Kathy Sierra: Your app makes me fat - <AUTHOR> http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat <comment><USER2> For those people wondering why so many comments here are saying 'Glad to see Kathy blogging again', it's because she stopped blogging in 2007 after getting severely harassed online. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment)

As someone who followed her previous blog 'Creating Passionate Users', I'm really glad she's back writing publicly - not so much for this particular post (which wasn't anything novel), but more that it means her scars have healed enough. Hope to see more posts from her soon!

<comment><USER3> Wow this is appalling. Was it a large-scale campaign or was it all just weev? Disgusting.

<comment><USER4> From what I remember it was just one person who was very persistent, but she found it troubling enough to stop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources.

Like many things in psychology, this is basically unfalsifiable. Our brains have pools of resources? How do you even differentiate between willpower and cognitive processing at a neurological level? It's one model, but there are other equally valid but also unfalsifiable explanations. What about anxiety goes up after working on a hard problem (memorizing a 7-digit number, apparently) - maybe you can test this by measuring cortisol levels - and so you choose the (stereotypically) more satisfying and rewarding dessert (cake) as a form of emotional eating and also, you know, rewarding yourself for a job well done?

I mean, it's basically just saying, "Use your brain, and your brain will get tired. Both solving problems and doing something you don't want to do count as using your brain." Sure, but I hardly need an experiment to tell me that.

Also, what about people who perform better under stress? Since it requires willpower to work hard and meet a deadline, and since the quality of your cognitive processing also goes up (for an initial period), doesn't that defeat the "competing for the same pool of resources" claim?

Psychology is great and a lot of the unfalsifiable stuff is valuable but it's irritating when it's dressed up as science.

<comment><USER6> > How do you even differentiate between willpower and cognitive processing at > a neurological level? It's one model, but there are other equally valid but > also unfalsifiable explanations. What about anxiety goes up after working on > a hard problem

This may matter for _some_ things, such as if you're doing research in the field. But there are plenty of situations where it is irrelevant, such as in the context of this article, where what matters is the overall point:

Added cognitive load has been shown to result in reduced willpower. Whether or not explanation given is correct may be interesting to discuss, but it is not important to the point of the article.

> I mean, it's basically just saying, "Use your brain, and your brain will get > tired. Both solving problems and doing something you don't want to do count > as using your brain." Sure, but I hardly need an experiment to tell me that.

No, it is saying more than that. It also says that exercising willpower affects the same. That is, maintaining decisions that you do want, such as keeping to a diet, is _also_ affected, and so counteracting desires to stick to what you consciously have decided you ant gets progressively harder if you have "used your brain" on pretty anything else.

More importantly, when you say "your brain will get tired", it is misleading: Many people feel energized after spending time thinking about a puzzle, or playing a complicated game, for example. Yet as far as I remember, even when people feel they are relaxing, if they impose cognitive load, those actions will _still_ measurably reduce your willpower for some time afterwards.

You may not have needed an experiment to tell you that, but a lot of people have needed experiments to tell them that.

More people should be aware of that tooo, as it makes a big difference in strategies to ensure you stick to your goals:

For example, you may get better results if you make sure you go to the store when relaxed to reduce the chance of impulse buying stuff that messes up your diet. Many who diet avoid shopping for food when hungry, but few avoid shopping for food when they've spent a lot of time solving problems.

In general, rest before you put yourself in situations that test your willpower, and be aware that playing your favourite mind puzzle game is _not_ the right type of rest, even if it's fun and you feel energized afterwards.

> Also, what about people who perform better under stress? Since it requires > willpower to work hard and meet a deadline, and since the quality of your > cognitive processing also goes up (for an initial period), doesn't that > defeat the "competing for the same pool of resources" claim?

You're making assumptions here that you have not justified: That it requires willpower to work hard and meet a deadline, as opposed to that it can be a total failure of willpower to allow things to wait that long in the first place and be motivated by stress; that the quality of your cognitive processing goes up (as opposed to that you actually sit down and try to do the work). Maybe you're right, but you fall straight into the same trap you accuse the psychologists behind research into willpower of doing: Ignoring other factors like anxiety.

<comment><USER7> > Added cognitive load has been shown to result in reduced willpower.

Has it, though ? What has been shown is that added cognitive load correlates with reduced will power within these experimental conditions.(Edit: Response to comment below, this is wrong)

>You're making assumptions here that you have not justified: That it requires willpower to work hard and meet a deadline, as opposed to that it can be a total failure of willpower to allow things to wait that long in the first place and be motivated by stress

You are saying that it is possible for someone to do quality work in a fit of anxiety and in the absence of will power. This is unfortunately not obvious to me :(

<comment><USER8> Correlates? Are you trying to imply that it's not causation? The experiment randomly assigned people to groups and then increased the cognitive load on one group. Then it found a statistically significant difference between groups in a particular measurement. That's the most basic way of showing cause and effect. Go ahead and talk about how it's not that simple in the real world, but don't imply that such a correlation isn't because of causation.

<comment><USER9> I'm with _foobarbazqux_.

