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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?

#121

Post by butlike »

sokoloff wrote: post #36
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…

> 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 agree, and I feel the beauty oftentimes comes from the intrinsic love evident in the machine. Looking at a Ferrari it's evident Enzo had a passion for autos. This can also cross boundaries (eating at fine dining restaurants, fine art gallery layouts, etc.) and is probably discernible in MOST things people put out.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#122

Post by chanux »

> An inconsistent stream of ever-changing content

Instagram. I have clicked through an ad, yes AN AD, and came back to get to another ad and had it refreshed away.

I hope they are doing this because it works for them, somehow.

PS: LinkedIn does this too.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#123

Post by mushufasa »

The examples in this blog are of online streaming media changing from a wide searchable library to an unsearchable tailored recommendation feed.

As I understand, licensing dynamics were the main reason for Netflix's change, not pure product design. In 2012, most movie studios licensed their catalog to Netflix, while 7 years later they took away the licensing to compete with proprietary walled streaming platforms. Due to the smaller catalog, Netflix could not design that open searchable streaming library; they changed their design to make the best of the more limited library.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#124

Post by gampleman »

Taek wrote: post #31

The root problem seems to be monopoly and fragmentation. When Ford was working on a car, people who wanted a faster horse could go to the horse store. There were reasonable alternatives to Ford's new method of transportation. But here, you can't recreate Spotify from 2015. You'll never get the rights to play the music for users. Same with Netflix, you'll never get the rights to show the movies. Same thing with Twitte…

Good luck riding your fast horse through most urban areas (and parking it... er stabling it). All of those things were routine in urban areas before car adoption (I believe Manhattan for instance often had stables in upper floors, leading to some interesting design to get horses up and down).

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#126

Post by rasz »

amrocha wrote: post #74
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…

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.

Are you saying nobody will recognize old NSX as something special? R34?

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#127

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Freak_NL wrote: post #35

One upside: by degrading the experience¹ Netflix did make it a lot easier to simply stop your subscription and hop over to another streaming service for a few months. A very interesting development: in the Netherlands KPN, one of the largest telcos, introduced a feature where any household with several of their products in use (e.g., two cellphones and fiber internet) could choose a free 'gift'². The gift is a choice…

I'm surprised that the services don't seem to have updated for that reality yet; it feels like there's only one or two "hits" on each service per year. They did already adapt a bit by no longer releasing a whole season in one go, so you need at least three months of subscription for a 10 episode weekly series.

But what they need is rolling releases across the whole year, so that once one production is "done", the next one rolls around.

(maybe they already do, I don't know, I'm just thinking of Stranger Things which seems to be Netflix' main seller at the moment)

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#128

Post by myself248 »

I've heard this called the "Tyranny of the Marginal User".

To keep the line going up, platforms have to appeal to wider and wider swaths of a population, eventually lapping at the shores of a population that really doesn't care or want this service. But if you can hook them with some dopamine in a 5-second video, or a quest to rediscover some neat thing that they saw two page-loads ago but is now mysteriously gone from the very same list it appeared in, then you've clawed one additional user into your metrics and the VCs give you a treat.

These people don't care about the service and they're the worst users to cater to, but everyone caters to them because they're the only ones left. Hence, TikTokization.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#129

Post by bluGill »

_kush wrote: post #116
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…

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…

Can can git rich by growing slowly in many cases - but it will be a long hard road. You could instead sell out today and get rich instantly.

If you start the slow growth path at 30 and retire at 65 you will overall make more money from that thing vs someone who sells out at 35. There are some catches though. The person who sells out can go on to the next thing which in sum total may be more sell out enough to make far more over their lifetime, while the slow growth plan you are stuck. The slow growth is over very slow at first, you often spend 10 years making far less than someone who is "working for the man", then 15 more years more or less even, and only then start making good money. There is no guarantee that you will be successful, some people spend their entire life making less than they could "working for the man"; others go bankrupt when a new VC competitor suddenly gets better by enough to take your customers.

There is no right answer. VC money sometimes is the best answer - but many people who reaching for VC money when their better long term answer would be to grow slow.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#130

Post by scarface_74 »

signatoremo wrote: post #112
scarface_74 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Binge watching TV series. The easiest signal that you don’t want to continue watching a movie would be to thumbs down it.
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