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NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

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Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#241

Post by thfuran »

mgraczyk wrote: post #214
Workaccount2 wrote: post #68

They need to just ban the ad model and make subscriptions (including free with no ads, if the provider wants it) mandatory. I don't think people understand how the economics of these apps (and websites) work, and it's been so long now that their incorrect assumptions (the feeds are free and the greedy providers shove ads in them) have turned into bedrock beliefs. You pay for instagram with your personal data, which i…

This is also a misunderstanding. Not how it works economically. You do not pay for Instagram with your personal data. The data is elsewhere, not on Instagram. For example with your local retailer or credit card company. Instagram pays for data about you, which they buy from other people. You do not have a say in this for the most part. Whether or not Instagram buys this data does not affect its collection. You pay fo…

If they're not making money from ads, they don't have incentive to manipulate you into spending as much time as possible watching ads. Maybe if it's some kind of micropayment based model, but if it's subscription the profit motive would be to get you to use the service as little as possible without unsubscribing.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#242

Post by mgraczyk »

thfuran wrote: post #241
mgraczyk wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a misunderstanding. Not how it works economically. You do not pay for Instagram with your personal data. The data is elsewhere, not on Instagram. For example with your local retailer or credit card company. Instagram pays for data about you, which they buy from other people. You do not have a say in this for the most part. Whether or not Instagram buys this data does not affect its collection. You pay fo…

If they're not making money from ads, they don't have incentive to manipulate you into spending as much time as possible watching ads. Maybe if it's some kind of micropayment based model, but if it's subscription the profit motive would be to get you to use the service as little as possible without unsubscribing.

That's completely wrong, and nobody who has ever worked on a subscription business would believe that.

Talk to somebody who works at Netflix or Spotify

The reason is that retention is much, much more important than reducing usage cost for almost every business

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#243

Post by array_key_first »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #238
array_key_first wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook doesn't exist in a free market. It IS a market. And an unfree one ruled by a dictatorship that you can't vote on. That's what platforms are. They're markets. Its not like making a couch or something. That's why those other apps are literally worthless. It doesn't matter if the other apps are super amazing and they walk your dog and suck your dick and make you live forever. Literally does not matter. The app,…

> Facebook doesn't exist in a free market. It IS a market. It is a market that exists in the free market. > And an unfree one ruled by a dictatorship that you can't vote on. Ok, so don't use that market. You're not entitled to Facebook, or being able to dictate anything. > That's what platforms are. They're markets. Its not like making a couch or something. Bud, I am begging you to close your Facebook account and see…

> You heard it here. YC is dead. Close up shop. All these investors just wasting their money because you can't vote Zuck out.

Yes, this is actually true.

You want nuance? Here's the nuance.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is actually competing with facebook. They're not trying to.

So what is YC funding? What are these companies doing? They're attacking different markets and making different products. When was the last time you saw a startup make a general purpose social media platform? It doesn't happen. Nobody does it. Because they know they'll lose.

If you look at the hot new kids on the block, none of them are actually competing with facebook. TikTok? TikTok is not facebook, it's a completely different product. Twitter? They're incumbent too, but completely different product. Youtube? Disney Plus? Pintrest? Linkedin? Just think about it.

You could, TRIVIALLY, make a better facebook. I, right now, in the course of a few weeks, could make a better facebook. But I'm not. And you're not. And nobody is. And nobody is even trying to.

Search your feelings, and you will know it to be true.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#244

Post by array_key_first »

bitpush wrote: post #228
array_key_first wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most products are not only shit, they're designed in such a way to be as shit as possible. Because that legitimately works. Even if the government agency makes the worse decision possible, which they probably will, that's still an improvement, because we're completely maxed out on shit levels. That's how bad many products are today.

Really? You think government officials are best positioned to come up with next ChatGPT feature, or what how to implement authentication in a webapp?

Define best positioned?

Best positioned as in, make the most money? No, of course not.

Best positioned as in, not completely and totally fuck their users up the ass? Yes!

