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Are we the baddies?

(geohot.github.io)
692 points AndrewSwift | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.784s | source
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anon7000 ◴[] No.44478630[source]
Today I visited the shit website known as Fandom, and within a second of scrolling the page, the entire page was ads. Not joking: https://imgur.com/a/8QzBZGM — and it’s not a contrived example, this is the first thing that happened after reaching the page via a search for some character in a show. This is the default new user experience for Fandom, at least some portion of the time. How is this acceptable to the employees and executives of that company?

The CTO, Adil Ajmal, says “we help people worldwide go deeper on their favorite games, entertainment, and culture.” How can I possibly do that with the absurd number of ads on the page?

The money incentive in software right now is to make it extremely shitty. We need ways to incentivize people, and especially executives, to make friendly decisions for their users.

Right now across the industry, many people are getting promoted and hired for decisions that are extremely hostile to their customers and visitors. Whether it be for replacing support with an unhelpful, dumb AI bot, or marginally growing revenue by shoveling ads down your unwilling throat, we are not incentivizing products that are good and friendly to humans.

Seriously, fuck all the investors who are incentivizing this BS.

Of course, we need drastic changes to the economic system (the counterproductive incentives exist everywhere), but you have a choice in the matter. It’s possible to build a good product and make good money and make some revenue growth without being absolutely insane about it. Companies are betting that customers won’t catch on. Facebook might be a good example. It’s turned into such a shithole that no one in a certain age range wants to deal with it anymore, outside of very specific niches. The primary feed & product has failed.

replies(2): >>44478641 #>>44479771 #
1. zkmon ◴[] No.44479771[source]
Oh, same thing is happening with the regular TV and almost any media that needs attention. Every single channel is shit. News channels are just curated selection of horror stories from all around the globe. Ads are competing be weirder and weirder. Every single channel wants to grab your attention by dishing out concentrated weirdest stuff. I'm terrified to switch on TV.