

Manipulate Machines, Not People - jstanderfer
http://johnstanderfer.com/2012/03/13/manipulate-machines-not-people/

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jseims
I think this is an inherent side effect of advertising-based revenue models.
As they say "if you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold".

If you sell something for money, there's a single moment where your interests
diverge from your customers -- when you accept payment. But the rest of you
customer interactions are all about adding value.

~~~
olefoo
I think you hit the nail on the head. But it does restrict the ambit of the
possible for web properties to ones where the end-user both understands the
value and is willing to pay the cost of the service being provided. It would
be impossible to build facebook or google without an advertising based
business model, you just can't reach critical mass.

~~~
anon808
" It would be impossible to build facebook or google without an advertising
based business model,"

really? just like that . . . why give up so easily? let's throw some
intelligence at the problem instead of just assuming it's not possible.

~~~
olefoo
Recognizing the harsh practical reality is not "giving up"; if you're acting
under the constraint that the end user of a web service must also be the
customer, then you cannot under any circumstances get people to pay the actual
costs per/customer of building something like Facebook or Google. There are
other businesses that you could build at that scale that do fit under that
constraint, but not web services that depend on millions of simultaneous users
to produce any value at all.

The best estimates I have for what it costs google to provide service to one
customer for 1/year is $20 < n < $24 and Facebook is probably more, can you
name even one person of your acquaintance who would pay even $12/year for
either of those services...? Even if hardly anyone else was using them? Before
they were big?

So yeah, impossible, at least in the given constraints; like asking for a 50
seat airplane that's self-piloted, safer than current small planes AND costs
less than $500 to build.

You might argue about my definition of impossible, but this isn't reddit, and
I hope you recognize and understand that difference.

~~~
jseims
According to Facebook's S1 filings, their expenses correspond to roughly $1
per user per year, and their revenue is $4 per user per year.

I would pay > $4 per year if it meant I controlled my Facebook data (i.e., I
was the customer, not the product).

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msrpotus
We might be more focused on getting people to do things, but it doesn't need
to be just about getting people to sign up for things. We can also use
software to make people behave better, to make people's lives better.

Just yesterday there was a post from Grouper talking about how they figured
out basically a hack to get people not to flake out
([http://blog.joingrouper.com/intro-to-social-hacking-how-
we-l...](http://blog.joingrouper.com/intro-to-social-hacking-how-we-lowered-
our-ca)). Anil Dash talks about using technology to create more civil
conversations on the web ([http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/if-your-websites-
full-of-assh...](http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/if-your-websites-full-of-
assholes-its-your-fault.html)). If you ask me, those are good developments and
we should focus more on figuring out how to create online communities that are
best. That may involve some manipulation but it may all be for the best.

~~~
simonsarris
> We can also use software to make people behave better, to make people's
> lives better.

Progressive (US car insurance company) gave my girlfriend this device that she
plugs into her car's diagnostic port. The incentive is that if an insured
driver agrees to use the thing and wants to "prove" they are a good driver. In
return the user gets an insurance discount if their driving stats are good.

The little object does something very basic: It counts the number of "hard
stops" in every trip and uses cellphone networks to report the data. People
can then go look up the stats online. 2 hard stops for this trip, 7 for this
trip, etc.

Eventually it turns into a sort of game to eliminate the hard stops from your
driving routine. You pay more attention to driving because of it and therefore
become a more attentive driver.

At the end of 6 months you send the device back and your insurance is adjusted
(or not).

This is a huge win-win for software making people behave better:

1\. Girlfriend gets a lower insurance rate

2\. Progressive has evidence she is not an insane driver

3\. Most interestingly, the device has forced her to be (seemingly)
permanently more conscious about her driving and has made her a better driver.
Not only does the device find bad drivers, but it can convince many to become
better drivers, possibly without them even knowing it!

Literally software has consciously and unconsciously made her into a better
driver and literally every party involved (her, progressive, people near her
on the road) are better off for her having used this device.

~~~
FrojoS
Yes, yes the potentials here are limitless! Only downside: Less privacy and
freedom.

At the moment it might be a nice discount for those who choose to volunteer.
Its easy to see a future where it will be impossible to get affordable
insurance if you opt out.

