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They're possibly optimizing for the wrong metric, or at least a metric you don't care about. I'd think they'd want repeat viewers. A bad UX will mean fewer re
by mgkimsal 11y ago
They're possibly optimizing for the wrong metric, or at least a metric you don't care about. I'd think they'd want repeat viewers. A bad UX will mean fewer repeat viewers, and possibly an unsustainable business. Classic short-term vs long-term view. Problem with this is it's generally harder to measure long term, so short term becomes easier to justify.
- flinty 11y agoThe ad exchanges don't care for repeat viewers. Its purely a numbers game. More clicks more revenue.
- billyhoffman 11y agoThe content sites themselves largely don't care about repeat visitors. Social networks and other aggregators are the primary drives of traffic to news/content/lifestyle sites. In other words, most people do go look at the home page of Buzz Feed or Wired or Huff Po and read multiple stories. They go to Facebook and click into different articles on different sites
- dredmorbius 11y agoITYMTW "most people do not go look at..."
- shostack 11y agoMaybe yes, maybe no. A classic example is tourist trap restaurants in heavy tourism areas. They literally don't care about repeat customers because all of their business is transient one-time customers. Sure they might get bad reviews ultimately, and that could hurt them, but that hasn't really seemed to slow them down, and that is easy to game.