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The Tyranny of the Marginal User

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Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#591

Post by tanepiper »

lr4444lr wrote: post #369
wbobeirne wrote: post #349

I worked at OkCupid from 2013-2017 and totally resonate with the author that mid-2010s OkCupid was a really special product, and that it took a steep decline as the decade went on. It's not entirely fair to say that the Match acquisition immediately caused that decline; I started a couple years after Match got the company in its hands, and only two of the original founders were still focused on OkCupid full time. But…

I met my wife on OkCupid. The original format attracted a much smarter and more worldly crowd of women, to put it bluntly, than the other services. I exited the dating game before Tinder, but if OkCupid lost that quirky, artsy, college educated crowd in the chase to compete, that's a real shame.

Same here (second wife) and the thing is once OKCupid did it's job you didn't need it anymore - and that was a good thing.

The problem is that when you choose eternally needing customers you have to switch to the types of people who will never have a long term relationship - which Tinder style apps work better for.

But those kind of people also drive away the ones looking for a long-term partner.

Really sounds like poisoning the well.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#592

Post by soorya3 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #398
galaxyLogic wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post reminds me of xenophobes who lament the arrival of immigrants. The immigrants are taking their jobs they are saying. Such a viewpoint can be countered with the imaginary scenario where you live in a country with only 2 people. How well are they doing? There are no stores to buy goodies from because who would create such a store for just 2 people? Perhaps an immigrant, could open a deli! When there are more…

> What do they do with that money? They spend it, which grows the economy. Our economy, not some other country's economy. I'm going to guess you've never spoken to anyone who is sending money back to their family in their original country with every paycheck. Not really the point of this conversation I guess but... yeah. It does happen more than you probably think. To the point where malls in my area have kiosks for…

That's not true, most of the money is spent here and very little to take care of the family that's been left back home. Otherwise how can they survive here, think about immigrant kids education, housing, healthcare, retirement.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#593

Post by lelanthran »

uoaei wrote: post #578
lelanthran wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that there is a reason that dating apps, dating sites and dating services all converge on a model which downranks intellect: the few humans who care about that characteristic are not enough to build a sustainable business. Literally everyone says that they are different and want a smart partner, but when they actually hook up they aren't ranking high intellect. I liked okcupids blogs. The maintakeaway I had f…

http://web.archive.org/web/20100725135317/http://blog.okcupi... I don't think you're characterizing the results accurately, particularly point #2. I don't think they really had a way to measure #3. #1 is just obviously true but doesn't add much.

> I don't think you're characterizing the results accurately, particularly point #2. I don't think they really had a way to measure #3. #1 is just obviously true but doesn't add much.

Maybe not, but #2 was from a blog that specifically looked at the data of messaging: how many men received messages, how many women received messages.

IIRC, nearly all the women received messages and sent messages, while only about 10% of the men received messages while all of the men sent messages. I don't really see any other way to interpret data showing that both men and women sent messages at about the same rate, but only about 10% of men received any messages.

Now I don't have the blog handy (and I rather wished I did), but my takeaway #3 was from reading all the blogs available, in basically one marathon sitting, not from one particular blog.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#594

Post by Biganon »

This reminds me of what I call the "TF1 effect". TF1 is the biggest TV channel in France and, IIRC, in Europe. It's (now) a private channel, operated with ads. I use it as an example, but the point stands for all similar TV channels.

It doesn't need to satisfy its viewers a lot. It just needs to satisfy N users enough that they don't switch to another channel, and use their "brain availability time" (to use the words of TF1's former CEO) with them instead. This creates zero incentive to produce good content; only addictive, low cost, shitty content that many people will choose.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#595

Post by emodendroket »

> OKCupid, like the other acquisitions of Match.com, is now just another Tinder clone - see face, swipe left, see face, swipe right. A digital nightclub. And I just don’t expect to meet my wife in a nightclub.

I've never used any dating app or Web site... but plenty of people appear to have done just that.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#596

Post by eternal_braid »

callalex wrote: post #500
whack wrote: post #478

This is a hilarious read but I think the author is too optimistic about the state of humanity. Marl isn't the "marginal" user, Marl is the "average" user. If the average user actually cared about deep and meaningful content, then any A/B test that throws her under the bus in order to please Marl will show bad data, and the proposed change would be killed. Yes, the author tries to hand-wave this away as "product is st…

A/B tests, as they are run by current software companies, are inherently flawed. I have never, in my entire career, ever heard of an A/B test that ran for a year, let alone 3-5 years. That’s where the true power of statistics comes alive, and nobody is financially incentivized to even consider that fact.

Have you heard of long running holdbacks? Even if not, rest assured that for major features, they are very commonly run.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#597

Post by oasisaimlessly »

wbobeirne wrote: post #553
oxfordmale wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all internet algorithms seem to converge around maximising time spend on the app in question. A dating website simply doesn't want to be too effective, as you would lose two customers every successful match. Similar to the approach used in slot machines, you want to give the illusion of winning, but I'm reality only provide moderately succesful matches rather than perfect ones. Of course there is a human eleme…

I always push back on this argument, because it came up a lot. As someone higher up at the company once put it, if people are sufficiently convinced that you can find them what they're looking for in a dating app, there's almost no amount of money they wouldn't spend. People churn after not getting what they want out of an app. And relationships end, and people will return to apps they felt they had success with. Wor…

> people will return to apps they felt they had success with

So then the trick is to provide the illusion of successful relationships (but of course not ones that actually pan out in the long term).

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#598

Post by ssss11 »

shrimpx wrote: post #424
ssss11 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is how would we (and can we) change corporations to value things other than short term profit? I’ve seen B-corps - those seem good, social/environmental focussed. No idea how widespread they are. Are there other corporate structure models that could become mainstream and solve some of these issues? At least for the companies adopting them and therefore customers signed up to them.

I think it's hard because we have GDP growth as the #1 KPI, and VCs seeking large-multiple exits in single-digit years, with no major concern for negative effects on society. Veering too deeply into pure capital acquisition will destroy capital though. A zombied out, addicted and unhealthy population isn't a source of capital. Ad revenue and demand plummets as nobody has the money or will to buy shit. But there's a t…

I agree, sad state of affairs.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#599

Post by uoaei »

manicennui wrote: post #99
vimax wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really want to spend your life adding dark patterns to a dating website?

Most things you can work on are equally bad, so why not? We all want to survive, and survival in America is expensive.

Useless, maybe. Bullshit, likely. There's definitely worse things, but that's not a sound argument.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#600

Post by sambazi »

uoaei wrote: post #572
kromem wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel a twinge of guilt whenever I see things about how OKC got crappy. Not that long before the acquisition a certain jackass brought in as a consultant ( ahem ) happened to point to OkC as the leading competitor against the acquiring company's properties specifically for mobile. Sorry everyone... If it makes it any better, I've had to use the product since then too, and suffered alongside all the rest of you.

I appreciate your candor. Though I am upset, I realize this is the kind of thing that would be hard to see coming.

huh?

the top point is that more users usually lead to a worse product, no?

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