 _The experiment randomly assigned people to groups and then increased the cognitive load on one group. Then it found a statistically significant difference between groups in a particular measurement._

This sentence is true. So as cognitive load increased, there was a significant difference in the choice of the two groups. What it doesn't seem to justify is whether or not it was related to willpower.

We also don't know how many chose cake in group A (2-digit group). If it was two in group A and 3 in group B (the 7-digit group), then there's your 50% increase.

<comment><USER8> First off I'm assuming the experiment wasn't a fraud, and had statistically significant results, so I'm going to ignore that last line unless you have non-theoretical complaints about their statistics.

Now as to your main point, what is willpower other than the applied ability to make good choices in the face of temptation? It's true that if you take this experiment in isolation you can only reasonably extrapolate to food. But that's where you bring in other studies, like the puzzle-solving dogs. The way you could disprove this theory is by doing a few similar tests with other willpower-related choices. Right now the evidence points in a certain way, but it's completely falsifiable and foobarbazqux's argument is an unrelated objection pertaining to where willpower comes from. foobarbazqux is the the one bringing the wishy-washiness into this argument that they blame psychology for.

<comment><USER9> Sure my last line was somewhat facetious but still a valid point - I'd love a link to the paper to draw real conclusions. I think the blog post is a little underwhelming as far as insight into the experiment.

As for the puzzle-solving dog study, I still don't think that implies a willpower/cognitive task difficulty link. It certainly doesn't help prove human decision making. I think we can both assume that humans are slightly more complex.

Finally, I also think linking this to app design is silly at best. But that is completely biased, personal opinion.

<comment><USER5> > I'd love a link to the paper to draw real conclusions

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6125791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6125791)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is so stupid. The experiment can be explained in many different ways and she just picks a trendy one. Another explanation is people who did harder work were more tired and hungry, or felt more like rewarding themselves. I don't particularly favor this explanation; I have no idea what is the right explanation; and that's the point, the experiment doesn't tell us.

She also ignores that for some people it takes more willpower to eat the cake. It can go either way depending on a person's ideas. She just assumes everyone has currently trendy ideas wherein fruit bowls are unpleasant but virtuous and people use willpower to eat them. But many other lifestyles are possible. For example, one might think cake is more delicious but they are scared of getting fat so it requires willpower to enjoy eating it instead of giving in to the fear, whereas the fruit bowl is easy to eat because there's no pressure against it, so it's the easy default.

<comment><USER11> Another example: I am a chocolate lover and would take the fruit, because chocolate cake (especially the free variety) has a tendency of tasting worse than it looks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So happy to see Kathy blogging again! She's always been my favorite tech-UX blogger.

For anyone interested in her prior blog, Creating Passionate Users, I coped with her absence from the blogosphere by curating an e-book with all of my favorite posts.

You can grab a copy here: [http://www.kevinmconroy.com/pdf/creating_passionate_users.pd...](http://www.kevinmconroy.com/pdf/creating_passionate_users.pdf)

<comment><USER13> Thank you! Any chance you could convert your source into an epub (or even mobi, but not so keen on that)?

<comment><USER12> A quick Google search turned up some PDF-to-epub converters. YMMV. I can send you the Word document that I used for this if it's helpful.

<comment><USER14> word to epub is easy -- do that instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is bothering me, but first image is inaccurate. They were asked to memorize a two-digit number (like 17) or a seven-digit number (like 8675309). The image shows 2 two-digit numbers and 7 two-digit numbers. This is important as our working memory capacity has been shown to be about seven digits. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two)

It's a minor detail, but an important one.

EDIT: It looks like the image has been updated. Thanks Kathy!

<comment><USER16> It bothered me a bit too.

What also bothered me was that I'm not sure if the conclusion of the research is correct. At least, from the fact that people who were asked to memorize more, we can't deduce that willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources. The conclusion could be correct (and I confess that I haven't read the paper), but there is one other obvious reason that may be possible.

If I do physical exercise, I have an easier time allowing myself to eat some chocolate. If I work a long day, I have an easier time allowing myself to sit down and watch TV for a while. If I solve a difficult puzzle, I have an easier time allowing myself to do something fun.

I like to believe that this is not the result of my lacking willpower after cognitive processing or physical exercise, but of a moral justification that it related to the quid pro quo principle: if I do something good, I have deserved the right to do something bad.

<comment><USER17> What you described is exactly how lack of will power looks like.

You find rationalization, an argument why it is OK to do something you otherwise would prefer not to do (eat cake, avoid work-out...).

I've always had to pay attention to my weight and the difficult part is persuading yourself not to make an exception no matter how compelling the argument for it looks like (and "deserve" is one of the more difficult ones).

<comment><USER9> It assumes that cake to all participants is decadent and requires willpower. As a college student in my 20s, no amount of food was off limits and therefore I wouldn't have batted an eye at choosing the cake.

I read the results as more of "I completed a hard task therefore I feel it's appropriate choosing the greater reward."

<comment><USER18> If that were true, i don't see any reason why people would ever choose the lesser reward, since both were presented in an equal fashion. They chose fruit because they consider it the healthier alternative, not because it's a more appropriate reward. It really is the case that it's all about our finite capacity of willpower, and how we rationalize it away.

