Manipulate Machines, Not People
johnstanderfer.com
Manipulate Machines, Not People
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#2"I wonder what a company like Facebook could build if it could treat its users as customers instead of products."
Not exactly sure that treating users as customers is better by much than treating them as products. How about treating users as users and let it flow from there?
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#3I agree with author whole-heatedly that the software-development industry has shifted from manipulating machines to manipulating people. Writing software today is more about the content that the software provides than about figuring out how to make that actual software work.
Any modern web-based business must think of themselves as a media company. The software designers must ask themselves not how can I make something happen, but what content should I deliver to my users. There has been a paradigm shift in the industry. The code and how it works is irrelevant, and what matters most is the media that your service offers.
The author seems to wish that this weren't so, but unfortunately it is. I wish it weren't so, but it is. There does not seem to be any way around the issue.
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#4I agree with author whole-heatedly that the software-development industry has shifted from manipulating machines to manipulating people. Writing software today is more about the content that the software provides than about figuring out how to make that actual software work. Any modern web-based business must think of themselves as a media company. The software designers must ask themselves not how can I make somethi…
"There does not seem to be any way around the issue."
Do something different. Write software that solves real problems and give it away. Fund yourself by coding for companies that solve real problems.
This isn't complicated.
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#5I think this is an inherent side effect of advertising-based revenue models. As they say "if you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold".
If you sell something for money, there's a single moment where your interests diverge from your customers -- when you accept payment. But the rest of you customer interactions are all about adding value.
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#6I agree with author whole-heatedly that the software-development industry has shifted from manipulating machines to manipulating people. Writing software today is more about the content that the software provides than about figuring out how to make that actual software work. Any modern web-based business must think of themselves as a media company. The software designers must ask themselves not how can I make somethi…
"There does not seem to be any way around the issue." Do something different. Write software that solves real problems and give it away. Fund yourself by coding for companies that solve real problems. This isn't complicated.
The outstanding problems in computer science don't seem to require ingenuity in how the code is written. Rather, solving these new problems requires ingenuity in how the problems are approached and in how the algorithms are designed. For example, I was shocked to learn that on my campus, some of the coolest work in A.I. (machine learning, or whatever you want to call it) was being done by statisticians, not computer programmers.
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#7We might be more focused on getting people to do things, but it doesn't need to be just about getting people to sign up for things. We can also use software to make people behave better, to make people's lives better.
Just yesterday there was a post from Grouper talking about how they figured out basically a hack to get people not to flake out (http://blog.joingrouper.com/intro-to-social-hacking-how-we-l...). Anil Dash talks about using technology to create more civil conversations on the web (http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/if-your-websites-full-of-assh...). If you ask me, those are good developments and we should focus more on figuring out how to create online communities that are best. That may involve some manipulation but it may all be for the best.
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#8[deleted]
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#9I think this is an inherent side effect of advertising-based revenue models. As they say "if you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold". If you sell something for money, there's a single moment where your interests diverge from your customers -- when you accept payment. But the rest of you customer interactions are all about adding value.
I think you hit the nail on the head. But it does restrict the ambit of the possible for web properties to ones where the end-user both understands the value and is willing to pay the cost of the service being provided. It would be impossible to build facebook or google without an advertising based business model, you just can't reach critical mass.
Re: Manipulate Machines, Not People
#10I think this is an inherent side effect of advertising-based revenue models. As they say "if you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold". If you sell something for money, there's a single moment where your interests diverge from your customers -- when you accept payment. But the rest of you customer interactions are all about adding value.
I think you hit the nail on the head. But it does restrict the ambit of the possible for web properties to ones where the end-user both understands the value and is willing to pay the cost of the service being provided. It would be impossible to build facebook or google without an advertising based business model, you just can't reach critical mass.
That's because the interactive web inherently locks away software more than binary-only releases ever did. It certainly enables some new capabilities - google search is probably impossible to do in a distributed fashion. But things like facebook and twitter are just capturing the critical mass from what could be a decentralized platform and selling user-undesirable modifications. A company using technology doesn't necessarily imply a tech company.