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Sites with likes/voting rank things for you based on what they think is worth looking at. So as long as you're not on HN/reddit's "new" sections, you're not ran

Sites with likes/voting rank things for you based on what they think is worth looking at. So as long as you're not on HN/reddit's "new" sections, you're not randomly clicking in the dark. You're seeing the "top"/"hottest" things on those platforms right now. Like/vote counts add bias, induce jealousy, and make it harder for people without reputations to get visibility. For a lot of platforms, I'd guess that inducing jealousy helps drive engagement. Which may be why Facebook is still only "testing" removing like counts - if removing like counts makes people who use Facebook happier, but reduces engagement, then I doubt they'll do it. At the same time, I agree that there is value in like/vote counts. If something on HN has over 1,000 votes, it's very likely that I'll get value out of reading it. With voting systems, there are lots of tradeoffs. Most of the time, unfortunately, platforms seem to be optimizing for engagement rather than happiness. I wonder what would happen if they optimized for happiness instead.

gitgud 7y ago
> So as long as you're not on HN/reddit's "new" sections, you're not randomly clicking in the dark. You're seeing the "top"/"hottest" things on those platforms right now. I prefer to see a user-voted system, so I can see the general consensus of the community, rather than the consensus of the company running the website. If there's no vote/view-count or metrics shown, then how can I be sure other's have even seen it? let alone judged it as a valuable link... to me that's "clicking in the dark" > Most of the time, unfortunately, platforms seem to be optimizing for engagement rather than happiness. This right here is the true problem. Facebook/Reddit/Instagram all optimize for engagement and quality content, rather than the consumer's happiness or well-being. I haven't personally seen a site which balances this very well. If the site is anonymous, then reputation doesn't matter, which could reduce jealously and bias, but these sites are much less personal. It seems that hiding metrics will probably be better for the consumer, but the main downside is that you're leaving the selection of content to the algorithm on the website, rather than the votes/likes from the community...

gitgud 7y ago

> So as long as you're not on HN/reddit's "new" sections, you're not randomly clicking in the dark. You're seeing the "top"/"hottest" things on those platforms right now. I prefer to see a user-voted system, so I can see the general consensus of the community, rather than the consensus of the company running the website. If there's no vote/view-count or metrics shown, then how can I be sure other's have even seen it? let alone judged it as a valuable link... to me that's "clicking in the dark" > Most of the time, unfortunately, platforms seem to be optimizing for engagement rather than happiness. This right here is the true problem. Facebook/Reddit/Instagram all optimize for engagement and quality content, rather than the consumer's happiness or well-being. I haven't personally seen a site which balances this very well. If the site is anonymous, then reputation doesn't matter, which could reduce jealously and bias, but these sites are much less personal. It seems that hiding metrics will probably be better for the consumer, but the main downside is that you're leaving the selection of content to the algorithm on the website, rather than the votes/likes from the community...