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But what if I want a faster horse?

rakhim.exotext.com

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Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#381

Post by mr_mitm »

al_borland wrote: post #368
bloppe wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that different from Spotify? Am I using Spotify wrong? I mostly just curate and listen to my own playlists

Does Spotify have a library option? I haven’t been a heavy Spotify user, but last time I tried it, it seemed like I could “follow” artists as a proxy to adding something to a library, but I found it all pretty confusing. I know they have playlists, but I was looking more of the feature like, “these are all the songs I’m interested in, that I will use to build my playlists or shuffle… because I don’t want to try and r…

You can like songs, which will then be added to your playlist of liked songs. Sounds like that's waht you want.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#382

Post by conductr »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #81

I also dislike the TikTokification of everything, but I also know that all of us on this platform are wrong in the sense that we're not the user being designed for. Consumer apps at massive scale like TikTok and Netflix don't design for nerds like us, they design for the average person. Actually, they design for the average behavior of the average person. And most people on this planet are more or less happy with wha…

> Actually, they design for the average behavior of the average person.

They're generally designed for engagement. Nobody is particularly asking for this type of experience it's just that Tiktok has discovered the most addictive - eh hum, I mean engaging - experience thus far. So they're being copied.

Netflix is a little different though as if people open the app and always see the same top titles listed due to it being an alphabetical index, then they quickly think nothing new is ever there. Or, it's too hard to find. So they're tricking people into thinking there's a bunch of fresh/good content. There's also a cultural phenomenon where everyone discusses "what shows have you been watching lately?" so the Trending aspects of their recommendations is to help people get on board with the trend; and, to push momentum and create the trend too obviously.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#383

Post by Suppafly »

abustamam wrote: post #298
echelon wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which reminds me, we really need to cancel our subscriptions. A subscription service to cancel and renew your subscriptions. And stretch goal: annually renegotiate your utility bill so it doesn't 4-10X in cost each winter (for those that live in states that can do that).

That's pretty much Rocket Money https://www.rocketmoney.com/

Does it actually work?

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#384

Post by bastawhiz »

I simply hate that good services get ruined because there's money to be made by providing a different service to a broader group of people. It's not quite enshittification, it's companies making something that serves a relatively small group of folks well into a thing that serves a very large group of people in the highest-ROI way possible.

Companies no longer have a target user. The target user is whoever can be juiced for as many pennies or eyeball-seconds as possible. There's no persona for user stories, it's "literally whoever we can get this in front of for as long as possible". It's about the lowest common denominator.

Which implies, these products are not "designed" anymore. "Designed" implies that the creator made choices to make the product better for a target user. But there's no target user. When your service has a billion users, it's not possible to design for _anyone_. Mouse traps aren't "designed" for the mice, they're built for the people who don't want mice around. Services aren't "designed" for a billion people to interact with, they're built for the owners to make as much money as possible.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#385

Post by ookblah »

cjs_ac wrote: post #16

For 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…

yeah except a lot of those companies almost went bankrupt trying to make those cars for enthusiasts and only for them.

porsche and lambo didn't see the outsized success they have now (financially) until they started pumping out SUVs. hell, the purosangue was made precisely to capitalize on that boring market segment.

i feel there's a little suvivorship bias at play here. i think the important thing is to not forget your enthusiasts perhaps, but a lot of these "successes" wouldn't even be around were it not for appealing to the greater masses. ofc some market segments fare better and you can build a business around enthusiasts.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#386

Post by dogleash »

sureIy wrote: post #238
patapong wrote: post #230

I am astonished by how much less delightful software has become. Computers used to feel like a magical tool, that would respond instantly and allow me to perform complicated transformations at the press of a button. Now, I feel like I am fighting against software most of the time, having to compete with someones vision for how I should be using their program, which is likely aimed at the least technically sophisticat…

Is this about software or is it about you? I loved my computer when I was a kid, now I only see flaws. I don't think software was flawless at the time, it's just that I became very keenly aware of its current issues because this is my field.

Regardless of the degree that is true for the parent poster, those (and more) qualitative differences can also be felt among different pieces of software that are all quite new.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#387

Post by ehsankia »

As bad as Netflix is, honestly the UX is the best amongst major streaming services.

For me, the cardinal sin of a streaming service is, if I open your service every single day and watch the next episode of ONE show, then the next time I open your service, PLEASE HAVE MY SHOW AT THE TOP OF THE HOME PAGE.

This is such a simple and obvious user journey, but the majority of streaming services, on purpose or not, fuck it up. The number of times I've opened a streaming service, scroll through the entire home page with the shitty tv remote, then had to type the name of my show manually in search. Makes me want to unsubscribe right then and there and just use Plex instead.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#388

Post by Suppafly »

hinkley wrote: post #353
donatj wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Shoving content into the faces of an indiscriminating userbase" maximizes eyeball time which maximizes ad dollars I mean that's not really the case for paid services without ads like Netflix. They lose money the more you watch. Ideally you'd continue to pay for the subscription but never watch anything.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Netflix would probably be better if it learned a few lessons from gyms. I have to go wash my mouth out now. Brb. Some of these companies are trying to go for status now as well. They’re trying to strengthen their brands by picking up epic storylines and making them into the show everyone is watching. Only Netflix is chickenshit and they haven’t figured out that nobody watches the…

>Only Netflix is chickenshit and they haven’t figured out that nobody watches the first season of a Netflix show until the second is announced because they know Netflix cancels shows all the fucking time.

What's funny is that HBO is worse about that, but everyone watches the new HBO shows because they are big budget and look really appealing.

Netflix is also really bad about taking way too long to make additional seasons even if they announce them it's still forever before they come out.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#389

Post by crazygringo »

mattnewton wrote: post #215
donatj wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Shoving content into the faces of an indiscriminating userbase" maximizes eyeball time which maximizes ad dollars I mean that's not really the case for paid services without ads like Netflix. They lose money the more you watch. Ideally you'd continue to pay for the subscription but never watch anything.

The marginal cost to serve you more videos is real, but it’s negligible compared to the fixed costs or cost of people not re-subscribing. So I assume that people at Netflix were optimizing for usage/engagement just like the ad driven services as a proxy for subscribe rate.

This is the correct answer.

The more you watch, the less likely you are to unsubscribe.

If you haven't watched a streamer in a couple of months, that's the first thing you'll cancel when you glance at your credit card statement.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#390

Post by taneq »

On trips to remote sites I never miss an opportunity to explain to the younger guys that "when I was younger Spotify was called MP3s and it was made of files that you had on your device!" and then proceed to play late 90s EDM until we get back into mobile range.
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