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I'd like to think that's not true, but it wouldn't be the first time such a technique has been used, apparently successfully. Witness the local TV news which is

I'd like to think that's not true, but it wouldn't be the first time such a technique has been used, apparently successfully. Witness the local TV news which is always teasing that some story is coming up next, only to put it at the very end of the broadcast so that you have to watch the whole 30 minute program (including commercials) to hear the 1 minute you care about.

at-fates-hands 8y ago
Our local station started doing this where they would list the stories coming up on the right hand side of the screen. They held to it for about two weeks. Then they kept it, but then continually shifted the stories during commercial breaks. After many, many complaints, they finally got rid of it. Other networks I watch, they still do the same thing. On the NHL Network, you'll see a story about a big trade coming up and they will continue to shuffle it down during commercial breaks until its one of the last stories they cover before the end of the broadcast. It's the same thing with highlights. You'll see your team's game in the left hand column like they're about to show the highlights. Come back from a commercial break and suddenly two more stories have shifted above your local team's highlights. Same thing with several ESPN shows like PTI (Pardon the Interruption). It can be incredibly frustrating to watch sometimes.
- srtjstjsj 8y ago
  Why do you watch and wait if you can get the headlines from websites?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sangnoir 8y ago
> I'd like to think that's not true, but it wouldn't be the first time such a technique has been used, apparently successfully. It's also why Twitter wants to 'curate' your timeline, instead of simply displaying tweets from people you follow in temporal order.
- Jaruzel 8y ago
  Twitter have recently re-introduced a chronological timeline as an option.
  - darpa_escapee 8y ago
    Does it work like it did in the past? I've given up every platform that forwent the chronological timeline because other feed algorithms are just frustrating, and Twitter is the only one I miss.
- izzydata 8y ago
  I never realized Twitter curated timeslines because I don't follow enough people for it to cut anything out. It is effectively a chronological order of posts by people I follow.
  - markdown 8y ago
    I follow around 500, have around 1500 followers. As far as I can tell, Twitter doesn't hide anything from, instead showing me tweets from people I don't follow.
  - TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
    My big problem with Twitter's timeline is showing me things that people I follow have liked. In every case, those posts are political and divisive, i.e., the "red meat" of social media. They're just throwing those into my feed to get a reaction from me, hoping that I'll "engage" with whatever stupid topic comes up, as though Twitter were a good place for having a discussion about anything. I've turned off the "show best tweets first" option, and I stick with using Tweetbot. But, like most people seem to indicate here, about Facebook (which I don't use at all), my continued use hangs by a thread. It wouldn't take much for me to cancel my account. Again.
- mkarnicki 8y ago
  I believe this is why recently Twitter reverted the change and now allows you to browse in chronological order.
reading-at-work 8y ago
> I'd like to think that's not true Facebook insiders have admitted that it is. Mike Allen, Facebook's first president, said this in an interview: “The thought process was all about, ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’,” he said. “And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever, and that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments. It’s a social validation feedback loop. … You’re exploiting a vulnerabilty in human psychology.” So that underscores their general attitude towards user behavior. The 'every once in a while' piece applies to the newsfeed too - it's designed to keep you searching for things you care about, and they carefully mix in things you don't, so that you're never too satisfied or unsatisfied, just constantly craving more.
- spenczar5 8y ago
  I couldn't believe this quote, so I had to dig it up. It's real, but from Sean Parker. Mike Allen was the interviewer. Source (a slightly clickbaity-looking place, go at your own risk): https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-only-knows-what-its-doing-to-our-childrens-brains-1513306792-f855e7b4-4e99-4d60-8d51-2775559c2671.html https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-on...
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    > It's real, but from Sean Parker. Does that give it less weight or more weight? It's hard to see what you were going for here.
    - sarabande 8y ago
      It seems like a simple clarification of a source, not a judgment in either direction.
    - spenczar5 8y ago
      Doesn't change the weight, I was just making a correction.
pkulak 8y ago
It doesn't even have to be intentional. Imagine endless ABX testing to increase ad views and session time, cycling through countless feed algorithms. The winners could very well end up being the ones that are most frustrating for the user, but with product and engineering just thinking they are running some tests and reaching goals.
- anonacct37 8y ago
  I strongly believe stuff like this doesn't happen by accident. It's easy to write pieces about how a soulless algorithm is determining stuff and we can all be sad about it, but in my experience, that's rarely true. There's almost always at least a software developer (or technical person of some sort) calling out "Hey, are you sure we should rank by $X? It will have this edge case in situations $Y and $X?". Usually they get steamrolled by a "product" person who's invented some new terminology for whatever shady shit they are pushing now. "It's just growth hacking" "complimentary contextually relevant ads will improve the user experience". People know. They always know. They just choose to feign ignorance when they get busted.
  - darpa_escapee 8y ago
    Even if we grant them the benefit of doubt, it certainly isn't an accident to keep using the same algorithm once you know its consequences. There's been hand-wringing about Youtube funnelling users to extremist content, and it always comes to down to "the algorithm" as if there's nothing that can be done about it. Someone had to choose to implement the algorithm. Someone had to choose the metrics it was optimized to meet. Someone had to go, "Children are being drawn to extremist videos after watching PewDiePie and that's okay."
    - scoggs 8y ago
      I view facebook's newsfeed and youtube's list of suggestions like entering into a popular reddit thread about something dividing the community that has lots of posts. You enter into the comment section and it's automatically sorted by Controversial. At least that's how I see it.
Yhippa 8y ago
Just like grocery stores putting milk and bread way in the back so you have to walk by all those high margin items.
- jsjohnst 8y ago
  I agree this is generally true, but isn’t the case with my current grocery store shockingly enough. Both are essentially at the front of the store. I’m not sure why they are the exception to the rule, but I love it none the less.
- rapind 8y ago
  There's a practical reason for this. Temperature and where they unload (and the perishable nature). Not saying there couldn't be a manipulative reason too, but I wouldn't assume so by default.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Everything in business happens to increase sales. For retail, there’s even a name and occupation for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram You always want dairy and fruits/vegetables on opposite sides of the store since they’re perishable, hence they get purchased the most often, and you want people to walk past all the other aisles every time.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      It seems to me that a sensible person buying a lot of groceries gets refrigerated and frozen items last so they have the least amount of melting/warming up on the way home. So the positioning of them after everything else is in the interest of the customer.
      - mgkimsal 8y ago
        the perishables could be closer together, vs having people traipse across a store to get the basics (conveniently seeing hundreds of other opportunities to load up their cart along the way). "interest of the customer" (saving money) doesn't align with "interest of the business" (maximizing rev/profit)
derekp7 8y ago
I hadn't watched broadcast TV for a while (lack of time), but when I did I'd just google whatever the teaser was, to see if it was worth waiting for. Very seldom would they have an exclusive breaking story that wasn't already all over the internet.
makmanalp 8y ago
This is the same strategy as news sites where you have to go to the "next page" fairly often within the article (what does that even mean) so the ads reload, or there's a dumb slideshow where every 5 images it's an ad. Or when sourceforge had its full on transition to a money sucking machine and they made the UI worse and everything multiple page reloads away just to show more ads.
irrational 8y ago
I don't watch the news, but if that is true, why don't you just tune in for the last 5 minutes?