Look at Meta, Google, OpenAI, you fucking name it. These companies are a cancer onto humanity. They are actively making everyone's lives worse, on purpose, for the pursuit of advertiser revenue and new and innovative addiction mechanisms.

It's sort of like asking, who would you rather make your food? The government, or R.J. Reynolds?

Shockingly, the answer is the government!

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#245

Post by kylecazar »

thewebguyd wrote: post #168
kylecazar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I can't understand is how the ads are still effective, targeted or otherwise. I've long thought we are going to reach a point where the return on social advertising isn't worth the investment, these models have a crisis and pivot, but it still seems to be going strong.

Enough people to sustain the model still click. At Meta's scale, you only need a small fraction of clicks and conversions to make it worth it. Meta reaches billions of people, so even a small slice of that is still a huge chunk of people. There's also a bit of competitive pressure. Even if people get numb to ads, business, especially small businesses, can't afford to not show up if their competitors are still showing…

Thanks for the thoughts -- the points you make align with my understanding. It still seems so... frail? At least given how much money is circulating in that world.

Attribution, for example, has to be an absolute mess. Especially in the case of the psychology tricks you mention... If I was shown an ad for Subway, and then ate a Subway sandwich a few days later -- it had absolutely nothing to do with the ad. I only eat there when there aren't better options. Yet, I bet some ad conversion counter ticked up somewhere. I see ads for ShopRite all the time, but it's the only grocery store in my area, so of course I shop there. When you repeat this millions of times, it's surprising to me that ads are still provably effective to the point of being a trillion dollar industry.

I wonder if it will become less so as older generations go offline.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#246

Post by alkonaut »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #237
alkonaut wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you on YC if you think free market tech is dead? I have been visiting this forum for 12 years. It took probably 5 years before I _heard_ about the "other" part of ycombinator - the startup thing. But I never really cared about that bit, it's just an online tech forum that happens to share domain with the startup incubator. > lol, what? We have different laws depending on how popular you are? Absolutely. I t…

> For example laws preventing monopolies (government approvals of mergers, for example). Can you show me the federal code that includes number of customers? Do you think monopoly rules are about size or behavior? Do you think a small mom and pop store couldn't act in monopolistic practices? Do you think a small mom and pop store in a rural captured market couldn't price fix? Hint: It's not size :)

> Can you show me the federal code that includes number of customers?

I never mentioned ”number of customers”. The relevant law surrounding monopolies is the Clayton antitrust act of 1914

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/18

What is and isn’t a monopoly is of course decided on a case by case basis - as it should. There is no law saying that 80% market share is necesssarily a monopoly or that 20% is so low it can’t be blocked.

> Do you think a small mom and pop store in a rural captured market couldn't price fix?

Not sure how it’s relevant but they can of course haves local monopoly - but afaik in the US such local monopolies aren’t subject to regulation.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#247

Post by account42 »

odux wrote: post #82
Workaccount2 wrote: post #68

They need to just ban the ad model and make subscriptions (including free with no ads, if the provider wants it) mandatory. I don't think people understand how the economics of these apps (and websites) work, and it's been so long now that their incorrect assumptions (the feeds are free and the greedy providers shove ads in them) have turned into bedrock beliefs. You pay for instagram with your personal data, which i…

Exactly. The very existence of these apps and websites is based on such “user hostile” behavior. Same with the cat and mouse game between YouTube ads and ad blockers and third party YouTube apps. If the side wanting to completely stop Youtube ads becomes successful, YouTube will cease to exist (as a free app). I am not arguing for this model, my feed is getting more useless every day, but the only other model is subs…

You are ignoring that people give away things for free all them time if the cost to them is small enough. But currently those genuinely free options have to compete with ad-funded services for attention and getting that attention requires more effort than just providing the service so this happens less than it otherwise would.

Or to put it another way, most of the content on the internet is already unpaid with the creator not receiving any compensation. What's left is the hosting/distribution and we can find many different ways to (collectively) pay for that besides ads and user subscriptions.

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