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A new car built by my company leaves somewhere travelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now
by samlinnfer 11mo ago
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere travelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
- 1970-01-01 11mo agoI don't think the analogy applies the same way. Meta simply choose to be evil not because it costs less overall but because they're unable to provide/filter actually useful ads to consumers. The rear diff is instead a filthy window but consumers don't sue for better quality because everything else works good enough and those that do crash could have cleaned the windows themselves.
- ruined 11mo agoability "to provide/filter actually useful ads" is a function of moderation budget and not much else
- 1970-01-01 11mo agoTo them it's all an algorithm. Human moderation is completely infeasible at their massive scale.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo agoAnd if the algorithm can't moderate then what? We should all suffer because doing it right isn't feasible?
- 1970-01-01 11mo agoYes. You can choose to drive a broken car, not drive it, or fix with aftermarket parts and then drive it. The company that made it cannot deliver solution.
- bradlys 11mo agoI think there needs to be some moderation here because Meta clearly does offer useful ads to consumers, otherwise it wouldn’t have so much insane revenue from ads. If people don’t find the ads useful then they won’t click on them or give the company money. I think the average user on HN (who blocks ads constantly, uses things like AdNauseam, pihole, etc.) is not going to be your typical purchaser. If you look at your typical American, they buy a lot of shit through those ads and a lot of people actually like the ads. My only complaint with the ads has been the targeting has always been crap. If you allow personalization, they do get more relevant. But, that complaint of mine is my own personal one. I’m like a typical HN user, ads don’t typically read me well due to my blocking on all kinds of platforms.
- xandrius 11mo agoOhh, so naïve. They choose inaction because it's profitable, that's it. They can claim they were unaware and they are out either scot-free or with a slap on their gigantic wrist.
- thinkmoore 11mo agoRecalls happen because they are required by regulators...
- unglaublich 11mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_recalls,_and_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_...
- lesuorac 11mo agoScroll down on that page. The pinto wasn't any worse that other cars from that time period. It should come as no shock that older products are worse than newer products. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Retrospective_safety_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Retrospective_safet...
- sota_pop 11mo agoNot sure the other responses caught the reference there, Tyler.