Since realizing a few years ago that willpower is finite and must be periodically recharged i've remapped the way i go about things to remove the possibility for negative choices or to make the right choice require less willpower. For example, when i commit source code the server runs a jshint syntax check and prevents my commit if there are issues. I have no choice but to make all my code pass jshint checks. Another example: recently i noticed i spent a lot of time playing a game that i considered a negative use of my time. In a single limited moment of willpower i deleted it and my savegames, so that it would cost a great deal of effort to get back to where i was. The easiest path now is not to play that game. If only i could do the same thing for my internet addiction :)

<comment><USER9> The problem I have is that 'willpower' is completely subjective and arbitrary. Exerting your willpower is not the same as me exerting mine. Also, your definition of a willpower choice might not be the same to me.

Like I said, in my 20s, food was meaningless. Calories/fat/cholesterol weren't even something I considered. I wasn't overweight due to my high metabolism, so the choice between fruit or cake would be arbitrary. It wouldn't depend on using my brain, it would depend on any number of other factors. To put it simply: if I felt like the fruit, I'd eat the fruit, otherwise cake.

You felt that playing a specific game was a waste of your time and you felt you'd have difficulty in quitting so you made it significantly hard to start again. Someone else might be able to just shut it down, leave it all installed, never go back to it, and, maybe, never even think about it again.

So, unless you know that a person has some reservations about eating cake, it's hard to say whether choosing cake over fruit is a willpower decision. There's an even worse example in the article:

 _Spend hours at work on a tricky design problem? You're more likely to stop at Burger King on the drive home._

Once again, it makes the assumption that stopping off at Burger King is somehow taboo to the person and because they blew a ton of cognitive cycles their willpower is blown. And all this completely inferred by a flawed premise (or at least flawed in how it is presented to us in this blog post).

Let me give a reverse example. I chew my nails, sometimes very badly, and this can get to the point of the skin around the nail as well. It can be pretty painful. I've tried just about everything to quit, yet I've been doing this for at least early middle school. I find that if I can keep myself busy enough, either through work or non-stressful activities, I do not chew my nails (or at least it's minimized. My willpower is low when my cognitive functions are in excess - the exact opposite of what this research and accompanying blog assumes. That is one reason I find it to be somewhat questionable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't get it. How did the first experiment imply anything about willpower?

Seems to me that a viable explanation for the first experiment is that heavy cognitive processing trips some circuitry in the brain that says "We got a lot of work to do. Get me some glucose."

<comment><USER20> The blog post is glossing over the details of the peer-reviewed scientific literature a bit. I'm not sure, but I believe the result has been replicated without food.

On the other hand, I believe there is also a body of more recent research indicating that the "cognitive fuel tank" model is too simplistic to give an accurate description of how it works.

<comment><USER21> A guy went and invented calculus in something like 2009.

It went through peer review process and got praised for being revolutionary.

However the author was a MD.

Peer-reviewed scientific literature means nothing on its own.

<comment><USER20> A single peer-reviewed article means nothing on its own, but a result replicated in many peer-reviewed articles by independent authors over many years starts to mean something. That's generally what people mean when they say that the "peer-reviewed scientific literature" supports a claim or theory.

However, the very common exception is when someone with an agenda abuses the term "peer-reviewed scientific literature" to describe a single article or a string of articles from a single or a few closely-affiliated sources in order to support their agenda. Of course, this is taking advantage of the true meaning of the term. See also "clinically proven".

<comment><USER21> But the example I mentioned resulted in citations. And praise and replications and whatnot.

It was still absurd and should not have happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Truly great to have Kathy back. She gave an awesome talk at BoS 2012 on the "Minimum Badass User" that subsumes this post. Well worth an hour of your life to watch:

[http://businessofsoftware.org/2013/02/kathy-sierra- building-...](http://businessofsoftware.org/2013/02/kathy-sierra-building-the- minimum-badass-user-business-of-software-a-masterclass-in-thinking-about- software-product-development/)

</comment><comment><USER22> "To my readers from long ago: _I 've missed you._ More than you know."

\-- [http://seriouspony.com/about/](http://seriouspony.com/about/)

...

She's back. I'm giddy as a schoolgirl.

</comment><comment><USER23> One thing that troubles me about technological progress is whether we really are making anything better. Sure, we solve one problem... but it creates problems of its own, and exposes previously hidden problems.

I think this article provides something of an answer: work in itself is not a bad thing. It takes effort and concentration - it's _work_ \- but it can be enjoyable, satisfying, meaningful.

But putting in effort that is wasted, by being diverted into tedious, pointless, unnecessarily complex tasks, is a bad thing. It's not enjoyable, not satisfying, not meaningful.

Therefore, any technological progress that reduces that tedium is a good thing (even if it has problems of its own, or exposes other problems, provided net tedium is less).

[I don't think this is the whole answer, but I think it's part of an answer (probably, things like saving lives, health, and somehow enabling people to relate better are more important goals).]

</comment><comment><USER24> My take on this, is that you can create an app/site that is engaging and depletes self/control or willpower and then monetize that at the end by selling cake or equivalent.

