8 ms·

These services are so fucking needy. It's like they were designed by broken people. How about some respectful technology that knows its place, and can say "hey,

These services are so fucking needy. It's like they were designed by broken people. How about some respectful technology that knows its place, and can say "hey, you've accomplished the task you wanted to do here, so go do something else."

tekromancr 5y ago
What you describe is antithetical to capitalism as it is currently implemented
- michaelchisari 5y ago
  Subscription services (at very low cost) could achieve this. In 2019, Instagram only made around $11.98 per user annually. Imagine if you could pay $12 a year and never see an ad, never be manipulated by an algorithm, never have to worry about any of that. All engineering would be focused on retaining you as a user, not as a market segment for advertisers. The incentive wouldn't be to addict you with an infinite scroll but to provide enough value for you to maintain the annual cost. Possibly even minimizing the attention it demands because the greatest profits is in justifying the subscription while encouraging the least amount of resource use. Unfortunately, growth-hacking meant VC subsidized growth with free services and there was no way that subscriptions could compete. The question is if anyone could ever sell low cost, user-centric subscription-based apps in a world where free (but not really) is taken for granted.
  - learc83 5y ago
    $12 a year is misleading. Paying users are much more valuable ad targets than free users once you start segmenting them. So now you need to charge significantly more than $12 to make up for that. The higher price makes the paid users even more valuable to advertisers. Eventually the service slips in a few ads because it’s just too much money to leave on the table. Cable TV started as an ad free subscription service. I’m not saying it can’t work, but historically most subscription services don’t stay ad free forever.
    - michaelchisari 5y ago
      most subscription services don’t stay ad free forever. This is true, for two reasons: Declining profit as markets mature and the need for investors to see greater returns YOY. Eventually, all companies turn to more intense methods of profit extraction. This isn't specific to digital services of course, we're seeing the effects of this broadly across the economy. One way to put off the inevitable (for potentially quite some time) would be to bootstrap instead of taking investment. Easier said than done, of course, but maybe not impossible since the hardest part may be breaking open the market in the first place and it might be a lot easier to build an alternative app in a mature space than it was to create Instagram in 2010.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      This is extremely important, and something I think many people don't realize. Charging a fee might make it possible for a company to be profitable without needing ad revenue, but it likely won't change the underlying economics such that also showing ads won't be even more profitable. The only ways around this that I can see are 1) a company steadfastly choosing to forgo the ad revenue, 2) a company maintaining a customer base that is willing to pay the subscription fee and has a principled opposition to ads such that introducing ads wouldn't be viable, or 3) somehow reorganizing the economy such that the negative externalities of advertising are greatly reduced.
      - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
        > somehow reorganizing the economy such that the negative externalities of advertising are greatly reduced. What “negative externalities” are you referring to?
        tshaddox 5y ago
        Some simple and direct ones to start with: bandwidth and CPU usage, blatant malware, annoyance.
        DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  - worker_thread 5y ago
    I came here to say I am ready to pay for that service!
    - criddell 5y ago
      There's always Glass. $5 / month, no ads, no VC funding, no manipulative algorithm.
  - marketingtech 5y ago
    Last quarter, they made $10.12 per user[1, slide 4], however that's not evenly distributed. They made $53.01 per user in US and Canada. But even that isn't evenly distributed. The users who are likely to pay for the subscription are also the most valuable to advertisers because they have disposable income. Some Instagram users see ads for luxury cars, real estate, and vacations, while other users see ads for dollar stores and dropshipped junk. FB earns much more in their auction from that first set of users, but those will be the first users willing to pay to opt out of ads. Dynamic pricing would probably offend both audiences - "what do you mean the algorithm thinks I'm worthless?" "what do you mean that I'm worth thousands of dollars to you?" [1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/Q2-2021_Earnings-Presentation.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q2...
    - michaelchisari 5y ago
      That's for Facebook broadly, which is a beast of a corporation that encompasses dozens of services and properties. I'm talking about instagram specifically. those will be the first users willing to pay to opt out of ads. The service would have to be built from the ground-up to not have a free option, it would have to be equalized across all users. Again, this is where the difficulty lies in an economy that already offers so much for free. IF someone could pull it off, they would benefit from the gym membership effect of people keeping the subscription while barely using the service (and it's resources). There would also be considerable savings on the engineering and sales side if you cut all adtech out of the equation and provide a simple time-series feed.
    - sharkweek 5y ago
      I felt this way when Hulu gave me the option to opt out of ads for $4 a month extra… “Wait that’s all my eyes are worth?!”
      - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
        It’ll be less than $4/mo: part of that $4 will have to pay for building-out the ad-free experience.
