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“User engagement” is code for “addiction”

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Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#221

Post by Zebrakopf »

jcelerier wrote: post #216
gary_bernhardt wrote: post #132

Here's an anecdote about what happens when you design a product in the opposite way. I own https://www.executeprogram.com , which has interactive in-browser courses on various software development technologies. Currently they all cover languages, more or less: TypeScript, SQL, various JS topics, regexes. (Disclosure: it costs money after you finish your 16th lesson.) Almost all (maybe literally all) of our competitor…

> But cramming is a very time-inefficient way to learn, who are you to judge how I learn ?

I don't think he is judging the way in which you learn. He's simply referring to the current state of research like: Putnam, et al. (2016). Optimizing Learning in College: Tips From Cognitive Psychology

There has been lots written on learning strategies but one thing we are rather certain of is that cramming is usually the worst way to retain information (if you want to learn it well). You can even read about funky neuronal reasonings for that argument if you are interested.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#222

Post by TeMPOraL »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #208
teddyh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sell out, then they close for the day. Every year they take a two-month vacation. What is stopping their landlord from raising the rent, since they obviously have money to spare?

Real estate prices depend on the market rate, not the buyer's wealth.

Market rate depends on what the buyers will bear, on aggregate. Given that rents are sticky - it costs a lot to move yourself, and even more to move a business - the landlord could eat into a lot of their margins, if the landlord was so inclined.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#223

Post by TeMPOraL »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #203
teddyh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sell out, then they close for the day. Every year they take a two-month vacation. What is stopping their landlord from raising the rent, since they obviously have money to spare?

Principles? Morals? Ethics? The small things preventing humanity from murdering, raping, enslaving, and torturing one another. It's easy to forget that these exist and that everyone must always be on guard, defending the world against ones own baser instincts and defending oneself against humanity at larges baser instincts. As we collectively forget, or consciously ignore, our duty to one another we mortgage humaniti…

Indeed. That's why I'm worried when I see interpersonal relations being replaced by market rules. Markets have no morals, principles and ethics by default, and generally consider these factors to be inefficiencies.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#224

Post by stoolpigeon »

oarsinsync wrote: post #205
pixelbro wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, it's interesting that you see the design of your product as a counterexample, because to me it looks exactly like what mobile games have been doing as a mechanism for maximizing engagement. You want to stop them from playing through too much of the game's content and burning themselves out on it. So you lock them out with a timer, forcing them to come back later. Then you reward them for coming back every day. Th…

> You want to stop them from playing through too much of the game's content and burning themselves out on it. So you lock them out with a timer, forcing them to come back later. Then you reward them for coming back every day. Simultaneously offering a pay-to-play option that enables the user to bypass the timeout with money

This is the key difference. They mobile games don't want you to wait and come back tomorrow. They want you to pay to remove the blocks and just keep playing, today, tomorrow, every day.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#225

Post by asutekku »

gary_bernhardt wrote: post #147
charcircuit wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because there are spaces, it doesn't mean something isn't "addictive." I was addicted to WaniKani when I first started it even if I wasn't binging it. Optimizing your product so users come every day (and hence every month paying for a subscription) you care that users engage every day more than the amount that they engage every day. Advertisement monetization streams care about how much time users are on the pla…

I think your argument here could be made about pretty much any activity that humans do repeatedly. The critical difference is that both WaniKani and Execute Program quickly tell you "go home, you're done", so it's difficult to dump hours of low-quality time into them. Whereas advertisement-driven platforms are incentivized to retain your eyeballs for as long as possible, as you pointed out.

The thing is, if your product is a subscription then maximizing your engagement in a way that the users will stick longer and pay for longer is not a counterexample, it’s just adapting the engagement to fit your business model.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#226

Post by antwerpz »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29

I don't like the current trend of social media apps burying users under push notifications, calls to action, and other engagement hooks. However, there's a second, parallel problem adding fuel to the fire: The more we talk about overindulgence in social media (or Netflix, or video games, or fast food) as an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals, the less sense of individual agency we give ou…

Abstinence-only education fails for sex, because a) sex is a built-in human drive b) sex is beneficial in lots of ways, and c) there are lots of ways to have sex safely.

Abstinence as a strategy is not in and of itself flawed. The way lots of people cope with the dangers of heroin is simply by never trying it their whole life. Lots of addicts adopt a strategy of permanent abstinence, forever.

Some things are very harmful. I don't think we all need to try all to them, just to make sure.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#227

Post by astrea »

fenderbluesjr wrote: post #210
srswtf123 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite example is the phrase “human resource”. If you reframe humans as resources, exploiting them is the next, natural step. Words matter. Corporate speak dehumanizes us all.

"final solution to the Jewish problem".. I wonder what they felt when people first learned what that implied

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law?

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#228

Post by varispeed »

Can you imagine pharmaceutical companies trying to improve "User engagement" with their products? I think optimising for user addiction should be illegal. It causes great damage to society as people are drawn into the product and forget about important things, while having their wallets drained by unscrupulous companies.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#229

Post by taberiand »

asutekku wrote: post #225
gary_bernhardt wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your argument here could be made about pretty much any activity that humans do repeatedly. The critical difference is that both WaniKani and Execute Program quickly tell you "go home, you're done", so it's difficult to dump hours of low-quality time into them. Whereas advertisement-driven platforms are incentivized to retain your eyeballs for as long as possible, as you pointed out.

The thing is, if your product is a subscription then maximizing your engagement in a way that the users will stick longer and pay for longer is not a counterexample, it’s just adapting the engagement to fit your business model.

It could also be seen as adapting the business model to fit the process.

Essentialy, the goal was to sell a product that guided users to learn in the most effective way possible. The learning model is spaced repetition, which requires users to use the product over a long period - therefore the best way to sell it is as a long term subscription.

If the best way to learn was to cram as much as possible in as short a time as possible, then maybe the product would be sold as a bunch of individually priced courses paid in full up front.

As long as the product is fairly priced and provides a valuable service, there's nothing wrong with making money as effectively as possible with it.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#230

Post by louis___ »

varispeed wrote: post #228

Can you imagine pharmaceutical companies trying to improve "User engagement" with their products? I think optimising for user addiction should be illegal. It causes great damage to society as people are drawn into the product and forget about important things, while having their wallets drained by unscrupulous companies.

> Can you imagine pharmaceutical companies trying to improve "User engagement" with their products?

They effectively are. That's called paying conferences and travels to the doctors that will prescribe the pharmaceutics.

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