Now exchange car insurance with health insurance. My health habits are
probably better than average. I do plenty of sports, no overweight, no
smoking, not a heavy drinker etc.. In order to get an appropriate discount I
would have to record my whole life.

------
jostmey
I agree with author whole-heatedly that the software-development industry has
shifted from manipulating machines to manipulating people. Writing software
today is more about the content that the software provides than about figuring
out how to make that actual software work.

Any modern web-based business must think of themselves as a media company. The
software designers must ask themselves not how can I make something happen,
but what content should I deliver to my users. There has been a paradigm shift
in the industry. The code and how it works is irrelevant, and what matters
most is the media that your service offers.

The author seems to wish that this weren't so, but unfortunately it is. I wish
it weren't so, but it is. There does not seem to be any way around the issue.

~~~
angersock
_"There does not seem to be any way around the issue."_

Do something different. Write software that solves real problems and give it
away. Fund yourself by coding for companies that solve real problems.

This isn't complicated.

~~~
MattGrommes
Why do you have to give it away? Does a web-based tool like Jira not count as
a way of solving problems for people and making money at the same time?

I don't agree that all web-based businesses are media companies. It's possible
to do real work and solve problems on the web and have nothing to do with
"media" or advertising or social anything.

~~~
jostmey
What are the top websites today? Facebook, Google, Youtube, Wikipedia, ect.
What are examples of the up and coming websites? Pininterest? Reddit?

All of these websites are media based. These websites focus on the content
that they provide. None of these services, with the exception of perhaps
Google, really care about software development. All of them care about their
sites content.

Because all of these websites are media based, their business models revolve
around ads and click counts.

------
vibrunazo
1) Why is manipulating people inherently bad? The author simply throws:

> "The downside to this model is it that the company’s and user’s interests
> can never be aligned because the user is not the one paying for the
> product."

But he doesn't expand on it. To get users you still need a good product even
if it's free or users would use something else. Part of the lessons behind
increasing click through rates is to build a desirable user experience. The
users are not wiring you money directly, but they're still worth money
indirectly. Just saying "every free product must be bad for the consumer"
sounds like a simplistic over-generalization.

2) How is every business not manipulating people instead of just machines?
There isn't a black or white here. You don't manipulate machines simply out of
love to build a genius technological innovation. You do it to manipulate
people. Each piece of hardware or line of code is put in place trying to solve
the same questions the author poses for manipulating people. Which GPU I need
for users to buy games? Which algorithm gives better recommendations that the
user will actually click on? Businesses manipulate machines while manipulating
people. Only hobbyists do otherwise.

3) Is he using Apple as an example of a company who favors manipulating
machines over people? Apple are the most extreme example of the contrary.
They're genius at manipulating people. Many here will point out their
technology are just small evolution over what existed before. But it's their
genius marketing, branding and expert people manipulation skills that convince
users their products are status symbols worth of their loyalty. And there's
nothing wrong with these. Every business wish they had the people expertise
that Apple does. That's what make businesses work. It's genius people skills
that brings genius machine skills into user's hands.

------
aidenn0
Advertising is all about manipulating people. Furthermore successful
advertising is all about making the perceived voluntary cost to the user
smaller than the perceived value to the advertiser. If you took Facebook's
revenue and divided it by the number of users, I'm guessing they would lose a
lot of customers by charging that amount as a subscription fee.

If you don't advertise, you need to charge money.

If you charge money, and a competitor launches with successful advertising,
then you will go out of business since the perceived cost for their users is
lower than what you need to charge to stay in business.

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josephjrobison
"I wonder what a company like Facebook could build if it could treat its users
as customers instead of products."

Not exactly sure that treating users as customers is better by much than
treating them as products. How about treating users as users and let it flow
from there?

~~~
anon808
how about treating users as people, because they are.

------
ChristianMarks
I was expecting an article on management styles. I left a firm after it was
taken over by people who wanted absolute control of behavior. This was
attained through Bolshevist Change Management meetings and mandatory ITIL
course attendance. ITIL, for those who don't know, is the Information
Technocracy Indoctrination Library, a collection of smug, manipulative,
platitudinous and mind-numbingly boring volumes that serve as an outlet for
the frustrated British Colonialist impulse, and all this implies (think
Parkinson's law).