  - htrp 5y ago
    Lets be honest here, they'd just charge you the money as an added bonus on top of productizing you as a user
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    > The question is if anyone could ever sell low cost, user-centric subscription-based apps in a world where free (but not really) is taken for granted. Well, yes, it does come down to this, and I'd say the answer is very clearly that this cannot be done, at least not at any scale remotely close to the scale of the big free social media networks.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - krrrh 5y ago
    Before being acquired, WhatsApp served a half a billion users on a $1 per year subscription model (first year was free, and they were competing against comparatively high charges for sms), and apparently only a few dozen engineers. Signal manages a similar feat on a handful of (large) donations. It's possible to have a profitable business while charging users a small fee, but once a public company achieves network effects and a captured user base, there is a pressure to milk it for all it is worth. In a normal market there would be competition and an equilibrium would be reached, but where network effects dominate, it takes something like Signal to make a dent in this regard. That said, there's no reason that a non-profit version of instagram couldn't eventually compete or dominate by charging users a pittance.
  - jacobajit 5y ago
    Moving to a subscription fee model is dangerous for a service that's reached saturation point. They can no longer project infinite growth in value extracted from eyeballs going into the future, and are stuck with whatever they choose to charge (along with some limited increases in fees. Building a better service cannot be fully leveraged into higher fees, since there's only so much YoY increase in costs users will stomach.) On the other hand, subscription models are fine for new entrants, even with VC hyper-growth expectations - there are still billions of users to capture even if per-user revenue is fixed! Then the game becomes delivering as much value to these customers as possible to attract more paying users. Perhaps this is another malincentive that comes about from monopolies.
    - michaelchisari 5y ago
      They can no longer project infinite growth This is true, but only applies to the "tech unicorn" VC-funded model. There are other ways to build businesses and if the model we're used to always ends up with such terrible social results, maybe it's time we strongly considered them.
- newswasboring 5y ago
  Everyone knows these things are bad. Everyone knows they are causing harm to society. Everyone knows these services are actively doing this stuff despite knowing the risks. And yet we allow them to operate. I am with you on this. The current system has no real incentives to stop this. They are essentially developing a drug and we praise them for it.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Then maybe we should implement capitalism differently. Hopefully by making the "surveillance" part of it illegal even if it kills these companies.
mehrzad 5y ago
The only popular social app that claims to do this is Hinge.
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
  Hinge has all sorts of dark patterns to keep you swiping on the app as long as possible. Recently they added some feature called Standouts that removes the "best" matches from your ability to match, so you have to wait until those matches drop from the exclusive-only bin. The idea behind limiting max likes is nice (10), but they also have some ranking algorithm that only starts showing your preferred matches near the end of your match limit, extremely subtle but I noticed it started making me feel like I was anxious about preserving my bin of likes. It's all a money game to these Match companies and pretty obvious why people are burning out on all the ghosting / terrible interactions etc.
  - freewilly1040 5y ago
    You can still pay for unlimited likes, right? I would see the limit more as incentive to pay than to limit engagement for the user's sake.
Cd00d 5y ago
There were two days last week where I got on TikTok around bedtime as a distraction from actually going to bed. After a while a clip came up on my FYP with someone saying "hey, maybe you wanna be done scrolling and go to bed", and I was like, "yeah, that's a very good idea, thanks". It was the second time that I realized the clip was from TikTok. Honestly, I appreciate it.
- zenmaster10665 5y ago
  right - cos tiktok is totally looking after you more than any of the other services /s
  - Cd00d 5y ago
    I mean, I don't get the sarcasm. Have you had another app steer you away from engagement for the sake of your mental/behavioral health in this way? I certainly haven't. Other than maybe Nintendo suggesting go outside breaks or something.
    - oyashirochama 5y ago
      Many Gacha games do it either through limits of stamina or just directly saying go do something else. A few other regular games do it too.
- asdff 5y ago
  Netflix asking me if I'm still alive after three hours does nothing to prevent mindless consumption on the whole
- idsout 5y ago
  TikTok ran out of clips to recommend to you lol
- MisterTea 5y ago
  Maybe figure out why it is you don't want to go to bed. It's usually because you don't like doing the thing you do after waking up.
david_allison 5y ago
> How about some respectful technology that knows its place, and can say "hey, you've accomplished the task you wanted to do here, so go do something else." From bitter experience: people don't like being told they're done for the day. It wears you down having to explain it. Add in the profit motive and it's easy to see why people cave to adding infiniscrolling
frosted-flakes 5y ago
Nintendo does this in some of its games, like Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D. Navi says, 'You've been playing for a while, maybe take a break?' I found it more annoying than anything, and I don't think it ever caused me to stop playing.

