10 ms·

This is a hilarious read but I think the author is too optimistic about the state of humanity. Marl isn't the "marginal" user, Marl is the "average" user. If th

by whack 3y ago

This is a hilarious read but I think the author is too optimistic about the state of humanity. Marl isn't the "marginal" user, Marl is the "average" user. If the average user actually cared about deep and meaningful content, then any A/B test that throws her under the bus in order to please Marl will show bad data, and the proposed change would be killed. Yes, the author tries to hand-wave this away as "product is sticky", but I really doubt this is the main reason. No, the truth is far more scary. The average user doesn't want deep and meaningful content. The average user is Marl. That is why every product, no matter how noble it starts off, eventually degenerate into Marl-fodder. Because that's where the money is. The only way to escape this is to take on a huge pay cut and work at a company that doesn't care about growing profits. Go ahead, you first. Finally, let's be honest. Marl isn't some obnoxious bozo. You and I are both Marl. That's why we're here in the HN comments. You are Marl, I am Marl, the world is Marl, and it's getting Marlier every day.

liamwire 3y ago
Well said.
presentation 3y ago
Or you choose a niche that is willing to pay for value. If engagement is a meaningful metric for a business, that’s a red flag. This is why I don’t work on general purpose consumer apps and instead work on utility B2B products, because your job becomes to provide value to a business, not marginal entertainment to Marl.
gmd63 3y ago
Marl behavior does not convey Marl's actual preferences, and this is where A/B testing zombies with no artistic instinct or creative bone in their body sacrifice the gift of their influence on the world. To design for humanity, you need to look deeper into what Marl wants without relying on Marl to tell you what that is, because he is incapable of expressing it with words or actions.
broscillator 3y ago
What does it even mean what a user "wants"? I want to eat 3 cinnamon rolls. I also want to be fitter. Everyone has contradictory wants, it is not a binary choice. The point is whether the tools feed our best or worst intentions, and which are easier to exploit. To put the onus on the individual is skewed.
timdumol 3y ago
"Marginal" in the blogpost is used in the economic sense, as in the next incremental user -- not "marginal" as in minority.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  That is the way whack is using it. whack is correct that if there is a negative effect on the average user, a test will show that negative effect. That's what "average" means. To perceive an effect in new users without getting the same effect in existing users, you'd need to show different content to those two groups.
  - lyjackal 3y ago
    Hmm, I think the authors point is more towards attention addiction, rather than specific average types of people. It’s more a matter of setting a low bar to encourage more people to be distracted by your app when they really shouldn’t be using it. Basically increasing the number of apps that people check in on, especially when those users are in their marginal time (before bed, while cooking, etc.).
callalex 3y ago
A/B tests, as they are run by current software companies, are inherently flawed. I have never, in my entire career, ever heard of an A/B test that ran for a year, let alone 3-5 years. That’s where the true power of statistics comes alive, and nobody is financially incentivized to even consider that fact.
- eru 3y ago
  Gwern runs tests that long.
- bonniemuffin 3y ago
  You're certainly correct that software companies should do a lot more year+ A/B tests. You can learn really interesting things from it that a shorter test won't capture. I know of this one: https://medium.com/@AnalyticsAtMeta/notifications-why-less-is-more-how-facebook-has-been-increasing-both-user-satisfaction-and-app-9463f7325e7d https://medium.com/@AnalyticsAtMeta/notifications-why-less-i...
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  I've seen one A/B test in the wild run for a full year. It was on a small part (test of a product name + description across the site), and the most interesting aspect was that it only made a small but measureable difference. Because of that there was no strong incentive to delete the AB test (not much harm to the user) nor make the B side permanent (too low of an effect). In that respect, AB Tests that end early aren't a bad thing IMO: either there's a clear improvement or it's really bad, and the choice is obvious enough to not have to wait much longer.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    What I think the grandparent is getting at: You can measure the direct effect of a change now on something like conversions. But you can't measure the second order effects: things like trust from your users, or the effects on community quality and composition, etc. This is a good part of why enshittification happens: lots of changes with immediate "good" impact that can be measured quantifiably, but there's also readily foreseeable negative consequences to them. Of course, just running the test longer doesn't really address this for most possible changes.
grishka 3y ago
> The only way to escape this is to take on a huge pay cut and work at a company that doesn't care about growing profits. Go ahead, you first. Gladly! Where do I sign up?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- zachthewf 3y ago
  there are lots of swe jobs with the government.
  - grishka 3y ago
    I would rather not involve myself with the government of my country.
- jefftk 3y ago
  What's your background, and what are your skills? I did this in 2022 [1] and have really liked my new work. There are a lot of nonprofits doing important things, and I think it's likely you could switch to one. [1] https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-joining-the-nucleic-acid-observatory https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-joining-the-nucleic-...
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    OT: what's your blog based on? I looked for a colophon / about site page with no joy. Source suggests it's simply hand-coded HTML? Hrm... Apparently, plus some webscripts? <https://www.jefftk.com/p/designing-low-upkeep-software https://www.jefftk.com/p/designing-low-upkeep-software> <https://github.com/jeffkaufman/webscripts/blob/master/makerss.py https://github.com/jeffkaufman/webscripts/blob/master/makers...>
    - jefftk 3y ago
      That's right: I draft each post in HTML, then have some scripts which add indexes, headers, footers, and css, and make an RSS feed.
ivee 3y ago
I completely disagree. If you walked up to Marl, built trust with him, and asked him whether he wanted more meaningful content in his life (for a definition of meaningful which made sense to him) I think he would say yes. So it's not really about Marl's preferences but about the way those preferences are collected and Marl's (sadly mostly justified) lack of trust.
- wk_end 3y ago
  If you walked up to me, built trust with me, and asked me if I wanted more exercise in my life I’d say yes. And yet.
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    and yet if you became friends with someone that encouraged you in the right way, or found a routine that let you get exercise in a way that didn't suck, you'd probably feel really good about yourself and want to keep doing it. It's not that its impossible to work with people to raise them to a higher stanardard. It's harder, sure. But not impossible. And the result is usually worth its weight in gold
carlosjobim 3y ago
> That is why every product, no matter how noble it starts off, eventually degenerate into Marl-fodder. The big reason for that is that people do not want to pay for quality content or services. Ask any HN commenter if you doubt me. So companies instead focus on growth to get the ad cents from the millions of impressions, or trick "whales" by manipulating their addiction in the same manner as casinos. As long as people call anybody a fool for paying for online services, don't expect things to improve.
cwkoss 3y ago
The penultimate paragraph of the article says almost exactly this
mbwgh 3y ago
I think you may both be right. Assume you start off with a small niche product and keep increasing your userbase. Then the characteristics of the users at the fringes will change the more you grow. That is to say, the former Marls in the middle are different (and likely not so shallow) from the next-generation Marls on the outside. Eventually, your notion of what is the average user, and OP's notion of what is the Marl that finally kills the UX, will align.
hackerlight 3y ago
You're using a different definition of the world "marginal". Marginal in context doesn't mean rare or unusual. It just means the next user.
nitwit005 3y ago
Marl is supposed to have a short attention span. Reading a bunch of comments, and composing your own multi-pararagraph comment, is hardly Marl-like.
gojie 3y ago
> That's why we're here in the HN comments. I half-agree with you. I think it's possible to cultive environments where content consumption is more intentional and anti-Marlian. I think HN does a pretty good job of this.

