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The Tyranny of the Marginal User

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Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#681

Post by _Algernon_ »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #671
_Algernon_ wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most schools use tablets or Chromebooks, especially in the early years. Neither gives access to a system which has desktop level capabilities. Both are locked down consumption platforms.

I did not get my own laptop until I started at my university. I am now doing a Ph.D. in informatics (European meaning of the term). I had access to my dad's workstation at home, but just to play around on and I certainly did not have root or the ability to install my own software. There were computers in my computer lab at high school, but I rarely used them. They were locked down as much as any smartphone I have eve…

I'm at the lower end of the millennial range and have personally experienced people who were a couple of years younger than me having to have folder hierarchies explained to them because they haven't encountered them before. This was in an introductory R course at the beginning of a master's degree at university.

https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...

You do not need root access necessarily, but you do need to get familiarity with the platforms you will actually be using when working, ie. Windows and maybe macOS.

For Gen X and most of millennials, that platform was the only platform that existed. Using computers necessitated becoming familiar with "real" computers. That is no longer the case which is why gen Z are digital natives that have the digital literacy on a similar level to baby boomers.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#682

Post by mercenario »

bdcs wrote: post #98

The tyranny of the marginal user reminds me of population ethics' The Repugnant Conclusion.[0] This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10 N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100 N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness. Substitute profit for happiness, and you get the tyranny of the ma…

> This is the conclusion of utilitarianism, where if you have N people each with 10 happiness, well then, it would be better to have 10N people with 1.1 happiness, or 100N people with 0.111 happiness, until you have infinite people with barely any happiness

1) Population isn't infinite, you can't continue this for too long

2) Your assumption completely depends on how costly it is to increase +1 happiness and to increase +1 user, you don't even mention it. And these costs are not fixed, it increases, so even if it is cheaper to add +1 user in the beginning, it will not continue to be cheaper indefinitely

So, nothing is preventing you from increasing happiness at the same time you increase users.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#683

Post by isolli »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #401
switchbak wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As did I! OkCupid was a shining star of a product that treated its users with respect and provided a really valuable service. I didn't realize that it's no longer. I feel old pining for the internet of yesteryear. As is obvious only in retrospect, you don't realize when the golden years are!

Anybody else remember the data blog posts? Those were interesting and satisfying. It was another confirmation that I'd found the right dating site and probably a like-minded userbase.

This was a good one [0]:

> When men message women, women tend to respond most often to men around their own ages. But when women message men, they’re actually more likely to get a response from younger men than they are from older ones. A 40-year-old woman will have better luck messaging a 25-year-old man than a 55-year-old one, according to the data. And a 30-year-old man is more likely to respond to a message from a 50-year-old woman than a message from any other age group. When women make the first move, the age gap dating norm is reversed.

[0] https://theblog.okcupid.com/undressed-whats-the-deal-with-th...

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#684

Post by bookofjoe »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #432
sirspacey wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A somewhat natural conclusion is that mobile killed the thoughtful internet. Ouch.

I find I comment and write much less on mobile than on a computer, because the writing experience on mobile is still very sub-par.

Yes. Spot-on. The only thing I input on my phone is YouTube Shorts because it's much easier/faster than on a computer. Of course, that is inherent in its design.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#685

Post by PeterisP »

suslik wrote: post #654
gwd wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, just make something that has a barrier to entry that will filter out non-nerds. From what I can tell Ham radio is basically just a chatroom with an entrance exam, for instance. Anything done in a constructed language like Esperanto would be another filter. There's nothing stopping anyone from making a website duplicating the original OKCupid method. It's just that it requires someone willing to say "no" to the…

What is Ham radio?

Amateur radio, public (by law - unencrypted, anyone can listen) long-distance communications over certain bands where people are allowed to transmit after a certain barrier of entry of licensing and equipment.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#686

Post by suslik »

account42 wrote: post #678
suslik wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Ham radio?

Something that someone who didn't get filtered would be able to look up on their own.

I did look it up, but the way the OP was formed I thought that is some secret underground forum I just am not able to find.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#687

Post by bluGill »

dredmorbius wrote: post #679
Jensson wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphones was the final nail, after that close to 100% of young adults are active online participants. The good thing is that things aren't getting worse at least, all the idiots are already online.

I suspect smartphones affect this in two ways. One is that they put the Internet in everybody's hands, literally. The other, though, is that by virtue of the interface, both display (tiny) and input (shitty, to put it mildly), the effective IQ of those participating, regardless of whatever it was initially , is severely penalised. When I'm typing at a keyboard, I can look at the words I'm typing, or the source I'm ty…

I write much longer comments on my laptop and desktop computers than on my phone. The pains you mention make me write less even when I want to write more. Do not confuse this with “I have made this longer than usual because I have not time to make it shorter.” (Pascal, 1657, though others have said something similar and folklore attributes the idea to many more) - I do often revise long comments on my computer to be shorter, but they are still much longer than what I'd write on my phone. If I spent more time on them on my computer I'd write them even shorter, but still much longer because what I want to say is normally long and complex and a phone just makes the complexity too hard to write.

You won't be surprised I've never got the point of limited space places like twitter...

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#688

Post by bluGill »

suslik wrote: post #654
gwd wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, just make something that has a barrier to entry that will filter out non-nerds. From what I can tell Ham radio is basically just a chatroom with an entrance exam, for instance. Anything done in a constructed language like Esperanto would be another filter. There's nothing stopping anyone from making a website duplicating the original OKCupid method. It's just that it requires someone willing to say "no" to the…

What is Ham radio?

A place to talk about what radio you own.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#689

Post by bluGill »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #510
lr4444lr wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fondly remember the one that showed men's rating of women approaching almost a perfect normal distribution, and then the men messaging mostly the hot ones anyway, whereas the women rated most men as ugly and then sloping downward toward very few as good looking, kind of like an exponential distribution, but that they also messaged the men almost exactly in tandem - uglier getting the most, with a steady drop as men…

This is basically the foundation of modern, online dating -- aka red pill. Roughly, the top 20% of men get 80% of the attention from women. (I'm pretty sure that figure comes from Tinder data.) It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, but is brutal in the real world. What do you do if you are average (or less) in looks and income (potential)? Prepare for a lonely existance.

Online dating is skewed because you have no way to know what someone is really like. All you get is a picture (which may have been photoshopped), and profile data (they might be lieing. If you do date someone you want them to look good because at least if the night was a bust you got to look at someone hot.

Re: The Tyranny of the Marginal User

#690

Post by bluGill »

roel_v wrote: post #674
seoulmetro wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. It's not specific to their height and obviously not specific to their race. The same way men on average prefer big boobs, women on average will prefer taller men. Both can't really be changed by the person but exist as attractiveness scores against a person. It matters to people who it matters to. Not many in the grand scheme and definitely not related to race.

I have literally not once in my entire life heard a woman in real life say 'oh he's so tall, that's so attractive'. That's only an internet thing. Or an outside-Western Europe thing, maybe.

How people act is often different from how they say they act. Women can be attracted to taller men without knowing that is a factor much less admitting it.

I have no idea if women really are attracted to taller men, but I know what you hear people say isn't the whole truth either.

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