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Are we the baddies?

(geohot.github.io)
692 points AndrewSwift | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.834s | source
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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.

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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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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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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.
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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.

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ctxc ◴[] No.44479389[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.
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lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44479992[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.

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1. vntok ◴[] No.44483834[source]
Interesting. Can you expand a bit on what your reasoning is so we can understand where you come from?
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2. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44490667[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.

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3. vntok ◴[] No.44497769[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).

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4. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44499428{3}[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).