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The author makes a good point, but I don't think it's even the main part of the problem. In e.g. notifications cause people to open the app, they are optimizing

The author makes a good point, but I don't think it's even the main part of the problem. In e.g. notifications cause people to open the app, they are optimizing the wrong objective function. Getting people to open the app isn't your objective. If you just want people to open your app as many times as possible, you should actually close the app so that they can open it again. E.g. when an app sends me an unwanted notification, I open the app so that I can turn off notifications. Similar to the p=0.05 issue in science, for every bad product decision someone wants to make, there is another bad objective function that it appears to optimize. Just because someone provides a justification doesn't mean it's justified. You need to make sure that changes are improvements in the things that actually matter.

thiagomgd 7y ago
That reminds me when I installed Tik Tok to see how it was. You could disable notifications for likes/comments on your videos, but not the trending videos notifications. I uninstalled it to get rid of the notifications
- agumonkey 7y ago
  can someone uninstall Internet ?
- tempodox 7y ago
  Seeing that you let a tentacle of an oppressive surveillance-crazy human-slaughtering dictatorship infect your hardware, you got off easy. Are you sure the uninstall was complete?
kevinmgranger 7y ago
> you should actually close the app so that they can open it again Please don't give them any ideas.
m463 7y ago
They should optimize for money. I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend about installing solar panels. When I asked how to aim the panels to optimize for the most electricity, he quickly pointed out it optimized for the wrong thing. "You point the panels for the power company, not for electricity". And that's true. And the power company is doing the same thing, so peak power keeps shifting not for efficient electric use, but to get more revenue.
- tempodox 7y ago
  > They should optimize for money. They already do. Which is what makes web browsing and web-enabled app usage the blissful delight that it is.
rohan1024 7y ago
Actually the objective should be the greater good but nowadays who takes that into consideration?
- raz32dust 7y ago
  What is greater good? Morality is murky territory. If we can make money as a leaky abstraction/proxy for the greater good, then that would be best. UBI is one way to do that - if everyone has some money, they have at least some power to influence producer behavior. Another would be to quantify negative externalities and tax them somehow. Similar to carbon tax. e.g, in this case, notifications could be charged.

thiagomgd 7y ago

That reminds me when I installed Tik Tok to see how it was. You could disable notifications for likes/comments on your videos, but not the trending videos notifications. I uninstalled it to get rid of the notifications

agumonkey 7y ago
can someone uninstall Internet ?
tempodox 7y ago
Seeing that you let a tentacle of an oppressive surveillance-crazy human-slaughtering dictatorship infect your hardware, you got off easy. Are you sure the uninstall was complete?

kevinmgranger 7y ago

> you should actually close the app so that they can open it again Please don't give them any ideas.

m463 7y ago

They should optimize for money. I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend about installing solar panels. When I asked how to aim the panels to optimize for the most electricity, he quickly pointed out it optimized for the wrong thing. "You point the panels for the power company, not for electricity". And that's true. And the power company is doing the same thing, so peak power keeps shifting not for efficient electric use, but to get more revenue.

tempodox 7y ago
> They should optimize for money. They already do. Which is what makes web browsing and web-enabled app usage the blissful delight that it is.

rohan1024 7y ago

Actually the objective should be the greater good but nowadays who takes that into consideration?

raz32dust 7y ago
What is greater good? Morality is murky territory. If we can make money as a leaky abstraction/proxy for the greater good, then that would be best. UBI is one way to do that - if everyone has some money, they have at least some power to influence producer behavior. Another would be to quantify negative externalities and tax them somehow. Similar to carbon tax. e.g, in this case, notifications could be charged.