The Lost Chapter • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lost Chapter

#191

Post by intended » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 7:34 AM UTC

cuergas wrote: post #189

corporalagumbo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to think that Zynga is a 21st century drug dealer. Their "games" are designed to turn people into clicking-addicted machines, slowly depleting their psychological until they start buying virtual gold. Plus, companies like Zynga target the most psychologically vulnerable members of society. Probably the worst is children. Give it 15 years and Zynga-style behaviour will be subject to legal restrictions, I'd sa…

Dude, you are cracking me up. And I know you're not joking either. Thanks for bringing some life to an emotionally bereft forum. You are familiar with this term they have for the big spenders on Zynga? "Whales". What kind of person calls someone with an addiction a "whale"? Maybe some people are just too immature to be taking payments from users. Oh, it's all good. We're making people happy. No one is arguing for a "…

What?

Whales is a term thats been there from the Casino days of Las Vegas. You may know its other variant - High roller.

Its a historic term that has been re-purposed and used correctly for once.

It has nothing to do with maturity/immaturity OR addiction.

That out of the way, lets move on to addiction - Source.

Please show me where zynga gets most of its money from people who are addicted, and please also show me data on statistics on addiction in social games.

Instead try doing a search on "video game player personality types" and go from there. IIRC the magic the gathering guys had a great simple break up.

Heck reams of data have been generated on how the freemium system works from the days when western MMOs started learning from the Asian/Korean systems.

From the top of my head - if you arent a subscriber you are the content. Its the free players who support friend networks who bring in a few players who are able or interested enough to dump in large amounts of cash before moving on.

Thats their largest source of income. The cross section of income sources with addiction is tenuous and tangential.

Some of the stuff you are saying here is incorrect/not borne out by data.

Re: The Lost Chapter

#192

Post by cuergas » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 7:49 AM UTC

corporalagumbo wrote: post #186

asr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, does this guy not have any parents/siblings/super close friends who can tell him it's time to move on? This is a great happy hour story, but not such a great epitaph. On the bright side, at least he's thematically consistent! "I keep getting screwed over by life" is the only reason I can think of to start the post with so many words about Final Clubs before the pivot.... Suffice it to say, anyone who can g…

I can see how Greenspan's experience would not exactly be easy to move on from. At stake is not his own personal success, but his belief about how the world should work. Greenspan sounds like a pretty moral guy, the kind of guy who gets upset when things happen that he thinks are wrong. Basically, you're asking him to shrug and move on but for him, an antisocial bastard is in the spotlight smiling and waving and bein…

Or... maybe he just needed some traffic to his website.

It seems everyone who had anything remotely to do with Facebook's origins has tried to cash in.

This bothers wantrapreneurs because it highlights just how much luck plays a role in a story like Facebook's. They want to believe that one founder or a few co-founders succeed based on some factor(s) under their control (hardwork, skill, etc.)

Greenspan is just another one of those people who was involved and is trying to cash in.

If anyone needs to "get over it", it's people who just can't accept that huge fads like Facebook are unpredictable and uncontrollable, and that when faced with the possibility of huge sums of "money for nothing" it brings out the worst in people all seeking a share of the bounty.

The web is a lottery.

Time to re-read the recent speech from Princeton's graduation ceremony by the author of Liar's Poker.

Re: The Lost Chapter

#193

Post by cuergas » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 8:03 AM UTC

intended wrote: post #191

cuergas wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, you are cracking me up. And I know you're not joking either. Thanks for bringing some life to an emotionally bereft forum. You are familiar with this term they have for the big spenders on Zynga? "Whales". What kind of person calls someone with an addiction a "whale"? Maybe some people are just too immature to be taking payments from users. Oh, it's all good. We're making people happy. No one is arguing for a "…

What? Whales is a term thats been there from the Casino days of Las Vegas. You may know its other variant - High roller. Its a historic term that has been re-purposed and used correctly for once. It has nothing to do with maturity/immaturity OR addiction. That out of the way, lets move on to addiction - Source. Please show me where zynga gets most of its money from people who are addicted, and please also show me dat…

Let's assume the term whale is the same one that is used in casinos.

Do you believe that gambling is not an addiction?

I will defer to your knowledge on the history of online gaming. I'm not a gamer.

