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Are we the baddies?

(geohot.github.io)
692 points AndrewSwift | 26 comments | | HN request time: 0.827s | source | bottom
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afiodorov ◴[] No.44478380[source]
We should not underestimate the timeless human response to being manipulated: disengagement.

This isn't theoretical, it's happening right now. The boom in digital detoxes, the dumbphone revival among young people, the shift from public feeds to private DMs, and the "Do Not Disturb" generation are all symptoms of the same thing. People are feeling the manipulation and are choosing to opt out, one notification at a time.

replies(5): >>44478542 #>>44478752 #>>44479222 #>>44479422 #>>44483888 #
alganet ◴[] No.44478542[source]
> disengagement.

That disengagement metric is valuable, I'm not gonna give it away for free anymore. I'll engage and disengage randomly, so no one knows what works.

> The boom in digital detoxes, the dumbphone revival among young people

That's a market now. It doesn't mean shit. It's a "lifestyle".

> People are feeling the manipulation

They don't. Even manipulation awareness is a market now. I'm sure there are YouTubers who thrive on it.

---

How far can you game a profiling algorithm? Can you make it think something about you that you're not? How much can one break it?

Those are the interesting questions.

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1. afiodorov ◴[] No.44478622[source]
There's nothing an algorithm can do against disciplined, intentional engagement.

If you know which car you want to buy it doesn't matter what the salesman has to say.

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2. vntok ◴[] No.44478795[source]
What car you want to buy is just one tiny part of the transaction. The salesman can and will manipulate you on everything else from price to warranty, from payment schedule to cross-sale rebates, from maintenance subscription to registration fees, from additional options to spare tires.
replies(1): >>44478886 #
3. afiodorov ◴[] No.44478886[source]
You're right, they can try to manipulate you on a thousand tiny things. My counter-argument is that at a certain point, it's not worth the mental energy to fight over what amounts to pennies on the dollar.

Anecdotally, when I bought my car recently, they forgot to even offer me the extended warranty they'd planned to push. I find it funny to think it was so minor, even they forgot to care.

replies(2): >>44479389 #>>44481340 #
4. latexr ◴[] No.44479376[source]
> If you know which car you want to buy it doesn't matter what the salesman has to say.

Sure it does. The salesman may have information you were not aware of. They could even tell you something which satisfies your needs better and is cheaper. Not all salesman are out to screw you, some really care about a happy customer.

I’m reminded of an old Hypercritical episode. If you ever heard John Siracusa, you know he does his research and knows what he wants. Yet when it came time buy a TV, which he had intensively researched, the salesman mentioned plasma and how the tech had improved and it threw a wrench in Siracusa’s whole decision.

https://overcast.fm/+AA3EXrnIDrA/1:23:08

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5. ctxc ◴[] No.44479389{3}[source]
Tangential, but I think most extended warranties I've noticed are beneficial. Even last month I was kicking myself for forgetting to extend a 2 year warranty which costs 1/4th the one time repair cost I had to cough up.
replies(2): >>44479632 #>>44479992 #
6. blincoln ◴[] No.44479632{4}[source]
Are you sure the extended warranty would have covered it?

I paid for an extended warranty on the first car I ever bought. Turned out it didn't cover any of the things the salesperson cited as good reasons to pay for it, and to maintain the warranty, I'd have to pay the dealer for all maintenance - even oil changes.

That car never needed any repairs, but seeing the list of exclusions convinced me to never pay for an extended warranty again.

7. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44479992{4}[source]
> but I think most extended warranties I've noticed are beneficial.

If this were true, it would result in a loss for the issuer of the warranty.

replies(2): >>44483384 #>>44483834 #
8. denkmoon ◴[] No.44480477[source]
How intensively can you possibly have researched if a salesman mentioning an entire category of display technology is a curve ball for you.
replies(1): >>44483559 #
9. makeitdouble ◴[] No.44480492[source]
The salesman can cut the car you want from your buying options, or stick conditions on it that will make up for the difference with the other models.

That's what we're seeing with Youtube for instance: your choice is to pay Youtube's price for Premium (litteraly paying to not get bullied), sit through all the ads in the world, or get three strikes after playing the ad-blocking cat and mouse game for long enough.

Of course you're still free to go somewhere else, in a world where even public guides and presentations will often be pushed on youtube only, to alleviate for the bandwidth costs on standard web services.

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10. jen20 ◴[] No.44480806[source]
> The salesman can cut the car you want from your buying options, or stick conditions on it that will make up for the difference with the other models.

My favourite approach to this is to write an email to all dealerships within the radius I’m willing to go, explaining what I want, then “publicly” make them bid for my business in a thread with their peers. I’ve had it work several times now.

11. alganet ◴[] No.44480861[source]
I wonder if there are other kinds of profiling algorithms not related to sales.
replies(1): >>44484019 #
12. fc417fc802 ◴[] No.44480955[source]
> get three strikes after playing the ad-blocking cat and mouse game for long enough

I've never encountered this. What is it?

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13. alganet ◴[] No.44481340{3}[source]
> it's not worth the mental energy to fight over what amounts to pennies

Maybe it's not about the money. Maybe I see it challenging profiling algorithms as entertainment.

