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The Next Feature Fallacy

andrewchen.co

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Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#11

Post by ablation »

minimaxir wrote: post #6
yeldarb wrote: post #3

While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit of Hacker News: https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 "Can I ask people to upvote my submission? No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not because someone is promoting it." via https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical, although fortunately uncommon in HN. I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the status quo , which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)

I'd be interest to know if "upvote begging" actually works beyond a small amount of users who see the "beg" and know the person "begging". I'm not so sure the majority of people bother going on to a site to upvote something just because they were asked. People are extremely lazy.

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#12

Post by minimaxir »

cat9 wrote: post #8
minimaxir wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical, although fortunately uncommon in HN. I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the status quo , which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)

It's common because the likelihood of escaping /newest on the basis of "intellectually interesting" alone is miniscule. The traffic just doesn't work that way. Solve that, and you have much more traction to complain about what people should or shouldn't be doing.

What? No it isn't. (See my submission history for URLs to minimaxir.com, and I have negligible influence in the tech world)

Even then, two wrongs don't make a right. It comes down to luck, and sometimes it doesn't pan out. "Growth hacking" to correct bad luck is not necessarily ethical.

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#13

Post by minimaxir »

josefresco wrote: post #10
yeldarb wrote: post #3

While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit of Hacker News: https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 "Can I ask people to upvote my submission? No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not because someone is promoting it." via https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

I agree the call to action was very specific ("dear HNers"), but I think we all assume that authors promote their own writings via many channels.

Promoting their own writing is perfectly fine. Promoting a HN submission which is likely irrelevant to said writing is not.

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#14

Post by baddox »

yeldarb wrote: post #3

While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit of Hacker News: https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 "Can I ask people to upvote my submission? No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not because someone is promoting it." via https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Is it not reasonable in many cases to infer that the promoter isn't intending people to up vote if they're not interested in the article?

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#15

Post by minimaxir »

ablation wrote: post #11
minimaxir wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical, although fortunately uncommon in HN. I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the status quo , which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)

I'd be interest to know if "upvote begging" actually works beyond a small amount of users who see the "beg" and know the person "begging". I'm not so sure the majority of people bother going on to a site to upvote something just because they were asked. People are extremely lazy.

Unfortunately, that's impossible/infeasable to prove quantitatively without access to the raw data. In the HN case, however, I've seen a number of submissions which get 10+ points in a few minutes (which will get you on the front page quickly), but the submission was on the second or third page. A quick Twitter search shows they were asking for upvotes.

People are lazy, yes, but when there's monetary/reputation values tied to placement, the incentives change.

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#16

Post by ChuckMcM »

lqdc13 wrote: post #4

The other side of the coin is that there are many products that lack that one feature that makes me not use them or makes me less interested in using them. Example is sorting products by some variable or filtering products by some property. If I can't do that, that means I have to write a greasemonkey script and it is much easier to go to a competitor.

The challenging sales cycle (if there is one) is this, "If this feature were added, would you commit to using this product?" that question is hard to ask and answer in a web based freemium world. In the enterprise sales cycle I've seen customers decline to buy 'for lack of a feature' and having that be a way to say "no" without explicitly saying no. When I worked closely with the enterprise account teams at NetApp that was always something to consider.

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#17

Post by minimaxir »

baddox wrote: post #14
yeldarb wrote: post #3

While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit of Hacker News: https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 "Can I ask people to upvote my submission? No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not because someone is promoting it." via https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Is it not reasonable in many cases to infer that the promoter isn't intending people to up vote if they're not interested in the article?

That is not a reasonable inference, even if there wasn't an explicit call-to-action. (Otherwise, why make the comment?)

This is the reason for the infamous IF YOU LIKE THIS VIDEO LIKE/SUBSCRIBE/COMMENT! phrasing that has plagued modern YouTube.

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#18

Post by DenisM »

grok2 wrote: post #5

Interesting insight with the "engagement wall" concept, but I wonder if following this idea means you spend more time in "viral" features without adding meat to your product basics. In the long run, you really want engaged customers rather than casual customers (unless perhaps you can monetize the casual users somehow).

I think the point is to add features to the part of the lifecycle where you're bleeding the most users.

The desired outcome is a certain number of engaged customers, but which part of the lifecycle to target deserves serious consideration, certainly beyond the all-too-popular default choice of "let's build a feature for a fully engaged customer".

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#19

Post by zem »

minimaxir wrote: post #6
yeldarb wrote: post #3

While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit of Hacker News: https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840 "Can I ask people to upvote my submission? No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not because someone is promoting it." via https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical, although fortunately uncommon in HN. I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the status quo , which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)

what /newest trick? do upvotes count for more if they're made from the new page rather than the front page? (and if so, does it track state when you click through to the comment page first, then open the article in a new tab, read it, and then upvote from the comment page?)

Re: The Next Feature Fallacy

#20

Post by minimaxir »

zem wrote: post #19
minimaxir wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical, although fortunately uncommon in HN. I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the status quo , which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)

what /newest trick? do upvotes count for more if they're made from the new page rather than the front page? (and if so, does it track state when you click through to the comment page first, then open the article in a new tab, read it, and then upvote from the comment page?)

The inverse: upvotes are penalized if the voter comes from a direct link from a non-HN source (e.g. Twitter), so people direct others to vote via /newest.
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