However I'm not sure you are doing much to advance the idea that Zynga is not making its money from capitalizing on addictive behavior that rises to the level of being unhealthy. Is that what you are saying?

That seems to be what the other commenter is arguing: the business relies on cultivating an (unhealthy) addiction. It seems like a simple notion. Can you prove him wrong?

What I do know is Zynga is not the type of company I would want to work for nor invest in. And their stock price is reflective of my concerns.

Re: The Lost Chapter

#194

Post by corporalagumbo » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 9:23 AM UTC

cuergas wrote: post #189

corporalagumbo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to think that Zynga is a 21st century drug dealer. Their "games" are designed to turn people into clicking-addicted machines, slowly depleting their psychological until they start buying virtual gold. Plus, companies like Zynga target the most psychologically vulnerable members of society. Probably the worst is children. Give it 15 years and Zynga-style behaviour will be subject to legal restrictions, I'd sa…

Dude, you are cracking me up. And I know you're not joking either. Thanks for bringing some life to an emotionally bereft forum. You are familiar with this term they have for the big spenders on Zynga? "Whales". What kind of person calls someone with an addiction a "whale"? Maybe some people are just too immature to be taking payments from users. Oh, it's all good. We're making people happy. No one is arguing for a "…

I just wish someone would please think of the children...

Seriously though, we restrict slot machines in pubs in New Zealand. And now we have slot machines on computers. Some of the slot machines look like slot machines and some look like Farmville. No difference really. The legislation will catch up.

Re: The Lost Chapter

#195

Post by john_flintstone » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 10:11 AM UTC

brooktree wrote: post #23

Regardless of Greenspan's own character or his particular situation, he gives us a peek at the facts, which others are so quick to ignore. I think there will be poetic justice in this story. Because the web is much bigger than Zuckerberg, or Facebook or even Google. The world is still getting online. It's early yet. But what Zuckerberg has done, how he has carried himself in the presence of enormous luck, he cannot e…

Who cares? More to the point, who will care? Facebook will fall eventually. In the 10 or 20 years from now that you talk about, Facebook will be a distant memory.

Does anyone care about what may or may not have gone on at IBM 30 years ago? At MySpace? Facebook is not a bank and it's not a government. It's a social media site. Nobody will care.

Re: The Lost Chapter

#196

Post by intended » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 10:52 AM UTC

cuergas wrote: post #193

intended wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Whales is a term thats been there from the Casino days of Las Vegas. You may know its other variant - High roller. Its a historic term that has been re-purposed and used correctly for once. It has nothing to do with maturity/immaturity OR addiction. That out of the way, lets move on to addiction - Source. Please show me where zynga gets most of its money from people who are addicted, and please also show me dat…

Let's assume the term whale is the same one that is used in casinos. Do you believe that gambling is not an addiction? I will defer to your knowledge on the history of online gaming. I'm not a gamer. However I'm not sure you are doing much to advance the idea that Zynga is not making its money from capitalizing on addictive behavior that rises to the level of being unhealthy. Is that what you are saying? That seems t…

You don't have to "assume", just do a search. It is still common knowledge and hasn't wafted into apocrypha so even asking people would be effective.

As I said earlier: source. I can also come up with argumentative gambits easily, but this is a subject that I actually focus on, so I'd like to see the source which gives you your confidence.

AFAIK your statements can only be supported by the most edge case and liberal interpretation of the data.

-----

"Zynga is.... capitalizing on addictive behavior". source? From what I know that is not how the freemium model works, so I am curious as to where you got this data. I am eagerly awaiting your response since it would be news to me.

Your comment where you seemed to put words in my mouth are disconcerting. Answering it would be giving it more grace than it deserves, since I never stated what you imply.

Your last statement is also strange. The stock price, If anything, shows that your assumptions are wrong, as the sin industry is always profitable, and zynga's stock is dropping.

Which as I said is because people got bored and moved on.

Re: The Lost Chapter

#197

Post by lifeisstillgood » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 11:08 AM UTC

just2n wrote: post #153

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart probably has more actionable data - from those purchases of condoms by a married man who did not last year, to the purchases of pregnancy tests of the woman who curiously appears just after him at the till register on lunchtimes. Add in the bottles of wine and the alka seltzer the day after, the purchase of womans underwear in sizes too big for his wife but the same size as his boxers, and the bra that won't…

You can purchase things at Walmart with cash. It's pretty much impossible to track purchases made with cash. You can't pay with an anonymous money source on the internet, and you can't obtain that much anonymity on Facebook.

