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I argue that this decade shows you do not have to provide value. You capture the market yester-decade and then you can hold the users hostage as you do any and

I argue that this decade shows you do not have to provide value. You capture the market yester-decade and then you can hold the users hostage as you do any and everything to appeal to shareholders and advertisers. This is indeed a short term strategy, but tech companies right now are thinking very short term.

notyourwork 1y ago
Agreed, this is post-capture monetization.
charcircuit 1y ago
How do you hold users hostage without providing them value?
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Nostalgia, network effects, and boiling thr frog. Then you build on that with business incentives; you may not like Facebook, but you need to advertise there because that's where everyone is. Basically, you rely on goodwill from yester-year and slowly ad in intrusive stuff that users adjust to. Thars enshittification in its raw essence. Admittedly, this mostly works because the general user is not "active" and will not take the time to migrate unless something absolutely scandalous happens. For them, it's easier putting up with ads than trying to log into an ad free substitute.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Nostalgia changes how people perceive value. Network effects is about how exponential value can be gained from linear user growth. Boiling the frog us about slowly doing things to avoid changing how people perceive value. None of these are a sign a product has no value. No one would advertise with Facebook if there was no value from purchasing ad space. The billions of dollars people spend is evidence there is value there for advertisers. >will not take the time to migrate Sure, people don't actively seek to maximize the value they receive, but that doesn't mean what they are currently getting value from doesn't have value.
    - thfuran 1y ago
      > None of these are a sign a product has no value. You described the majority of those as being about the perception of value rather than value. >No one would advertise with Facebook if there was no value from purchasing ad space. The billions of dollars people spend is evidence there is value there for advertisers No one is disputing that the advertisers are getting value. The pursuit of advertiser value at the expense of users is the complaint.
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        >You described the majority of those as being about the perception of value rather than value. Which is why they weren't useful to bring up.
        thfuran 1y ago
        No, the difference between value and perceived value was pretty much their point.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        I see perceived values as more of a multiplier. If an app had 0 value, 0 times anything is still 0. You can't take hostages over something with no value. If people didn't value their life it wouldn't work, similarly if people saw 0 value in an app they wouldn't use it.
        johnnyanmac 1y ago
        My argument was about how value is decreasing. No one is arguing that these websites have zero value to begin with. A more interesting thought experiment is where that threshold is before the lack of value invigorates the energy needed to migrate. That's part of why I put the boiling frog metaphor there. Rate of change definitely has impact on perceived value.
    - dylan604 1y ago
  - econ 1y ago
    It is both mysterious and comical how we manage to enshitify every corner of our existence. I can't think of anything unrubbed with the magic poop wand.
    - econ 1y ago
      Must be hard to understand or something? The scope of the problem is much larger. If there is no "let's not use the app" movement and if there was it wouldn't be big enough to pick up on the radar. We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything.
      - johnnyanmac 1y ago
        They are localized, and not enough to overcome the migration Apathy. Reddit in 2023 was a great example of a high profile boycott that ultimately failed (in terms of impacting revenue. You can definitely argue brain drain). >We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything. Yes, but "Tech bad/greedy" is about as far as we can push on HN before it becomes "too political" and and people/bots try to hide the story. At least I have other sources to discuss those matters.
        econ 1y ago
        In the early days a comment came with a footer with links to the authors little homepage, FOSS project or startup business. Killing this also killed organic linking. This idea that all self promotion is evil was the greatest mistake. That Google went along with it and even promoted nofollow puzzled me greatly. I haven't put any effort in writing long well-researched comments since that time. I wouldn't dare put more than 2 references in a comment here. 4 would be pushing it. As if nothing interesting was written before about anything?
- arthurbrown 1y ago
  Monopoly, network effect
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Like the other posters you are giving reasons why people will not switch to alternatives, but you are failing to argue why people are stuck using an app that provides no value.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      for one, it's a nice little icon on the desktop of their device. you click it, and it launches the very thing you are looking to do. a browser means you have to click to open the browser. then you have to type the specific URL which is already something way more demanding than clicking the single icon even if they do remember the URL. for another, devs are definitely making the web experience subpar which has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread. most websites are just adverts for their apps if they function at all any more. loading a website on mobile is even worse than desktop as they pester you with "it's better in the app" pop ups. people find browsing an app store much easier than browsing the web. in fact, do people browse the web at all any more. search is shit now, so discovery by search is not what it used to be. click through from search is also plummeting as "search assistant" type responses means no reason to click through to sites. how many more reasons do you need?
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        >how many more reasons do you need? One. Because I don't believe one exists. The reasons you gave of it looking nice and accomplishing something the user wants to do provide value to the user.