tekromancr 5y ago

What you describe is antithetical to capitalism as it is currently implemented

michaelchisari 5y ago
Subscription services (at very low cost) could achieve this. In 2019, Instagram only made around $11.98 per user annually. Imagine if you could pay $12 a year and never see an ad, never be manipulated by an algorithm, never have to worry about any of that. All engineering would be focused on retaining you as a user, not as a market segment for advertisers. The incentive wouldn't be to addict you with an infinite scroll but to provide enough value for you to maintain the annual cost. Possibly even minimizing the attention it demands because the greatest profits is in justifying the subscription while encouraging the least amount of resource use. Unfortunately, growth-hacking meant VC subsidized growth with free services and there was no way that subscriptions could compete. The question is if anyone could ever sell low cost, user-centric subscription-based apps in a world where free (but not really) is taken for granted.
- learc83 5y ago
  $12 a year is misleading. Paying users are much more valuable ad targets than free users once you start segmenting them. So now you need to charge significantly more than $12 to make up for that. The higher price makes the paid users even more valuable to advertisers. Eventually the service slips in a few ads because it’s just too much money to leave on the table. Cable TV started as an ad free subscription service. I’m not saying it can’t work, but historically most subscription services don’t stay ad free forever.
  - michaelchisari 5y ago
    most subscription services don’t stay ad free forever. This is true, for two reasons: Declining profit as markets mature and the need for investors to see greater returns YOY. Eventually, all companies turn to more intense methods of profit extraction. This isn't specific to digital services of course, we're seeing the effects of this broadly across the economy. One way to put off the inevitable (for potentially quite some time) would be to bootstrap instead of taking investment. Easier said than done, of course, but maybe not impossible since the hardest part may be breaking open the market in the first place and it might be a lot easier to build an alternative app in a mature space than it was to create Instagram in 2010.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    This is extremely important, and something I think many people don't realize. Charging a fee might make it possible for a company to be profitable without needing ad revenue, but it likely won't change the underlying economics such that also showing ads won't be even more profitable. The only ways around this that I can see are 1) a company steadfastly choosing to forgo the ad revenue, 2) a company maintaining a customer base that is willing to pay the subscription fee and has a principled opposition to ads such that introducing ads wouldn't be viable, or 3) somehow reorganizing the economy such that the negative externalities of advertising are greatly reduced.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      > somehow reorganizing the economy such that the negative externalities of advertising are greatly reduced. What “negative externalities” are you referring to?
      - tshaddox 5y ago
        Some simple and direct ones to start with: bandwidth and CPU usage, blatant malware, annoyance.
        DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
- worker_thread 5y ago
  I came here to say I am ready to pay for that service!
  - criddell 5y ago
    There's always Glass. $5 / month, no ads, no VC funding, no manipulative algorithm.
- marketingtech 5y ago
  Last quarter, they made $10.12 per user[1, slide 4], however that's not evenly distributed. They made $53.01 per user in US and Canada. But even that isn't evenly distributed. The users who are likely to pay for the subscription are also the most valuable to advertisers because they have disposable income. Some Instagram users see ads for luxury cars, real estate, and vacations, while other users see ads for dollar stores and dropshipped junk. FB earns much more in their auction from that first set of users, but those will be the first users willing to pay to opt out of ads. Dynamic pricing would probably offend both audiences - "what do you mean the algorithm thinks I'm worthless?" "what do you mean that I'm worth thousands of dollars to you?" [1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/Q2-2021_Earnings-Presentation.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q2...
  - michaelchisari 5y ago
    That's for Facebook broadly, which is a beast of a corporation that encompasses dozens of services and properties. I'm talking about instagram specifically. those will be the first users willing to pay to opt out of ads. The service would have to be built from the ground-up to not have a free option, it would have to be equalized across all users. Again, this is where the difficulty lies in an economy that already offers so much for free. IF someone could pull it off, they would benefit from the gym membership effect of people keeping the subscription while barely using the service (and it's resources). There would also be considerable savings on the engineering and sales side if you cut all adtech out of the equation and provide a simple time-series feed.
  - sharkweek 5y ago
    I felt this way when Hulu gave me the option to opt out of ads for $4 a month extra… “Wait that’s all my eyes are worth?!”
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      It’ll be less than $4/mo: part of that $4 will have to pay for building-out the ad-free experience.
- htrp 5y ago
  Lets be honest here, they'd just charge you the money as an added bonus on top of productizing you as a user
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > The question is if anyone could ever sell low cost, user-centric subscription-based apps in a world where free (but not really) is taken for granted. Well, yes, it does come down to this, and I'd say the answer is very clearly that this cannot be done, at least not at any scale remotely close to the scale of the big free social media networks.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- krrrh 5y ago
  Before being acquired, WhatsApp served a half a billion users on a $1 per year subscription model (first year was free, and they were competing against comparatively high charges for sms), and apparently only a few dozen engineers. Signal manages a similar feat on a handful of (large) donations. It's possible to have a profitable business while charging users a small fee, but once a public company achieves network effects and a captured user base, there is a pressure to milk it for all it is worth. In a normal market there would be competition and an equilibrium would be reached, but where network effects dominate, it takes something like Signal to make a dent in this regard. That said, there's no reason that a non-profit version of instagram couldn't eventually compete or dominate by charging users a pittance.
- jacobajit 5y ago
  Moving to a subscription fee model is dangerous for a service that's reached saturation point. They can no longer project infinite growth in value extracted from eyeballs going into the future, and are stuck with whatever they choose to charge (along with some limited increases in fees. Building a better service cannot be fully leveraged into higher fees, since there's only so much YoY increase in costs users will stomach.) On the other hand, subscription models are fine for new entrants, even with VC hyper-growth expectations - there are still billions of users to capture even if per-user revenue is fixed! Then the game becomes delivering as much value to these customers as possible to attract more paying users. Perhaps this is another malincentive that comes about from monopolies.
  - michaelchisari 5y ago
    They can no longer project infinite growth This is true, but only applies to the "tech unicorn" VC-funded model. There are other ways to build businesses and if the model we're used to always ends up with such terrible social results, maybe it's time we strongly considered them.
newswasboring 5y ago
Everyone knows these things are bad. Everyone knows they are causing harm to society. Everyone knows these services are actively doing this stuff despite knowing the risks. And yet we allow them to operate. I am with you on this. The current system has no real incentives to stop this. They are essentially developing a drug and we praise them for it.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Then maybe we should implement capitalism differently. Hopefully by making the "surveillance" part of it illegal even if it kills these companies.

