subtraction, etc to young children. What amazed me was how intense the push for in-app purchasing was! Every one of the several games had a popup after each level or activity that would offered some in-game "power-up" for just $0.99 or various amounts. It wasn't just tha…

This is why I donate to PBS. Their content is unrivaled and unimpeachable. What is the name of the app your friend's son was using, they deserve a special place in hell.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#216

Post by mathattack »

snowwrestler wrote: post #101
mathattack wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you take outside money, you have to give up the sense of purpose if it conflicts with collecting money. This is more an issue of optimization versus long term vision. Some firms can act like Apple, ignore feedback, and invent the future. That's very rare. The rest must react to feedback.

Facebook was very carefully structured so that investors cannot oust Zuckerberg.

Yes. Google too. That's very rare though. Even still, you have to expect those investors to demand attention to the current value of their investment.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#217

Post by eik3_de »

eevilspock wrote: post #176
steven2012 wrote: post #79

This is essentially what happened in my group when I was at Yahoo. Our group spent several months on a redesign that made it significantly more modern and easier to use. After it went live, though, this decreased the number of ad clicks by a significant number, and the people in charge hurriedly reverted all the changes back, since they needed to make their revenue numbers in order to make their bonus. When you are s…

Nearly everyone has bought into the utter bullshit that advertising makes the web free. This delusion buries not only the fact that we have made a deal with the devil, but also that the deal really sucks. What we traded our souls for we don’t even get. The web would be both cheaper and better if we just paid for what we use straight up. And more importantly, society would be better. I'll explain all of these. IT'S NO…

thanks eevilspock for your great comment. It's a perfect plea for app.net.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#218

Post by jbigelow76 »

happyscrappy wrote: post #214
steven777400 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday I was sitting with a friend's young boy who was showing me some math games on a tablet. These are games designed to teach simple addition, subtraction, etc to young children. What amazed me was how intense the push for in-app purchasing was! Every one of the several games had a popup after each level or activity that would offered some in-game "power-up" for just $0.99 or various amounts. It wasn't just tha…

This is why I donate to PBS. Their content is unrivaled and unimpeachable. What is the name of the app your friend's son was using, they deserve a special place in hell.

The sad truth is if the developer had priced the game at say five dollars they most likely never would have been discovered or if they had the user's conditioning would have kicked in: "Must find free alternative! Dumb greedy developers trying to rip me off, entertain and teach my child for free. FREE I SAY!"

We (as app users) brought this on ourselves, or at the very least we're half culpable.

The day the app store stops being the primary marketing channel for apps the better off we will be.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#219

Post by cheald »

steven777400 wrote: post #201
crazychrome wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is not the worst. In-App purchasing is. It turns the whole thing into endless ad stream. Every purchase confirms the success of previous efforts as ad, then what to do next? hit the f*cking user harder!

Yesterday I was sitting with a friend's young boy who was showing me some math games on a tablet. These are games designed to teach simple addition, subtraction, etc to young children. What amazed me was how intense the push for in-app purchasing was! Every one of the several games had a popup after each level or activity that would offered some in-game "power-up" for just $0.99 or various amounts. It wasn't just tha…

This is a plague of a problem. Developers who put IAP into their games frequently, in no uncertain terms, try to trick young kids into pressing the "buy $100 worth of database bits with your parents' credit card!" button. It's despicable.

AppLock on Android solved this issue for me and my kids (since any intent that goes to the Play store will get intercepted and challenged for authentication), but it's very frustrating to them to have to try to navigate these screens that have 12 big, bright "goes to the lock screen" buttons and 1 small, uninteresting button that does what they actually want.

IAP/microtransactions are a plague.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#220

Post by jbaskette »

notahacker wrote: post #40

The alternate design isn't "performing too well" by not telling you which of your friends are online to chat with, like the current version does. It's just decluttering, and relegating that important function to one of many miniscule, unlabelled icons. It's not "performing too well" by rendering links in the same colour as body text, and making the search function look like a header: it's just making them subtly less…

Very good observations. You made obvious to me most of what I did not like in that new design. My first reaction to the look of the new design is that is made each entry much larger filling the screen making the text less noticeable and having fewer posts on a page. A useful design for me will be concise so I can scan more quickly.
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