287 karma · joined May 16, 2014
A similar problem exists when trying to decide to pay for an article from a journal you don't have access to. Is the abstract compelling enough for me to fork out $100 dollars for this article? What if the abstract was misleading? Can I return it?
As a consumer, I'd rather just pay a higher flat fee for internet access / browsing and have that collective wealth distributed to content providers based on some metrics. Better content gets bigger portion of the pie. The problem is probably determining the metrics.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20150214165654/http://www.structu...
However, my love of RSS is really just a historic relic of becoming interested in computers between 2001 and 2005. Before that was Usenet and other technologies I'm probably unaware of. RSS has since been replaced by Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, Google Plus, etc. Someone needs to pay the bills and it's a lot easier to monetize when you keep users in your walled gardens and control what they see. These newer technologies are also MUCH easier to use for the average consumer and have the net-benefit of being "social" which is likely beneficial for the ad conglomerates.
Companies who create (or curate or distribute) content are fundamentally at odds with their users. Users want relevant, high quality, add-free content, but most are not willing to pay for it. If they do, they expect a fine-tuned user experience or physical product (a magazine or Amazon Kindle for example). Even paid subscription magazines (NewScientist, Time, etc.) have ads to help keep their pricing competitive and increase quarterly profits for investors. Hell, even my Kindle (which I PAID for) came with ads. Granted, Amazon gave me the ability to remove them for $20. But, that gives you an idea of how valuable ads are. I never understood why more websites didn't just include ads in their RSS feeds. Easier to filter out? Less control since the user isn't visiting the site?
I'd be MORE than willing to pay for RSS or NNTP feeds of high quality content. To me, there is no better user experience than reading format-free text and images in Gnus, but I imagine I'm in the minority. Average consumers (my parents, non-tech friends, etc.) are more than willing to visit cnn.com in their browsers or dedicated phone app. Most people simply don't care enough. I feel like I'm constantly trying to chase the conversation of the topics I'm interested in by stringing together mostly-incompatible technologies and work flows.
I'd really just like the ability to read, annotate, comment on, share, and discuss media with people who are also interested.
You run the risk of sacrificing depth for breadth. With finite educational resources (time and money in real dollars that are likely borrowed), most people are attempting to maximize their earning potential post-graduation.
Part of the problem is that profit seeking companies don't favor the renaissance man / woman because they need people down in the trenches, implementing the mundane details of the grand ideas dreamt up by innovators. The reality is that most people are not a da Vinci or Jobs (both would have made significant contributions to society without diverse educations--there's likely no shortage of examples of hyper-focused authors, scientists, artists, etc. who were equally successful).
Although I'm not a huge fan of argument by personal anecdote I think it applies here. As an undergraduate engineering student, I spent a large portion of my educational resources, 20-50% of my time / energy, on policy debate [1]. Each year, I intensely researched, organized, presented, and actively debated international politics, economics, philosophy, sociology, and literary criticism in the context of a specific topic. At the conclusion of each year, I could have written a thesis on a relevant subset of each topic--I say this as someone who has written and defended an engineering thesis. Post-graduation, however, I find myself working for an engineering firm, doing engineering work. During the interview and continuing to this day (4+ years later), no one cares how much I know about West Africa agricultural problems, biopolitics, feminism, Ex parte Quirin, or the AUMF. It's simply not relevant to work I do. I would love a job that uses all of my interests and talents, but, especially in this case, that seems unlikely. "Looking for candidate with strong background in Structural Dynamics, Aeroelasticity, Feminism, and Middle Eastern politics!" Maybe I'm just not creative enough.
Am I well read? Sure. Do I sound intelligent over a beer or two? Absolutely. Am I a contributing member of a well-informed electorate? You betcha! But would that time / effort been better spent on engineering-specific extracurricular activities? I know what the hiring manager at my company and my boss would probably tell you.
Sure I retained the research, organization, presentation, and public speaking skills, but they're really only marginally relevant to my current work. I also would have probably developed those skills if I was involved in DBF [2].
I don't like my technologies (especially the ones I invest heavily in) to be owned by particular companies that need to please investors / shareholders. I know that my needs will always come second to their financial goals--this is particularly true for unpaid services (twitter, Google, Facebook, etc.).
I don't know why we were so quick to abandon "outdated" technologies in favor of corporate owned ones. It short of seems like we forfeited our data and collective ownership in open platforms / public utilities in favor of things that were easy and looked cool.
What I mean is that most apps / wearable tech seem to require lots of manual data input (in my case, MyFitnessPal, Runkeeper, etc.)--although some of this has gotten better with say, tracking steps. Regardless, I feel like a lot of my life is currently data input.
Whatever future app development ideas come to fruition would benefit heavily from having a high level of simplicity and automation on the side of the user while still doing some difficult data crunching that is VALUE added.
I think this is one of the reasons Mint.com is so popular. It requires very little input from the user and quickly generates a LOT of very useful information.
Imagine how useful it would be if my nutrition information, blood pressure, glucose levels, etc. were all recorded for me automatically. Then I wouldn't have to think about them everyday, I could just examine them when I'm curious.
A great, very recent, example of this was reddit making /r/TwoXChromosomes, a subreddit dedicated to women's issues, a default sub (meaning everyone, even non-users, are automatically subscribed). The stereotype demographic for reddit is young white males. I have no way of actually verifying these demographics--I'm not sure they do either.
Yesterday, a comic about the casual sexual harassment caused by men was posted[1] and although there was some valuable discussion, most of it was pretty awful to read (the further down you scroll, the worse it gets). Although we'd like to believe that engaging in debate / conversation / dialogue generally cause us to have empathy for and understand the other side, the opposite tends to happen, especially in large, anonymous communities. And this is in a venue where the quality of participation IS (supposedly) based on the value of the discussion.
Although I think you're right that most websites (Hacker News included) suffer from only having up and / or down votes. It's possible that a more complex system might be more useful. Maybe in addition to the like / dislike paradigm, it might be useful to add quality / not quality functionality.
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/2d85wt/next...
I've heard this argument referred to as the "Bowling Alone Hypothesis" [1]. Basically the idea that first radio, then television, and now the internet, etc. are socially isolating us from one another and we're stuck "Amusing Ourselves to Death" [2]. There is also likely an anthropological / evolutionary biology argument to be made about the development of small group communication.
Some simply dismiss these arguments as ludditism, but I think a much more nuanced response casts the internet as a great medium for communication [3], social engagement [4], and activism [5].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death [3] http://bigideas.tvo.org/episode/141052/clay-shirky-on-cognit... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU [5] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1086939
In addition, for every problem that we solve--global distribution, connectivity, transportation--we create even more. All of these "solutions" require additional infrastructure, research and development, and ultimately, breed entirely new disciplines and fields of study--i.e. STAFF. Additional flexibility breeds complexity.
100 years ago, I probably wouldn't have ventured very far from where I was born. Food would be grown locally. I wouldn't have internet, etc. Today I have MUCH more flexibility, but that comes at the price of complexity. I tend to believe the SUV / iPhone argument but think they're pretty terrible examples. All things equal, I could likely maintain the same level of technology and lifestyle as someone 100 years ago on about half my income. It's simply, not our culture, which is in large part driven by consumerism. Even if I WANTED to, most companies wouldn't allow it.
The real question we should be asking ourselves, is do we need the iPhone / SUVs, etc. And if not, why are we working so hard for them?
The film Happiness [1] also explores the work / leisure balance in depth.
This is dead on. Very much reminded me of a slightly sensationalized article I read a number of years ago:
http://cyberstentialism.blogspot.com/2012/08/ten-percent-of-...