3 ms·
The same people who use such features are also on average - more likely to use ad blockers. - more likely to critically evaluate any advertising/propaganda th
by p-e-w 4y ago
The same people who use such features are also on average
- more likely to use ad blockers.
- more likely to critically evaluate any advertising/propaganda they encounter.
- more likely to use VPNs and other technology that makes them more difficult to track.
- more likely to be "power users" of the service, thus consuming more resources than the average user.
Many more points like these apply, but the bottom line is that the ROI for such users, from the service provider's point of view, is terrible, so alienating them makes perfect business sense. And since competition has almost disappeared from the technology industry, there are no unintended consequences to be expected in most cases.
- kennywinker 4y agoYou forgot - more likely to recommend your service to friends and family when they ask their power user friend which service to use. A move like that is shortsighted at best, not good business sense.
- midoridensha 4y agoI think this one is really overrated. My family never asks my input on what to use; they always buy Apple stuff, inkjet printers with expensive ink subscription services, etc. If I try to talk to them about, for instance, getting a laser printer instead, it goes nowhere. Heck, just getting them to use Facebook Messenger to talk to me since I'm living on another continent is almost too much apparently. In my experience, non-technical people don't ask power users what to use, because they'll get answers they don't want and conflict with all the slick marketing they've been brainwashed with. So instead, they'll frequently try to coerce their technical family members into buying the mass-market stuff they like instead, particularly iPhones.
- brucethemoose2 4y agoPeople are just stubborn and creatures of habit, and they dont want to expend energy on a change that is difficult and unimportant. That is the crux of it. I have family that wont tolerate any changes on their smartphone, wont create or use an email account and such... they arent even very old. But it kinda reinforces your point: they dont really take power user advice either, especially if it conflicts with something they already know. Also, I think computers used to be more enigmatic to the non techy, but now they are very accessible. People dont feel like they need help.
- midoridensha 4y ago>Also, I think computers used to be more enigmatic to the non techy, but now they are very accessible. People dont feel like they need help. Exactly. They can go to the Apple store and talk to one of the "geniuses" there.
- AnthonyMouse 4y agoThis isn't because they don't want advice, it's because there isn't enough competition for the advice to be useful. It's not like Google spies on you and Microsoft doesn't. It doesn't really matter to them whether the Windows PC they buy is from Dell or Lenovo and they don't want to hear how to build one out of parts from Newegg and install Linux on it if it can't play the games they want to play. Companies are then safe to ignore you recommending against their products when the users have no other viable options. Until they do. Then they become Kodak or Blockbuster Video because someone else makes a better product than theirs and they're so unaccustomed to customers having a choice that they lose the market.
- midoridensha 4y agoThere is competition, sometimes far better competition, but people don't want it. Laser printers are the big example here IMO: people spend a fortune on inkjet ink, but try to get them to buy a laser printer and they'll refuse because the up-front cost is higher, even though the long-term cost is much, much lower for most users.
- AnthonyMouse 4y agoCertainly if you print thousands of pages it is. If you only print something once a month it's not. But most of the people printing thousands of pages will quickly notice this when they're paying unreasonable sums for gallons of ink sold by the thimble. Then you have the people at the margin, who would be better off with a laser printer, but only by something like tens of dollars a year. At which point the opportunity cost of the time to evaluate whether they would actually be saving money is on par with the money they would be saving. Whereas if there was actually more competition, someone would be selling a cheap printer that takes cheap cartridges instead of your options being a cheap printer with expensive cartridges or an expensive printer with cheap cartridges.
- midoridensha 4y agoNo, printing once a month is FAR more expensive for inkjets, because you have to replace the ink cartridges every time you print, because the print heads dry out and get clogged. That doesn't happen with lasers.
- elbigbad 4y agoIt is very, very, exceedingly rare where I am put into a conversation to recommend a search engine. I can recall about twice ever. While it’s true both times I did recommend DDG, my trusted recommendation to friends/family can’t be worth it to them alone.
- skinkestek 4y agoI actively put myself in these conversations multiple times a year, both here on HN but also IRL.
- hnlmorg 4y agoThe age of that being a differentiator has long gone. Most people I know either just use the default in their browser, or they type Google (sometimes into literally into Google!!!) because that’s what they’ve always done. The last time someone asked me about search engines was probably 20 years ago.
- ChuckMcM 4y agoThis is a bit cynical but not wrong. Twice now I have ended up in conversations about how I would "re do" search if I could that talked about whether or not you could sell people the value. When I was at Blekko we had a tremendously enthusiastic librarian user base who loved being able to curate the sites searched. But product was so focused on ads, nobody seriously considered a paid service. (Libraries subscribe to all kinds of services for example) Most users however would not even provide an email address which would allow them to elide spammy sites from their searches. It was an interesting thing to observe.
- deltree7 4y agoMy site always had the highest CTR for Ads from traffic coming from DuckDuckGo. One of the easiest traffic referral that neatly fits into an advertising bucket. VPNs, privacy tools. You name it. These so called self-proclaimed smart people were trained like a sheeple to buy stuff.
- Semaphor 4y agoIt’s two orders of magnitude behind google for our website, but DDG is actually our 2nd biggest source of SE traffic, in front of bing. So I guess at least in Germany, DDG is doing well.
- diydsp 4y agoImpressive as heck... what site is that? i might be one of those ppl curious to check it out!