Can test if the conversion funnel for cake (or low self-contro) goods) sell more after a more 'intense' work out on the site/app.

<comment><USER25> I don't think that you're being facetious. But I don't care; that's an awesome takeaway. Score one for the Dark Side.

<comment><USER24> Nope, not being facetious, it's a perfectly valid monetization strategy to test and pursue, in some ways, it's similar to a gaming mechanic... spend energy doing things that interest you, then pay to replenish energy, except the energy your depleting is cognitive.

<comment><USER26> In the same way rohypnol is a perfectly valid dating strategy? If the ends justify the means, just about anything is "valid" as long as it achieves the desired result.

<comment><USER24> That's being facetious since you're now using morally questionable examples and rohypnol wouldn't fit the example of buying something that relies on willpower to stop you.

A better example would be, an exam revision/study website that affiliates themselves with energy drinks/bars. There isn't a requirement to buy the energy drinks to continue to use the app, but would be interesting to see if people are more inclined to buy the energy foods.

Alternatively a bakery/cake website, whether they can increase conversions.

<comment><USER26> > _That 's being facetious since you're now using morally questionable > examples_

No, I'm 100% serious. It's morally questionable for the same reason, it just has lots more of that reason: To softly encourage someone to go against their own interest, or to force them, is a difference of degree, not in morality. As Kathy puts it:

      But if it's "content" designed solely to suck people in ("7 ways to be OMG
      awesome!!")  for the chance to "convert", we're hurting people. If we're
      pumping out "content" because frequency, we're hurting people.

> _There isn 't a requirement to buy the energy drinks to continue to use the > app, but would be interesting to see if people are more inclined to buy the > energy foods._

Why not pay breastfeeding mothers to put stickers of Ronald McDonald on their breasts? Wouldn't it be interesting to see if more kids grow up eat at McDonald's a lot?

For more info, search on youtube for "mitchell webb kill the poor"... i.e. just because it's possible, just because it's profitable for YOU, doesn't mean you should do it. Just because you win a little, for a while, doesn't mean zero sum games aren't a waste of time and life in the long run.

Because I know you love my analogies: This is like someone reading Nineteen- Eightyfour as a manual; a tragic waste of a great point made.

> _Alternatively a bakery /cake website, whether they can increase > conversions._

To find ways to make people eat unhealthy, because who cares what suffering (and for those who only understand that: gigantic costs, too) that produces down the road?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not to be too cynical but this really seems like a dangerous insight for people optimizing conversions. Hmm, _everyone_ wants my product but it is wasteful/bad for me/a luxury/etc? Just deplete their ability to resist first. Ooops, someone trying to cancel their subscription? How about a nice maze of forms to get through first?

Anyway, the super cool insight of this article is the relationship between cognitive load and will power. We all knew "try harder" didn't work. Simplify everything else is a way more powerful way to manage your motivation and it makes it super clear that you can really only do a certain number of things. When your motivation turns to procrastination, it isn't some "problem" you are having, it is you simply hitting your cognitive limit for the day/week/month. Awesome.

<comment><USER28> This is of course how sales _actually_ works. That's why there are 700 models of camera -- to get you focused on which one you want, not whether you even need it or if there is a competitor you should look at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yesterday on HN there was a link to this story:

[http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/swimming-in-a- sea...](http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/swimming-in-a-sea-of-shit- the-internets-war-against-creatives)

Which had this quote:

"This isn't something that happens to some people online, it's something that happens to everyone who has ever put any of themselves out there for public consumption."

One thing that has confused me from the beginning, when Sierra first claimed that she had received death threats, was exactly why this story took on the scale that it took on. I recall at the time, of the 100 tech bloggers that I read on a regular basis, this story overshadowed everything else. I recall that previously I had been unsympathetic to Sierra because of the perception that she tended to rely on hyperbole and drama to sell her books. For that reason I was initially skeptical of her claims. Later it turned out that the 4 bloggers who harassed had clearly stepped over some line, and said some things that were at the least, very rude. As I recall, all of them later apologized (all of them were bloggers with some substantial reputations in the world of tech blogs). But given the amount of abuse that happens online on a regular basis, it seemed a little surreal to me that the story reached such a scale.

<comment><USER30> I think it partially exploded because this wasn't some youtube celeb or musician (not that they don't have a right to be harassment free), but a _professional_ blogging about, of all things, _user experience_.

There was quite a bit of 'oh, that happens online in scummy places, but surely not in my community', until people saw some of the things that were said and done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Anecdotal, conjectural, and even the dubious psychological experiments she references are completely misrepresented.

The subjects were told told to memorize a number, and on their way to a different room where they expected to be tested, someone stopped them mid-way and asked them to choose between two snacks -- a fruit salad and a cake. The people who had been told to memorize many digits didn't choose the healthy snack as frequent as the people who had been told to memorize few digits (and, presumably, could focus on which choice they really preferred).

It tries to convey "common sense" concepts, using conjecture and complicated constructs. It hurts my brain when I try to understand what is meant by "to use up cognitive resources". The more convoluted an explanation is, the less I feel it has been understood by the person explaining it. I have a strong distaste for psychology terms that add depth, but not clarity, as if trying to validate and give authority to the field or explanation.