14. makeitdouble ◴[] No.44481354{3}[source]
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14129599?hl=en

Depending on when you look at it, it might be worked around or fully enforced again, it comes and go, but at least Youtube doesn't seem willing to give up that stance entirely.

15. const_cast ◴[] No.44483313[source]
The heuristic is that pretty much anyone who is trying to sell you something is out to screw you. They are probably lying, and they are probably trying to get a quick buck from people who don't know better. And when I say anyone, I mean anyone. Youtubers, anyone on TikTok who links anything, advertisements on the web, billboards.

It's not 100% but if you follow the heuristic you save a lot of money and generally have higher quality goods in your life.

The reason we got into this mess is because advertising on the internet broke all the rules. Now lying is de-facto allowed. So then everyone else followed suit to compete. If your competitors are lying, you cannot afford not to lie.

So now all advertisement and sales are compromised and should not be trusted. Even large, previously trusted corporations are running scams in America. Professionals making six figures are acting as con artists. It's unbelievable how fast the situation has deteriorated.

replies(1): >>44483797 #
16. GLdRH ◴[] No.44483384{5}[source]
That's not how insurance works
replies(1): >>44490810 #
17. latexr ◴[] No.44483559{3}[source]
> How intensively can you possibly have researched

Listen to it. Start way before the given timestamp.

18. bmicraft ◴[] No.44483796{3}[source]
People using subpar ad blockers mostly, or more than one.
replies(1): >>44485842 #
19. ryandrake ◴[] No.44483797{3}[source]
Exactly. People say "Oh, I'm not affected by advertising, and I ignore sales pitches. I am very smart and do my own research!" But what are they researching? Marketing literature! They think they are informing themselves, but in reality, they are just seeking out marketing disguised as impartial facts.

I laugh when people say "I use site:reddit.com to scope my Google searches for product information because I'm getting impartial information from real people."

20. vntok ◴[] No.44483834{5}[source]
Interesting. Can you expand a bit on what your reasoning is so we can understand where you come from?
replies(1): >>44490667 #
21. felurx ◴[] No.44484019[source]
Depends on your definition of sale, but influencing elections comes to mind.
22. makeitdouble ◴[] No.44485842{4}[source]
To note, what u-block is doing to workaround this is far from the trival "just block the ad" behavior, and I expect it to break again (perhaps within weeks ?)

Then the waltz will go on as usual, until the ads are straight baked into the video-feed with the server refusing to serve the rest of the content on a per-client base.

23. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44490667{6}[source]
I guess I should have specified financial benefit.

You wouldn't pay someone else to insure a common vegetable, because it is so low cost that if it turned out to be bad, you would just buy another one (or have bought extra as your insurance).

When you buy from Walmart/Target/Amazon/Best Buy, they will try to sell you insurance for a $30 toaster or other cheap appliance. Again, most people will not buy this because they will believe the appliance will work sufficiently long or that the warranty process will be too time consuming, or otherwise decide that just quickly replacing the cheap appliance with another is the preferred way to insure it.

The insurance seller is a business and has to earn more than what they pay out for claims (or at least to make payroll if it is a mutual insurance company). Otherwise, they are going to lose money over time and go out of business. If you financially benefit from it, then you are either lucky, or had an information edge over the insurance underwriter.

Of course, if you get peace of mind from buying insurance, and count that as a benefit, then most insurance is beneficial in that case.

replies(1): >>44497769 #
24. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44490810{6}[source]
I meant financially benefit. See

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44490667

Insurance seller has to earn at least enough for payroll, so at least some of the premiums go towards that instead of any money received from claims.

Investment earnings cancel out because both the insurance buyer and insurance seller have access to same returns via broad market index funds. I.e. you can self insure and get the same returns on your savings that the insurance seller is going to get if you gave them a premium.

25. vntok ◴[] No.44497769{7}[source]
That is really not how the insurance seller's business model works.

Think about it this way: on a given year, they are collecting "Sales" amount of money from their pool of customers. For the insurer to make a profit, the amount reimbursed to legit claims simply has to be less than Sales-Expenses that year, which basically translates to having Z customers claims on any given year where Z << NbOfCustomers.

So it's a bit like a Ponzi scheme, whereby you can benefit as a customer if you pay year 1 and get a claim during year 1 or 2 for example, and the insurer can benefit too if many customers pay "a year in advance" (money that can be invested) before having their claims fall on years 2 or 3 (or never).

replies(1): >>44499428 #
26. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44499428{8}[source]
The customers can earn investment returns just like the insurance seller, so you have to reduce foregone returns from the insurance buyer’s benefit so it ends up canceling out.

>For the insurer to make a profit, the amount reimbursed to legit claims simply has to be less than Sales-Expenses that year, which basically translates to having Z customers claims on any given year where Z << NbOfCustomers.

That inequality does not “basically translate”. Insurance sellers have to exist for multiple years, not just 1 year.

If every single year, “customer claims” are less than the net benefit of customers, which is what I think you wrote although it is hard to interpret, then your “net benefit of customers” includes a non cash component (such as feeling secure)”.

There is never a free lunch, and the insurance business is not at all like a Ponzi scheme (that’s the whole point of actuaries performing calculations…to ensure sustainability without an ever growing income stream).