Your Data Is Lying To You And You're Listening

"But optimize long enough and everything becomes the equivalent of BuzzFeed or porn.
Clickbait, sex, drama, and superficialness. Being everything to everyone and nothing to no one."

Indeed, good system design is also about finding the right amount of every part and maintaining harmony between every aspect. It's true in cooking, music, architecture, sex and pretty much anything really... Hmmm...

The conflict the big platforms you mention face is that they want more active users and their data tells them that they are getting more users by doing what they do. It's quantity at the expense of quality but they often make more money in the short term...

More money also makes the shareholders very happy, which is the primary goal of their business.

We often forget that Facebook has Instagram, so they don't really need younger people on Facebook as long as they have a young audience on Instagram. There's no real incentive for them to change yet.

My bet is that Quora has increased its advertising revenue by lowering standards and attracting more of the masses. If Quora was more like academia.edu and had more PhD nerds they would not make half of the money they make.

Say something nice to RjYoungling…

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"But optimize long enough and everything becomes the equivalent of BuzzFeed or porn.
Clickbait, sex, drama, and superficialness. Being everything to everyone and nothing to no one."

Indeed, good system design is also about finding the right amount of every part and maintaining harmony between every aspect. It's true in cooking, music, architecture, sex and pretty much anything really... Hmmm...

The conflict the big platforms you mention face is that they want more active users and their data tells them that they are getting more users by doing what they do. It's quantity at the expense of quality but they often make more money in the short term...

More money also makes the shareholders very happy, which is the primary goal of their business.

We often forget that Facebook has Instagram, so they don't really need younger people on Facebook as long as they have a young audience on Instagram. There's no real incentive for them to change yet.

My bet is that Quora has increased its advertising revenue by lowering standards and attracting more of the masses. If Quora was more like academia.edu and had more PhD nerds they would not make half of the money they make.

technopreneur

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6 years ago
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  Thank you for your generous, thoughtful comment. I agree with you. Quora early days was the Silicon Valley mafia but then it waters down in search of bigness.
  
  It's definitely tricky waters to navigate but companies like Apple show us that it's not mutually exclusive to want growth and quality.
  
  Think it boils down to understanding who you will and won't serve, and refusing to ship crap. Easier said than done though.
  
  Thanks for reading.
  
  RJY
  
  RJ Youngling
  
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  6 years ago
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Your "blog" is super cool. IT has some cool insights. Thanks

Tanohzana

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6 years ago
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  Means a lot buddy. Saw what you're building on your profile. Hella impressive!
  
  RJ Youngling
  
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  6 years ago
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