by whack 3y ago

liamwire 3y ago

Well said.

presentation 3y ago

Or you choose a niche that is willing to pay for value. If engagement is a meaningful metric for a business, that’s a red flag. This is why I don’t work on general purpose consumer apps and instead work on utility B2B products, because your job becomes to provide value to a business, not marginal entertainment to Marl.

gmd63 3y ago

Marl behavior does not convey Marl's actual preferences, and this is where A/B testing zombies with no artistic instinct or creative bone in their body sacrifice the gift of their influence on the world. To design for humanity, you need to look deeper into what Marl wants without relying on Marl to tell you what that is, because he is incapable of expressing it with words or actions.

broscillator 3y ago

What does it even mean what a user "wants"? I want to eat 3 cinnamon rolls. I also want to be fitter. Everyone has contradictory wants, it is not a binary choice. The point is whether the tools feed our best or worst intentions, and which are easier to exploit. To put the onus on the individual is skewed.

timdumol 3y ago

"Marginal" in the blogpost is used in the economic sense, as in the next incremental user -- not "marginal" as in minority.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
That is the way whack is using it. whack is correct that if there is a negative effect on the average user, a test will show that negative effect. That's what "average" means. To perceive an effect in new users without getting the same effect in existing users, you'd need to show different content to those two groups.
- lyjackal 3y ago
  Hmm, I think the authors point is more towards attention addiction, rather than specific average types of people. It’s more a matter of setting a low bar to encourage more people to be distracted by your app when they really shouldn’t be using it. Basically increasing the number of apps that people check in on, especially when those users are in their marginal time (before bed, while cooking, etc.).

callalex 3y ago

A/B tests, as they are run by current software companies, are inherently flawed. I have never, in my entire career, ever heard of an A/B test that ran for a year, let alone 3-5 years. That’s where the true power of statistics comes alive, and nobody is financially incentivized to even consider that fact.