A bit ironic for an article trying to explain the concept of "minimizing drainage of the cognitive tank" (to paraphrase).

So, what is this article really about? This -- [http://www.amazon.com/Dont- Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/032134...](http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me- Think-Usability/dp/0321344758).

</comment><comment><USER32> "The participants who memorized the seven-digit number were nearly 50% more likely than the other group to choose cake over fruit.

Researchers were astonished by a pile of experiments that led to one bizarre conclusion:

Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources."

Bizarre, all right. Unless the subjects were wrestlers or models, why should the choice of fruit v. cake involve self control at all? If you wished to argue that they thought they deserved more of a reward, I might be willing to consider that.

And are we talking about seven numbers vs. two numbers (as in the illustration) or seven-digit number v. two-digit numbers, as in the text?

<comment><USER33> The more obvious conclusion, to me, is that people prefer energy-rich foods after expending more mental energy. Our brain is a major energy sink, as it consumes about 20% of our body's energy.

I'm pretty sure that after I've been thinking hard, I prefer to eat energy rich foods. Of course, as with anything related to the brain, since we understand it so poorly it's hard to say if either hypothesis is really true.

<comment><USER6> You get the same results without having people make food related decisions, and I believe there are experiments that have explicitly looked at the link to energy usage and found it entirely unconvincing at best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Now take it one step further, not just your UI, that's peanuts next to that big elephant in the room. Each ad you make me watch, requires a little bit of my willpower. I have to ignore its message, resist clicking on that nice looking lady. Your ad based revenue model is making me fat way faster than your UI will ever be able to do.

</comment><comment><USER35> So nice to have Kathy Sierra back blogging. I've missed her!

</comment><comment><USER36> _" Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources."_

I don't see how that follows from the the memorization experiment. Maybe the people who could remember 7 items felt they worked hard so they deserved to be rewarded with a chocolate cake.

<comment><USER37> > Maybe the people who could remember 7 items felt they worked hard so they > deserved to be rewarded with a chocolate cake.

That would be what depleted willpower feels like, assuming you like chocolate cake and prefer it over the other option. Depleted willpower doesn't really feel like much in itself, just an increased likelihood of thinking "oh wow, chocolate cake" over "cake? doesn't fit my macros".

<comment><USER38> How do we know it's not an increased sense of entitlement rather than a reduction of willpower?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I love pretty much any time Kathy Sierra writes. So ditto here, I'm glad to read it.

As for the willpower situation, on a tangent, I really believe that the notion of willpower as a useful ANYTHING is outdated and badly needs to be replaced.

The reality is we are smart people who understand our brains, and can reprogram it. Using emotions and basic urges to create motivations and positive feelings about the things we NEED to do but typically dislike doing is the key here.

Luckily there is a group that is teaching these skills outside the normal context of "self help" that turns off oh-so many people.

<comment><USER6> > The reality is we are smart people who understand our brains

I see extremely little evidence of that. Most people are clueless about even the basics of how their mind responds to various stimuli - even the things that are "obvious" with some self observation. Few know what current research results say about it. And even many of those who do know still fail to consistently apply it, because the body is pretty damn good at circumventing our decision making process by pumping the right chemicals.

<comment><USER39> I think as a species we have a fairly good understanding, but as they say, the future is here, but it just isn't uniformly here yet.

Here's to the future! _clink_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Statistically caught correlation does not imply the assusmed causation you wish to "prove".

The guys who memorize numbers might associate a cake with a reward and choose it just in order to reward oneself for a meaningless and boring waste of time they choose by mistake, while in 2 digits group it wasn't counted even as a joke.

As for willpower/self-control - hormonal levels are almost always the major factors. Just do the silly experiments which are "considered unethical" involving "images from those magazines" and you will notice lots of correlations.)

The famous experiment with tape-recorded heart-beats is the beautiful one.

Again, trying to find a single cause in psychology is kind of naive. The theoretical framework advocated by Marvin Minsky of constant competition of multitude of semi-independent agencies (specialized regions of the brain) helps to develop the notion of multiple causation.

My guess is that if one would nail a poster of a fit bikini girl to a wall, the number of cakes chosen will be reduced dramatically, everything else being equal.

But for a pony psychology the article is perfectly OK.)

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't think the logic is sound. The psychological finding she's applying is that willpower is a finite cognitive resource. It isn't sound to apply that finding to all decisions you make while using an app -- only the decisions that involve willpower. She generalizes to _all_ cognitive resources being finite...

 _If your UX asks the user to make choices, for example, even if those choices are both clear and useful, the act of deciding is a cognitive drain. And not just while they 're deciding... even after we choose, an unconscious cognitive background thread is slowly consuming/leaking resources, "Was that the right choice?" _

... which sounds plausible and may well be true, but is much more general than the result she's building on.

I'm inclined to think she's right, though. It would be interesting to know if the psychological research has already been done. The willpower results are only well-publicized because people have a compelling personal interest in it.

</comment><comment><USER42> That's pretty neat. I understand why so many folks reject the claims here, but the observation itself is very interesting.