at-fates-hands 8y ago

Our local station started doing this where they would list the stories coming up on the right hand side of the screen. They held to it for about two weeks. Then they kept it, but then continually shifted the stories during commercial breaks. After many, many complaints, they finally got rid of it. Other networks I watch, they still do the same thing. On the NHL Network, you'll see a story about a big trade coming up and they will continue to shuffle it down during commercial breaks until its one of the last stories they cover before the end of the broadcast. It's the same thing with highlights. You'll see your team's game in the left hand column like they're about to show the highlights. Come back from a commercial break and suddenly two more stories have shifted above your local team's highlights. Same thing with several ESPN shows like PTI (Pardon the Interruption). It can be incredibly frustrating to watch sometimes.

srtjstjsj 8y ago
Why do you watch and wait if you can get the headlines from websites?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

sangnoir 8y ago

> I'd like to think that's not true, but it wouldn't be the first time such a technique has been used, apparently successfully. It's also why Twitter wants to 'curate' your timeline, instead of simply displaying tweets from people you follow in temporal order.

Jaruzel 8y ago
Twitter have recently re-introduced a chronological timeline as an option.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  Does it work like it did in the past? I've given up every platform that forwent the chronological timeline because other feed algorithms are just frustrating, and Twitter is the only one I miss.
izzydata 8y ago
I never realized Twitter curated timeslines because I don't follow enough people for it to cut anything out. It is effectively a chronological order of posts by people I follow.
- markdown 8y ago
  I follow around 500, have around 1500 followers. As far as I can tell, Twitter doesn't hide anything from, instead showing me tweets from people I don't follow.
- TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
  My big problem with Twitter's timeline is showing me things that people I follow have liked. In every case, those posts are political and divisive, i.e., the "red meat" of social media. They're just throwing those into my feed to get a reaction from me, hoping that I'll "engage" with whatever stupid topic comes up, as though Twitter were a good place for having a discussion about anything. I've turned off the "show best tweets first" option, and I stick with using Tweetbot. But, like most people seem to indicate here, about Facebook (which I don't use at all), my continued use hangs by a thread. It wouldn't take much for me to cancel my account. Again.
mkarnicki 8y ago
I believe this is why recently Twitter reverted the change and now allows you to browse in chronological order.

