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But what if I want a faster horse?

(rakhim.exotext.com)
1525 points saeedesmaili | 1 comments | 11 Apr 25 11:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.474s | source
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furyg3 ◴[11 Apr 25 12:19 UTC] No.43652977[source]▶
The TikTok-ification of advertising supported platforms is terrible, but makes sense to me. LinkedIn pivoted from making money on subscriptions and fees for job postings to ads, which mean the leading drivers are 'engagement' e.g. time you spend doom scrolling on their platform. This will end in disaster for the platform as a place to find jobs or employees.

Netflix I understand much less. They make money from subscriptions. If you perceive having a fantastic experience on the site by just going there, finding something you enjoy watching, and leaving... they win. Why they would foster a doom-scrolling experience I really can't really explain, other than imagining some dark pattern like they have to pay per view and want you to watch C grade movies? More time spent looking for something to watch means less time streaming?

I don't get it.

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1. patapong ◴[11 Apr 25 14:36 UTC] No.43654274[source]▶
I think Netflix faces the problem that measuring the causality between a user watching specific content and choosing to stay subscribed is super hard. Therefore, they focus on a metric that is easy to measure, namely time spent in the app. This is likely not the metric they should be optimizing for, but since they _can_ measure it, it becomes the target anyway.