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The Tyranny of the Marginal User

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Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#161

Post by jancsika »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #123
bdcs wrote: post #98

The tyranny of the marginal user reminds me of population ethics' The Repugnant Conclusion.[0] This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10 N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100 N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness. Substitute profit for happiness, and you get the tyranny of the ma…

Many versions of utilitarianism never specified the function to compute the sum for the many. Your example assumes that the function is simple addition, but others have been proposed that reflect some of the complexities of the human condition a little more explicitly (e.g. sad neighbors make neighbors sad).

> (e.g. sad neighbors make neighbors sad)

I much prefer, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." At least in that case nobody will confuse a trucker hat slogan for a viable system of ethics.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#162

Post by wilg »

mhb wrote: post #159
wilg wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood this problem. To me, it seems that since you've defined a minimum "worth living" amount of happiness and unbounded population, it makes complete sense that the answer would be that it is better to have lots of people whose life is worth living rather than fewer. Is it not tautological? Like it seems like you have to take "worth living" seriously, since that is the element that is doing all the w…

If you pack the whole problem into a definition of "worth living", then you're right. But the premise is that there is a range from extreme misery through neutral through extremely happy. The repugnant conclusion is that it is better to have many people in a state that is barely above neutral.

I'm not the one packing it, the setup of the problem does it. "Barely above neutral" means you've picked an acceptable state. And then we are supposed to consider that acceptable state "repugnant"?

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#163

Post by ecshafer »

dale_glass wrote: post #62
koch wrote: post #13

> Reddit and Craigslist remain incredibly useful and valuable precisely because their software remains frozen in time Craigslist, sure, but Reddit has fallen off a cliff in terms of content quality since the whole API/3rd party apps debacle. More confirmation of the author's point, I suppose - valuing the marginal user and a broader base over what's already there.

I think Reddit is a bit different. They're not a company that is finding that optimizing metrics leads to targeting Marl (as per article). They're a company that decided that the optimal way forward is to intentionally push out their former users and replace them with as much Marl as possible. And I think that makes sense. The original Reddit is full of technical people with ad blockers, weird hobbies, weird communit…

Reddit seems to have easy sales. Specific subreddits can be targeted with specific ads really easily. So it should be easy to sell things there and easy to keep the users happy.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#164

Post by feoren »

bdcs wrote: post #98

The tyranny of the marginal user reminds me of population ethics' The Repugnant Conclusion.[0] This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10 N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100 N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness. Substitute profit for happiness, and you get the tyranny of the ma…

That conclusion is not repugnant at all, it's just that its phrasing is so simplistic as to be nearly a straw-man. It's a poisoned intuition pump, because it makes you imagine a situation that doesn't follow at all from utilitarianism.

First of all, you're imagining dividing happiness among more people, but imagining them all with the same amount of suffering. You're picturing a drudging life where people work all day and have barely any source of happiness. But if you can magically divide up some total amount of happiness, why not the same with suffering? This is the entire source of the word "repugnant", because it sounds like you get infinite suffering with finite happiness. That does not follow from anything utilitarianism stipulates; you've simply created an awful world and falsely called it utilitarianism. Try to imagine all these people living a nearly completely neutral life, erring a bit on the happier side, and it suddenly doesn't sound so bad.

Secondly, you're ignoring the fact that people can create happiness for others. What fixed finite "happiness" resource are we divvying up here? Surely a world with 10 billion people has more great works of art for all to enjoy than a world with 10 people, not to mention far less loneliness. It's crazy to think the total amount of happiness to distribute is independent of the world population.

There are many more reasonable objections to even the existence of that so-called "conclusion" without even starting on the many ways of dealing with it.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#165

Post by vsareto »

Kapura wrote: post #108
malfist wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> say something, and leave So you want me to give up my mid-six figures job so your dates go a little bit better?

I want you to have some amount of self respect, and appreciation for your craft.

It's hard to take that seriously for a few reasons:

- the gatekeepers of the craft are random and inconsistent and the competency standards are suspect

- the people on the other side of your employment relationship won't do the same

- leaving for self respect may not look good into getting you your next position. It may even harm your chances if you quit too soon

- For the US, losing healthcare benefits for the love of the craft seems just like shooting yourself in the foot for no good reason

We should strive to be better, but criticism about not living up to the craft often involves just a difference of opinion or preferences

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#166

Post by somedude895 »

munificent wrote: post #29

> We’ve all been Marl at one time or another This, to me, is the key line in this quite good article. It's not that software companies are catering to those other people who are infinitely stupid and deserving of our scorn. It's that they are catering to the worse impulses in all of us and encouraging us to become those people.

It's a very good point that I think some commenters here should take to heart. No matter how enlightened we think we are, we're all part of the masses and behave this way at one point or another.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#167

Post by epx »

AlbertCory wrote: post #118

A great article. "Growth" is the culprit. "What if we just acted like the successful restaurant: packed every night, very profitable, solid employment for my kids?" Nah. We have to keep growing.

+1. Software companies should accept that there is a ceiling to their revenue, and this ceiling won't need that many engineers to maintain the software. But many actors are benefied by believing in infinite growth. It is a collective illusion.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#168

Post by whoisthemachine »

freedomben wrote: post #6

> Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together about the marginal user. Let’s call him Marl. The first thing you need to know about Marl is that he has the attention span of a goldfish on acid. Once Marl opens your app, you have about 1.3 seconds to catch his attention with a shiny image or triggering headline, otherwise he’ll swipe back to TikTok and never open your app again. This is hilarious and sad because it fe…

Ironically, I think the power user can be another marginal user: the user who pays *top dollar* (in their mind) for your product so they expect it to support marginal, niche features for eternity. Somewhere in between the user who doesn't want to think while using your application and the user who wants a basically programmable application is, I think, the ideal.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#169

Post by mhb »

bwanab wrote: post #63
postmodest wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be noted that match.com knows that it's business isn't "connecting people in stable relationships" but "luring people to pay for match.com by promising them connections that never work out." OKCupid had a model that increases the likelihood of matching with someone and ...never using OKCupid again. Match.com realizes that fundamental flaw. For their business to survive, they HAVE to be bad at the servi…

I've always had the same feeling about dentists. If they really fix your teeth, you wouldn't need their services anymore. The logic goes for a lot of service type situations like auto-repair post-warranty period.

That's silly. Do you also have the same feeling about carpenters, electricians and plumbers? If they fix something poorly you hire a different one next time.
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