Re:U.S. senators introduce social media bill to ban 'dark pa...
by gruez on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @08:15PM
(#19620400)
>The goal is to improve their experience
And how is that measured by most social media companies? "engagement".
Re:U.S. senators introduce social media bill to ban 'dark pa...
by gcp123 on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @08:54PM
(#19620647)
For these companies "improve their experience" = optimizing for maximum time spent with the product even when it's not in the best interest of the people using the product. i.e. Netflix autoplay, algorithmic newsfeed that tends to show more outrage-inducing content, and artificial notifications that aren't from people you know, but are engineered to get you back into the product unnecessarily. They just want to capture as much of your attention as possible because it increases the number of ads they can show/sell. That's not improving user experience, that's hijacking attention to maximize profit. Considering attention is the primary instrument nature has given us for crafting our lives, that's a pretty user-hostile thing to do.
Re:U.S. senators introduce social media bill to ban 'dark pa...
by flukus on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @08:20PM
(#19620434)
Changing random stuff all the time is not improving my experience, giving me a consistent interface is.
And the goal is rarely to "improve my experience", it's to more efficiently manipulate me into spending more money, directly or indirectly.
Edit. My response was about website a/b testing.