mehrzad 5y ago

The only popular social app that claims to do this is Hinge.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
Hinge has all sorts of dark patterns to keep you swiping on the app as long as possible. Recently they added some feature called Standouts that removes the "best" matches from your ability to match, so you have to wait until those matches drop from the exclusive-only bin. The idea behind limiting max likes is nice (10), but they also have some ranking algorithm that only starts showing your preferred matches near the end of your match limit, extremely subtle but I noticed it started making me feel like I was anxious about preserving my bin of likes. It's all a money game to these Match companies and pretty obvious why people are burning out on all the ghosting / terrible interactions etc.
- freewilly1040 5y ago
  You can still pay for unlimited likes, right? I would see the limit more as incentive to pay than to limit engagement for the user's sake.

Cd00d 5y ago

There were two days last week where I got on TikTok around bedtime as a distraction from actually going to bed. After a while a clip came up on my FYP with someone saying "hey, maybe you wanna be done scrolling and go to bed", and I was like, "yeah, that's a very good idea, thanks". It was the second time that I realized the clip was from TikTok. Honestly, I appreciate it.

zenmaster10665 5y ago
right - cos tiktok is totally looking after you more than any of the other services /s
- Cd00d 5y ago
  I mean, I don't get the sarcasm. Have you had another app steer you away from engagement for the sake of your mental/behavioral health in this way? I certainly haven't. Other than maybe Nintendo suggesting go outside breaks or something.
  - oyashirochama 5y ago
    Many Gacha games do it either through limits of stamina or just directly saying go do something else. A few other regular games do it too.
asdff 5y ago
Netflix asking me if I'm still alive after three hours does nothing to prevent mindless consumption on the whole
idsout 5y ago
TikTok ran out of clips to recommend to you lol
MisterTea 5y ago
Maybe figure out why it is you don't want to go to bed. It's usually because you don't like doing the thing you do after waking up.

david_allison 5y ago

> How about some respectful technology that knows its place, and can say "hey, you've accomplished the task you wanted to do here, so go do something else." From bitter experience: people don't like being told they're done for the day. It wears you down having to explain it. Add in the profit motive and it's easy to see why people cave to adding infiniscrolling

frosted-flakes 5y ago

Nintendo does this in some of its games, like Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D. Navi says, 'You've been playing for a while, maybe take a break?' I found it more annoying than anything, and I don't think it ever caused me to stop playing.