eru 3y ago
Gwern runs tests that long.
bonniemuffin 3y ago
You're certainly correct that software companies should do a lot more year+ A/B tests. You can learn really interesting things from it that a shorter test won't capture. I know of this one: https://medium.com/@AnalyticsAtMeta/notifications-why-less-is-more-how-facebook-has-been-increasing-both-user-satisfaction-and-app-9463f7325e7d https://medium.com/@AnalyticsAtMeta/notifications-why-less-i...
makeitdouble 3y ago
I've seen one A/B test in the wild run for a full year. It was on a small part (test of a product name + description across the site), and the most interesting aspect was that it only made a small but measureable difference. Because of that there was no strong incentive to delete the AB test (not much harm to the user) nor make the B side permanent (too low of an effect). In that respect, AB Tests that end early aren't a bad thing IMO: either there's a clear improvement or it's really bad, and the choice is obvious enough to not have to wait much longer.
- mlyle 3y ago
  What I think the grandparent is getting at: You can measure the direct effect of a change now on something like conversions. But you can't measure the second order effects: things like trust from your users, or the effects on community quality and composition, etc. This is a good part of why enshittification happens: lots of changes with immediate "good" impact that can be measured quantifiably, but there's also readily foreseeable negative consequences to them. Of course, just running the test longer doesn't really address this for most possible changes.

grishka 3y ago

> The only way to escape this is to take on a huge pay cut and work at a company that doesn't care about growing profits. Go ahead, you first. Gladly! Where do I sign up?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zachthewf 3y ago
there are lots of swe jobs with the government.
- grishka 3y ago
  I would rather not involve myself with the government of my country.
jefftk 3y ago
What's your background, and what are your skills? I did this in 2022 [1] and have really liked my new work. There are a lot of nonprofits doing important things, and I think it's likely you could switch to one. [1] https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-joining-the-nucleic-acid-observatory https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-joining-the-nucleic-...
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  OT: what's your blog based on? I looked for a colophon / about site page with no joy. Source suggests it's simply hand-coded HTML? Hrm... Apparently, plus some webscripts? <https://www.jefftk.com/p/designing-low-upkeep-software https://www.jefftk.com/p/designing-low-upkeep-software> <https://github.com/jeffkaufman/webscripts/blob/master/makerss.py https://github.com/jeffkaufman/webscripts/blob/master/makers...>
  - jefftk 3y ago
    That's right: I draft each post in HTML, then have some scripts which add indexes, headers, footers, and css, and make an RSS feed.

ivee 3y ago

I completely disagree. If you walked up to Marl, built trust with him, and asked him whether he wanted more meaningful content in his life (for a definition of meaningful which made sense to him) I think he would say yes. So it's not really about Marl's preferences but about the way those preferences are collected and Marl's (sadly mostly justified) lack of trust.

wk_end 3y ago
If you walked up to me, built trust with me, and asked me if I wanted more exercise in my life I’d say yes. And yet.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  and yet if you became friends with someone that encouraged you in the right way, or found a routine that let you get exercise in a way that didn't suck, you'd probably feel really good about yourself and want to keep doing it. It's not that its impossible to work with people to raise them to a higher stanardard. It's harder, sure. But not impossible. And the result is usually worth its weight in gold

carlosjobim 3y ago

> That is why every product, no matter how noble it starts off, eventually degenerate into Marl-fodder. The big reason for that is that people do not want to pay for quality content or services. Ask any HN commenter if you doubt me. So companies instead focus on growth to get the ad cents from the millions of impressions, or trick "whales" by manipulating their addiction in the same manner as casinos. As long as people call anybody a fool for paying for online services, don't expect things to improve.

cwkoss 3y ago

The penultimate paragraph of the article says almost exactly this

mbwgh 3y ago

I think you may both be right. Assume you start off with a small niche product and keep increasing your userbase. Then the characteristics of the users at the fringes will change the more you grow. That is to say, the former Marls in the middle are different (and likely not so shallow) from the next-generation Marls on the outside. Eventually, your notion of what is the average user, and OP's notion of what is the Marl that finally kills the UX, will align.

hackerlight 3y ago

You're using a different definition of the world "marginal". Marginal in context doesn't mean rare or unusual. It just means the next user.

nitwit005 3y ago

Marl is supposed to have a short attention span. Reading a bunch of comments, and composing your own multi-pararagraph comment, is hardly Marl-like.

gojie 3y ago

> That's why we're here in the HN comments. I half-agree with you. I think it's possible to cultive environments where content consumption is more intentional and anti-Marlian. I think HN does a pretty good job of this.