It certainly seems that highly successful, highly visible people (creatives, executives, politicians) tend, disproportionally, to exhibit behavioral problems (addiction, suicide, etc.) I don't know if it really _is_ disproportionate, but if so, is it related to their exertion, or depletion, as the author puts is? Is it the visibility and the accompanying scrutiny? Maybe it's the other way around, and the underlying psychological makeup propels short-term performance.

Very interesting stuff, especially in context of burn-out.

</comment><comment><USER43> For those interested in this topic, Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking, fast and slow" is an excellent resource. He refers to 2 systems in our brain, and how they interplay when making everyday decisions. Fascinating read.

</comment><comment><USER44> Sadly, when it comes to app reviews from tech blogs and publications, the cognitive load placed on the user is rarely ever noticed or highlighted, unless it's so high that it's unbearable. Instead, apps often get bonus points for eye candy and gratuitous, but cool-looking animation. Nobody ever writes "wow, I got a bunch of things done and I didn't even notice the interface details."

This is particularly bad in the geek community, as we are used to high cognitive load (configuring X anyone?), and so we brush off any complaints about it as "stupid" or "computer illiterate."

One early app example is all the gas mileage tracking apps. Damn near every one of them in the early iPhone days had the spinning odometer control and the spinning gas number controls (where you spin each number up and down, like a key combo). I recall being infuriated by those designs, because all I really wanted to do was to quickly enter the odometer or the gallons and dealing with spinning those damn digits was NOT at all quick. Compared to the effortless/mindless act of typing into a digit keypad, spinner controls required much more cognitive load (did I spin too fast, will it go too far? Let me catch it at the right digit. Which digit do I need to push up or down to make it match what's on my real odo?).

<comment><USER45> Well, yeah but... no. Cognitive load is not really about speed or animation taking up time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Like the other commenters, so glad that Kathy is blogging again.

That being said, I am glad that she has finally verbalized what I have always felt.

As the only person running 5KMVP, I have always found that it is hard for me to do things like marketing, and customer relations/support on the same day I do development.

That would also negatively impact my performance of both.

But now that I have people working with, I can concentrate on interacting with my clients without feeling guilty (i.e. knowing that the rest of my day is dead, from a development perspective).

Also, this explains the logic behind Steve Jobs always choosing a black turtleneck, blue jeans and sneakers. If he has 1 less thing to make a decision about, his life is much easier. I have recently adopted that, and am trying to simplify my wardrobe as much as I can.

This also impacts how I schedule 'outside' events. If I have to go to an event outside of the house, that usually means no coding for me on that day. I can't quite explain why - other than the mere fact that I know I have to go out, is enough of a distraction to make me not be able to 'get into the zone'. Glad to know that I am not deficient in anyway, and it is just being depleted from the same 'cognitive tank'.

</comment><comment><USER47> A bit off-topic, but it aligns with why I find daily standups to be a soul- crushing waste of time. Scrum Master Jar Jar ([http://softwaremaestro.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/scrum- master...](http://softwaremaestro.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/scrum-master-jar- jar/)) went into more detail as to why Scrum is usually run this way, but just sayin'...

</comment><comment><USER48> Perhaps the conclusions drawn by the experiment (if they are correctly paraphrased in the post; I didn't read the full paper yet: [http://www.d.umn.edu/~dglisczi/4501web/4501Readings/Shiv(199...](http://www.d.umn.edu/~dglisczi/4501web/4501Readings/Shiv\(1999\)FruitOrCake.pdf)) are valid but I think it would be pertinent to consider that perhaps rather than being 'cognitively taxed', those 7-number participants simply felt that they worked harder and therefore deserved a better prize. I often find myself making similar justifications if I've pushed myself hard in a workout or followed my diet faithfully.

It would be interesting to see an experiment that 'cognitively taxes' participants by having them perform a task that is not considered positive. Memorizing a number elicits a feeling of accomplishment that may contribute to the justification I described above.

<comment><USER6> > those 7-number participants simply felt that they worked harder and > therefore deserved a better prize.

That is exactly how you expect reduced willpower to play out in practice in a situation where people are forced to make a conscious choice (as opposed to just absent-mindedly picking something). Nobody "just" takes the option that is counter to their long term goals, they rationalise the choice either then and there or afterwards, and rationalisations that we "deserve" something or are morally justified are amongst the easiest for us to grab onto.

<comment><USER48> I'm not sure whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This is fascinating. For those that are interested, Daniel Kahneman discusses this in 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' too:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow)

What I would like to know is how can we _grow_ this limited resource?

<comment><USER50> I'm reading that book right now and I absolutely love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> While I agree with the thesis, a contradictory point comes to mind.

We just don't know a lot about how cognitive resources are utilized. Long distance runners know this. Athletes know this. The whole concept of "second wind". Where they find the strength to better their game using way less resources -- after they have been tired. Some type of cognitive resource depletion gives people even more energy and motivation.

While I agree that things should be made simpler and we shouldn't over-gamify things, I don't think we should make decisions with the cake / fruits question in mind. That just provides a framework to dumb things down. We will never enable the users to hit their second wind if they never get tasks that make them crave cakes.

I guess my point is: simplicity is good. Simplicity to the point of dumbness is not.