notyourwork 1y ago

Agreed, this is post-capture monetization.

charcircuit 1y ago

How do you hold users hostage without providing them value?

johnnyanmac 1y ago
Nostalgia, network effects, and boiling thr frog. Then you build on that with business incentives; you may not like Facebook, but you need to advertise there because that's where everyone is. Basically, you rely on goodwill from yester-year and slowly ad in intrusive stuff that users adjust to. Thars enshittification in its raw essence. Admittedly, this mostly works because the general user is not "active" and will not take the time to migrate unless something absolutely scandalous happens. For them, it's easier putting up with ads than trying to log into an ad free substitute.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Nostalgia changes how people perceive value. Network effects is about how exponential value can be gained from linear user growth. Boiling the frog us about slowly doing things to avoid changing how people perceive value. None of these are a sign a product has no value. No one would advertise with Facebook if there was no value from purchasing ad space. The billions of dollars people spend is evidence there is value there for advertisers. >will not take the time to migrate Sure, people don't actively seek to maximize the value they receive, but that doesn't mean what they are currently getting value from doesn't have value.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    > None of these are a sign a product has no value. You described the majority of those as being about the perception of value rather than value. >No one would advertise with Facebook if there was no value from purchasing ad space. The billions of dollars people spend is evidence there is value there for advertisers No one is disputing that the advertisers are getting value. The pursuit of advertiser value at the expense of users is the complaint.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      >You described the majority of those as being about the perception of value rather than value. Which is why they weren't useful to bring up.
      - thfuran 1y ago
        No, the difference between value and perceived value was pretty much their point.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        I see perceived values as more of a multiplier. If an app had 0 value, 0 times anything is still 0. You can't take hostages over something with no value. If people didn't value their life it wouldn't work, similarly if people saw 0 value in an app they wouldn't use it.
        johnnyanmac 1y ago
        My argument was about how value is decreasing. No one is arguing that these websites have zero value to begin with. A more interesting thought experiment is where that threshold is before the lack of value invigorates the energy needed to migrate. That's part of why I put the boiling frog metaphor there. Rate of change definitely has impact on perceived value.
  - dylan604 1y ago
- econ 1y ago
  It is both mysterious and comical how we manage to enshitify every corner of our existence. I can't think of anything unrubbed with the magic poop wand.
  - econ 1y ago
    Must be hard to understand or something? The scope of the problem is much larger. If there is no "let's not use the app" movement and if there was it wouldn't be big enough to pick up on the radar. We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      They are localized, and not enough to overcome the migration Apathy. Reddit in 2023 was a great example of a high profile boycott that ultimately failed (in terms of impacting revenue. You can definitely argue brain drain). >We have bigger things to worry about as the shit is oozing out of everything. Yes, but "Tech bad/greedy" is about as far as we can push on HN before it becomes "too political" and and people/bots try to hide the story. At least I have other sources to discuss those matters.
      - econ 1y ago
        In the early days a comment came with a footer with links to the authors little homepage, FOSS project or startup business. Killing this also killed organic linking. This idea that all self promotion is evil was the greatest mistake. That Google went along with it and even promoted nofollow puzzled me greatly. I haven't put any effort in writing long well-researched comments since that time. I wouldn't dare put more than 2 references in a comment here. 4 would be pushing it. As if nothing interesting was written before about anything?
arthurbrown 1y ago
Monopoly, network effect
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Like the other posters you are giving reasons why people will not switch to alternatives, but you are failing to argue why people are stuck using an app that provides no value.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    for one, it's a nice little icon on the desktop of their device. you click it, and it launches the very thing you are looking to do. a browser means you have to click to open the browser. then you have to type the specific URL which is already something way more demanding than clicking the single icon even if they do remember the URL. for another, devs are definitely making the web experience subpar which has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread. most websites are just adverts for their apps if they function at all any more. loading a website on mobile is even worse than desktop as they pester you with "it's better in the app" pop ups. people find browsing an app store much easier than browsing the web. in fact, do people browse the web at all any more. search is shit now, so discovery by search is not what it used to be. click through from search is also plummeting as "search assistant" type responses means no reason to click through to sites. how many more reasons do you need?
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      >how many more reasons do you need? One. Because I don't believe one exists. The reasons you gave of it looking nice and accomplishing something the user wants to do provide value to the user.