OP is dunking on Tiktok, but the comments and quality of dialog on Tiktok are far better than any other social network, even with more than a billion users.
But what if I want a faster horse?
131–140 of 632 posts
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#132The 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…
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…
I think you're right!
A short while ago, I noticed I only used Netflix to watch 2 classic comfort shows, and I started to doubt if it was worth a 2-classic-comfort-shows-as-a-service subscription. I tried looking through the catalog to see what else I was paying for and ended up cancelling my subscription.
Netflix does an amazing job in giving the impression that they have an endless library of top quality content, but in reality, it seems like it's only a handful good shows and some filler, but presented in a way that makes it look like there's way more than it actually is.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#133Honestly that last sentence about Substack hit me hard. I just want them to import a syntax highlighting library but instead they are pushing video content into my face
Why don't companies have multiple recommendation strategies. One for power-users. One for casual users etc. Have the router infront of these models to intelligent switch between the different styles. In fact, there are times when I want indepth analysis. But after understanding the topic, I need short form content or memes which "update" or "entertain" the same topic in ongoing manner.
Doing all that would hugely increase opex,
a non-starter for companies,
especially the ones prioritizing growth over everything else.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty Except for the Toyota nerds who will want to come talk to you about the LFA. Ask me how I know!
Would someone really describe the LFA as "utterly soulless"?
Tbf I don’t think the parent meant all Lexuses (Lexes? Lexi?) are soulless, just theirs. But the brand has its fans.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#135The 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…
> More time spent looking for something to watch means less time viewing? or, if you're presented with more random 'clips' or movie snippets, this turns on your gambling reward center. It's like a slot machine - where you "win" by finding a good series to watch after searching. And because this is random, you end up getting addicted to looking thru the list/snippet, trying to encounter a perfect series to watch.
But this doesn't explain what the incentive for Netflix is if you pay for subscription regardless.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#136I just want to pile in that the old netflix layout was top tier. I LOVED it and because of it, stumbled onto tons of awesome movies I never heard of at the time and were actually interesting. Their algorithm back then was the best. I never had a problem finding movies to ACTUALLY WATCH. The whole reason I quit my subscription a few years ago was for the fact I end up burning up time "looking" for something to watch. Then don't. I stopped paying for the "movie browsing simulator" a little after The Witcher 1st season. A few months ago, I got another month because I thought it might be better. Ha. No.
In this case, it's less "faster horse" and more "quit with the stupid fucking song and dance, and give me the damn thing I paid for without all this extra stupid bullshit that makes the experience worse."
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#137Doesn’t matter what you want anymore. You are not the client, but the product. They are the ones getting faster horses.
> They are the ones getting faster horses.
To a point, until stage 3 enshittification hits, and the business claws back all the value.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#138For 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…
What's the difference between that which optimized for what you call "engagement" and what the average user wants?
Presumably the best thing for Netflix is to have a happy userbase, so why do you assume it wouldn't optimize for that?
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#139If people can't find a sustainable business model around that thing you want, it's just not going to be widely available.
It's hard to say for sure if Netflix could have/should have kept going in the direction they were going in 2012. But they didn't seem to think so.
You can't necessarily count on businesses springing up to satisfy your personal interests and tastes. Especially large-scale businesses, which are always going to gravitate toward the center of large markets. It's great when it happens, but it's basically just luck when it does.
Re: But what if I want a faster horse?
#140For 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…
which is also what I feel about the Spotify algorthim at times — no matter what I'm listening to, it invariably brings me back to what it thinks are my "old reliables" once it gets onto recommending stuff. I might just listen to it, if I have it on in the background, which then in turn feeds the algorithm that it made the "correct choice", but it's a million miles away from, say, listening to a radio DJ where you lik…
To this point, I've been using Qobuz as an alternative and it's recommendation engine is laughably bad, but the experience is somehow better. I'll get the most random songs pop up in the list, and sometimes it's a very pleasant surprise.
In the world of music discovery a bad recommendation engine is maybe better than a hyper-fine-tuned one.