reading-at-work 8y ago

> I'd like to think that's not true Facebook insiders have admitted that it is. Mike Allen, Facebook's first president, said this in an interview: “The thought process was all about, ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’,” he said. “And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever, and that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments. It’s a social validation feedback loop. … You’re exploiting a vulnerabilty in human psychology.” So that underscores their general attitude towards user behavior. The 'every once in a while' piece applies to the newsfeed too - it's designed to keep you searching for things you care about, and they carefully mix in things you don't, so that you're never too satisfied or unsatisfied, just constantly craving more.

spenczar5 8y ago
I couldn't believe this quote, so I had to dig it up. It's real, but from Sean Parker. Mike Allen was the interviewer. Source (a slightly clickbaity-looking place, go at your own risk): https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-only-knows-what-its-doing-to-our-childrens-brains-1513306792-f855e7b4-4e99-4d60-8d51-2775559c2671.html https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-on...
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  > It's real, but from Sean Parker. Does that give it less weight or more weight? It's hard to see what you were going for here.
  - sarabande 8y ago
    It seems like a simple clarification of a source, not a judgment in either direction.
  - spenczar5 8y ago
    Doesn't change the weight, I was just making a correction.

pkulak 8y ago

It doesn't even have to be intentional. Imagine endless ABX testing to increase ad views and session time, cycling through countless feed algorithms. The winners could very well end up being the ones that are most frustrating for the user, but with product and engineering just thinking they are running some tests and reaching goals.

anonacct37 8y ago
I strongly believe stuff like this doesn't happen by accident. It's easy to write pieces about how a soulless algorithm is determining stuff and we can all be sad about it, but in my experience, that's rarely true. There's almost always at least a software developer (or technical person of some sort) calling out "Hey, are you sure we should rank by $X? It will have this edge case in situations $Y and $X?". Usually they get steamrolled by a "product" person who's invented some new terminology for whatever shady shit they are pushing now. "It's just growth hacking" "complimentary contextually relevant ads will improve the user experience". People know. They always know. They just choose to feign ignorance when they get busted.
- darpa_escapee 8y ago
  Even if we grant them the benefit of doubt, it certainly isn't an accident to keep using the same algorithm once you know its consequences. There's been hand-wringing about Youtube funnelling users to extremist content, and it always comes to down to "the algorithm" as if there's nothing that can be done about it. Someone had to choose to implement the algorithm. Someone had to choose the metrics it was optimized to meet. Someone had to go, "Children are being drawn to extremist videos after watching PewDiePie and that's okay."
  - scoggs 8y ago
    I view facebook's newsfeed and youtube's list of suggestions like entering into a popular reddit thread about something dividing the community that has lots of posts. You enter into the comment section and it's automatically sorted by Controversial. At least that's how I see it.

Yhippa 8y ago

Just like grocery stores putting milk and bread way in the back so you have to walk by all those high margin items.

jsjohnst 8y ago
I agree this is generally true, but isn’t the case with my current grocery store shockingly enough. Both are essentially at the front of the store. I’m not sure why they are the exception to the rule, but I love it none the less.
rapind 8y ago
There's a practical reason for this. Temperature and where they unload (and the perishable nature). Not saying there couldn't be a manipulative reason too, but I wouldn't assume so by default.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Everything in business happens to increase sales. For retail, there’s even a name and occupation for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram You always want dairy and fruits/vegetables on opposite sides of the store since they’re perishable, hence they get purchased the most often, and you want people to walk past all the other aisles every time.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    It seems to me that a sensible person buying a lot of groceries gets refrigerated and frozen items last so they have the least amount of melting/warming up on the way home. So the positioning of them after everything else is in the interest of the customer.
    - mgkimsal 8y ago
      the perishables could be closer together, vs having people traipse across a store to get the basics (conveniently seeing hundreds of other opportunities to load up their cart along the way). "interest of the customer" (saving money) doesn't align with "interest of the business" (maximizing rev/profit)

derekp7 8y ago

I hadn't watched broadcast TV for a while (lack of time), but when I did I'd just google whatever the teaser was, to see if it was worth waiting for. Very seldom would they have an exclusive breaking story that wasn't already all over the internet.

makmanalp 8y ago

This is the same strategy as news sites where you have to go to the "next page" fairly often within the article (what does that even mean) so the ads reload, or there's a dumb slideshow where every 5 images it's an ad. Or when sourceforge had its full on transition to a money sucking machine and they made the UI worse and everything multiple page reloads away just to show more ads.

irrational 8y ago

I don't watch the news, but if that is true, why don't you just tune in for the last 5 minutes?