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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?

#401

Post by jedberg »

OPs specific complaints about Netflix and Spotify are mostly a result of their success. Back in 2012 Netflix had a lot of movies because Hollywood didn't value streaming and were willing to sell the streaming right for most of their content for tiny amounts of money. And there were no other streamer.

Spotify is in a similar boat. The music companies didn't value streaming and were willing to sell their entire catalog to the one player in the ecosystem (or in the case of music, to everyone for the same low price)

But also, personalization actually drives a ton of revenue. When I worked at Netflix, when the recommendation system went down and we defaulted to curated lists, streaming would drop 20%. And that was in 2013. I can only imagine what the drop is today when that system goes down.

Personalization drives a ton of revenue, and TikTok is the best at it, so it's no surprise that OP sees everything "going to TikTok"

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#402

Post by Suppafly »

nthingtohide wrote: post #202
another-dave wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is also what I feel about the Spotify algorthim at times — no matter what I'm listening to, it invariably brings me back to what it thinks are my "old reliables" once it gets onto recommending stuff. I might just listen to it, if I have it on in the background, which then in turn feeds the algorithm that it made the "correct choice", but it's a million miles away from, say, listening to a radio DJ where you lik…

> if I have it on in the background, which then in turn feeds the algorithm that it made the "correct choice" I have a very horrible case of this. One day at night, I slept listening to lofi playlist. The next week all my recommendations were screwed. Horrible assumption on the part of algorithm.

>I have a very horrible case of this. One day at night, I slept listening to lofi playlist. The next week all my recommendations were screwed. Horrible assumption on the part of algorithm.

None of the music services seem to understand that just because you like multiple genres, that doesn't mean that you want it to randomly jump around between them without any consideration for how they flow together.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#403

Post by sokoloff »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #371
sokoloff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them). My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful…

Honest question: are you not a "car guy/girl"? Lexus people absolutely love Lexuses. I recently sold mine (needed something larger after having another kid) and I miss it every day.

I am ~98th percentile car guy. I own two classic Mustangs, one stock, one restomodded by me, and have had a variety of interesting daily drivers over the decades, including dailying an 80s Alfa Spider year-round including 4 winters in Boston.

It’s comfortable, safe, and dead-nuts reliable, but no one gives a shit about or even notices my hybrid RX450h.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#404

Post by Suppafly »

nthingtohide wrote: post #208
chasd00 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luxury watches are a good analogy too. A $5 watch from the gas station will give you the time just fine but there’s a market for watches costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You don't even need a watch. Smartphones can tell you time (you can configure to show times for many timezones) yet there is a market for watches (luxury or normal)

Watches, are just jewelry for most people any more. There are few people that can't check their phone for whatever reason that need functional watches, the rest of society mostly uses them for fashion.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#405

Post by dpc_01234 »

hinkley wrote: post #345
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…

Some people have claimed that pure A/B testing is an agent for enshittification, both on a quality and ethical dimension. And I can’t see how those people are particularly wrong. There are systems out there that can do AB/CD testing and those do a better job of finding pairs of changed that have compounding effects. You cannot A/B test your way from chocolate and peanut butter to cherry and vanilla. So we get to deal…

Worth giving a read: The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Z. Muller.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#407

Post by Manfred »

al_borland wrote: post #240
dswalter wrote: post #184

There's a fundamental reality that shapes both Netflix and Spotify's trajectory: content licensing. 2012 Netflix had access to vastly more of everyone else's library, so it was closer to an indexed search of what was available that one could watch and then getting that video onto your screen. Over time, other companies understood that they were underpricing their content and Netflix was reaping the benefits. Once ext…

Apple Music still offers library management, with their entire catalog to choose from. They try to play all sides, with algorithmic playback, radio, add to library, and playlists. Adding to library and playlists do seem to be core features, but I’m curious how many people put in the effort when it’s not explicitly required.

On the other hand they are sometimes bad keeping content matched when you add an album to your library and, I assume, the distributor replaces the album with a different version. This also happens with "matched content" when you added a ripped version of music you own.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#409

Post by Marsymars »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #371
sokoloff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches For street usage, I think those cars are popular because they’re beautiful more than because they’re fast (or because enthusiasts like them). My utterly soulless Lexus will drive more than fast enough to get me in serious trouble. No one will look at it and feel stirred by its beauty, whereas the typical Ferrari or Porsche coupe will look at least appealing to most and beautiful…

Honest question: are you not a "car guy/girl"? Lexus people absolutely love Lexuses. I recently sold mine (needed something larger after having another kid) and I miss it every day.

Well, some people. My friend with a Lexus just has a base model RX 350 because she couldn’t find a RAV4 in stock and her buying criteria were basically “crossover built by Toyota”.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#410

Post by NegativeLatency »

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…

Chrome leveraged Google's near monopoly on search to gain users
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