<comment><USER52> Also, another important thing to realize is: Simplicity is ambiguous and highly dependent on the target group. Or, put in other words, certain choices that might look hard or certain mechanisms that look complicated might end up being simple.

For example, in a small project, the simplest possible solution for a problem was to throw the full power of regexes at the user. Why? Because the audience was a number of developers who knew regexes and they needed the ability to match some strings.

In a similar vein, if my mom is cooking, it is actually simpler if the recipe doesn't give her a billion choices how to do a simple step, just tell her that one step. She'll do it the way she likes.

So, simplicity is actually pretty complicated, and removing the wrong choices and possibilities might make your program a lot harder to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Anecdotal evidence is not scientific, but this makes a lot of sense in the context of my life. At work, when I hit a tough problem, I'm much more likely to tab over to HN or reddit, yet I've found that somehow I manage to hit the deadlines at the same pace regardless of how much I force myself to focus.

I do think though while you might be drawing from one 'pool', it's a pool that you can work to expand. To me this seems to be the same vein of psychology that makes ADHD medicine ineffective for kids on the long term. There's one pool of resources you are drawing from but like muscular strength you aren't doomed to your current limits.

<comment><USER54> Yes! My pool was quite drained 1 or 2 years ago, but I managed to enlarge it by taking longer breaks, shutting down completely on weekends, eliminating foods I'm intolerant to (gluten & lactose inflame my gut pretty quickly), introducing intermittent fasting (no food until noon), adding fish oil and vit D, switching from cardio to HIIT workouts, and keeping caffeine intake constant. I can now be highly productive for at least 7-8h per day, and then still focus on my family (vs turning into a couch zombie). Lack of sleep (< 6h; optimum is 8h) still kills me though.

I think intermittent fasting and fish oil did the most for me in this regard. Since quality of sleep is really important to my focus, it might be worth mentioning that zinc supplements do a lot for me here (but at least this remedy is purely anecdotal).

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why is this considered the moral responsibility of the app creator and not the consumer? Seems to be a highly immature viewpoint where the consumer doesn't take responsibility for how they live their life.

</comment><comment><USER56> Dan Ariely's Coursera on Irrational Behavior spent much time on current research in these areas. Very interesting (and a good/fun course, should it come around again).

</comment><comment><USER57> What a lame article. I know so many people are praising the author here and happy for her 'return', but if this has always been the quality of her writing, I'm not impressed. Not the mobile app, but any kind of thinking or stress will reduce your will power, and thus according to you is making you fat. So you might as well stop thinking. Or, on other side, do diet control and exercise. 2nd option is wise, according to me.

</comment><comment><USER58> Based on this I would think that the conversion rate on the TURBOTAX offer to subtract the cost of the service from your return for a HUGE 100% fee (meaning the cost of that method of payment is as much as the tax service itself) but allows you to skip the entering of your CC information, given that it comes at the end of doing your taxes, is probably pretty high. They should try a cake add on.

</comment><comment><USER59> Sitting all day on a chair, then going home to sit in front of a TV makes you fat, not exercising willpower and using your brain...

</comment><comment><USER60> Actually the the app doesn't make you fat. The resource that is burned is sugar. To replenish it you need one piece of candy. After which you'll be as able to make decisions as you ever was. (But Burger king won't tell you, since they don't make money from candy.)

</comment><comment><USER61> Having a user expend more cognitive energy on my app (as long as I'm not frustrating them), sounds like a good thing. It sounds like another way for them to bond. Seems like I'd rather it be my app them my competition's.

</comment><comment><USER62> I always knew that thinking a lot made me hungry. And tired. Mental work is quite as tiring to the mind as physical work is to the body and muscles. The article is well written, but I found nothing particularly new in that viewpoint.

</comment><comment><USER23>
      If you spend the day exercising self-control (angry customers, clueless co-workers),
      by the time you get home your cog resource tank is flashing E.

The _Linus solution_ becomes increasingly appealing...

</comment><comment><USER63> This is definitely very interesting. In the long run however, I think self- control/willpower works in unison with cognitive abilities, as another famous experiment -- the Marshmallow experiment, tends to conclude.

</comment><comment><USER64> She's back, the article's great, all is right with the world. Let's read the first comment... oh.

Seriously, I thought the article was great. It would be great even if it wasn't written by Kathy Sierra.

</comment><comment><USER65> There's so many articles full of analogies and fluff in UX, sometimes I read a post and wonder if I'm in the same industry.

</comment><comment><USER66> Anyone notice hitting the escape key sends you to a squarespace login screen? Seems like an odd thing to have turned on by default.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'd guess terminal users consume more cognitive resources than GUI users. Are they on average fatter than the latter?

Just a speculation.

<comment><USER68> Why do you guess that? I don't think there is any correlation between GUI vs terminal and cognitive load. There are simple terminal apps, and simple GUI apps. There are also complex and difficult to use terminal apps and GUI apps.

<comment><USER67> Fair point. I also remembered Robe Pike's paper:

[http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/unix_prog_design.pdf](http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/unix_prog_design.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I'm a fan too! I was extremely happy when I saw that she is writing again. Looking forward for more.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm glad she's back. I always enjoyed reading her articles back when blogs were new.