You can choose to pay with cash. You can choose to not surf with cookies or use Facebook.

You can choose not to buy, with cash or not, trackable devices like cameras, phones, video games

But people do not choose these things en mass

The issue lies in how we regulate - I believe any form of tracking or surveillance on or offline should be required to produce raw near real time feeds. There is no reasonable way we can regulate without knowing what is being collected - and becoming outraged by it's collection.

Either these should be restricted by identifiable people or published if unidentifiable.

I want my purchase history from wal mart

Re: The Lost Chapter

#198

Post by lifeisstillgood » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 11:16 AM UTC

freshhawk wrote: post #138

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a free society, he is free to write as much as he likes and you are free to neither read nor reply to it. The base of his argument is offending a persons preferences is not sufficient to self censor ones own actions - and I agree. I also agree where he said any legal start up is fine and free of guilt - but don't worry I would be behind any start up or government initiative that gave away heroin to Junkies. The so…

"I also agree where he said any legal start up is fine and free of guilt" Really? The law, for very good reason, lags behind societal developments and shifts in social norms. Conflating "legal" with "ethical" shows a pretty profound misunderstanding of the two concepts.

This is I think the crux of the problem. Most of us live in the large intersection of legal and ethical.

Some exist, like Greenpeace perhaps, in the ethical if not always legal. i suggest the British System sits there too.

But we argue here not over what is legal but what is ethical. Many things are agreed upon worldwide as unethical, rape murder etc. But a whole raft of other issues are ethical preferences - selling mortgages to high risk payers with two year low rates. It's legal. It may be ethical. Do you agree?

Btw I used legal there as the usual, large intersection meaning, as I think most of us do in daily lives

Re: The Lost Chapter

#199

Post by dasil003 » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 11:31 AM UTC

corporalagumbo wrote: post #186

asr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, does this guy not have any parents/siblings/super close friends who can tell him it's time to move on? This is a great happy hour story, but not such a great epitaph. On the bright side, at least he's thematically consistent! "I keep getting screwed over by life" is the only reason I can think of to start the post with so many words about Final Clubs before the pivot.... Suffice it to say, anyone who can g…

I can see how Greenspan's experience would not exactly be easy to move on from. At stake is not his own personal success, but his belief about how the world should work. Greenspan sounds like a pretty moral guy, the kind of guy who gets upset when things happen that he thinks are wrong. Basically, you're asking him to shrug and move on but for him, an antisocial bastard is in the spotlight smiling and waving and bein…

I'm not saying it's easy to move on from. If he can't, I'm not judging him. But it's just a fact that an ongoing obsession like this will be more self-destructive than right any wrong.

Re: The Lost Chapter

#200

Post by dasil003 » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 11:48 AM UTC

cuergas wrote: post #192

corporalagumbo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see how Greenspan's experience would not exactly be easy to move on from. At stake is not his own personal success, but his belief about how the world should work. Greenspan sounds like a pretty moral guy, the kind of guy who gets upset when things happen that he thinks are wrong. Basically, you're asking him to shrug and move on but for him, an antisocial bastard is in the spotlight smiling and waving and bein…

Or... maybe he just needed some traffic to his website. It seems everyone who had anything remotely to do with Facebook's origins has tried to cash in. This bothers wantrapreneurs because it highlights just how much luck plays a role in a story like Facebook's. They want to believe that one founder or a few co-founders succeed based on some factor(s) under their control (hardwork, skill, etc.) Greenspan is just anoth…

> The web is a lottery.

This is quite an overstatement. You don't simply move to Palo Alto and then have a 1/65,412 chance of starting the next Google.

Instead you have to have a great vision, great execution, and great luck. Now Zuckerberg may not have Jobsian vision and execution (or maybe he does, only time will tell), but you can't argue that he executed the hell outta Facebook and he definitely has a vision even if you find it morally bankrupt. This definitely did not just magically fall in his lap, and he certainly deserves most of the credit regardless of what individuals he screwed over at various stages.