</comment><comment><USER71> Grad students and dogs, sure. But how do we know these findings apply to humans?

</comment><comment><USER72> Now I know why my dog stopped working on his Kong... he's spoiled!</comment>


Google Begins Rolling Out Google Play Music Family Plan - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/09/google-begins-rolling-out-google-play-music-family-plan-14-99-for-up-to-6-people/ <comment><USER2> Sigh.

Yet another service not available to Google Hosted domains.

I run my own domain, happily pay for it, for 1TB of storage for Photos, for Google Play Music, for apps, for films.

But yet constantly excluded from some services and features, and never knowing whether some features will even come to my account.

Seemingly all because I wanted to keep the same email I've had since 1997.

They could easily add this capability, default disabled, to the domain management page.

Edit: Has anyone tried it the other way around? What if I associate my credit card to my wife's regular gmail account and get the family plan there, could we add accounts that belong to Google Hosted domains to a family created via gmail? Or is the definition of family purely gmail users?

<comment><USER3> It's gotten so that any time I see something new from Google, the first thing I do is check if I can even use it. Often I am disappointed. I still can't use Fi, and Google Now is almost useless because it refuses to use my email to customize itself.

<comment><USER4> It is possible to get full Google Now functionality in a Google Apps domain.

Go to the Google Apps Admin Console ([https://admin.google.com/AdminHome](https://admin.google.com/AdminHome)).

Navigate to Apps > Additional Google Services

You'll see a gray bar at the top of the screen ("Filter: Top featured services"). Click the "X" on the top right to disable that filter.

Scroll down to "Web History" and select "On for everyone."

Each user may then need to also enable Web History for his or her own account ([https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory/search](https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory/search)).

No, it shouldn't be that hard, but, yes, that will work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google Play Music, YouTube Red and YouTube Music is my favorite service.

I have tried Spotify and Amazon and others. Google has two killer features.

1) I can upload my own music (20,000 songs) for free and stream for free. I have eclectic taste and some of my music isn't in the 35 million songs available.

2) The YouTube (Red (no ads), Music and Gaming) really are great on mobile.

<comment><USER6> What made you decide to purchase YouTube Red? How much YouTube content do you watch?

<comment><USER7> You get a YouTube Red subscription free with Google Play Music. YouTube Red changed how I listen to music, now I just leave YouTube playlists playing in the background - whereas before with ads it was unbearable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yet another service not available to Google Apps users. :/

"You can only set up a family group with a personal Google Account, not a Google for Work or Google for Education account"

<comment><USER9> It's a family plan...? Why would you expect to be able to use a Google for Work or Google for Education account?

<comment><USER10> Many such accounts are used by individuals for personal purposes. It's the only non-hokey way to use Gmail with a vanity domain.

By now, many of us have app and content purchases tied to those accounts, and migrating from Gmail/Drive/Photos isn't practical, so we're stuck getting new Google features later or never.

<comment><USER11> Is forwarding mail to your personal gmail account from the domain registrar, postfix, or whatever else you use considered hokey? It works really nice in all instances I've done that. It even replys from the same address mail was sent to once you verify you own the email address.

<comment><USER12> Forwarding to gmail often ends up with the forwarding mail server getting blocked from gmail, because you end up forwarding spam you've been sent as well.

<comment><USER13> In my Google Apps control panel I can declare a "gateway" where mail will come from which avoids this: [https://support.google.com/a/answer/60730?hl=en](https://support.google.com/a/answer/60730?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone have insight into Google's strategy on all these subscription services?

Is it to legitimize previous tech endeavors to make sure they're sustainable in the long term? Does Google forecast subscription services will make up a sizable portion of revenue in the future? Is the experience better at Google than anywhere else due to the vast amount of data and new technology being created everyday?

I'm not sure I totally get it yet because the revenue Google stands to capture in these markets feels incremental compared to their main advertising and marketing businesses.

<comment><USER15> With ad revenues drying up (Adblock, general lack to interest to ads) Google is forced to look at other avenues to make money and selling stuff to people is a great way for that.

<comment><USER16> > With ad revenues drying up

Haven't their revenues been going up despite the CPC going down?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> $14.99 for 6 people is a great price. But not really for 2 people. I have spotify and I love it, but I've been wanting to switch to google music for a while because I already store my music there. With spotify I can share my premium account with my spouse. You can't use it at the same time, but that rarely ever happens. It's just 2 of us. And when it does happen I can just download what I want to hear and then go on offline mode. I also like the spotify app. It's easy to use.

The problem with google music (or google in general) is that they can't just be happy with an UI, and so their UI changes constantly which make it for a poor user experience. Plus, I can't just give my spouse my account because that means I am giving all of my google services accounts.

<comment><USER18> _$14.99 for 6 people is a great price. But not really for 2 people. I have spotify_

It's better than the price for Spotify, at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> $15/mo for six users is actually a really great deal - That works out to $2.50/person/mo. I honestly wasn't expecting anything this great.

<comment><USER20> It's the same deal Apple Music offers, so it should not be so surprising.

<comment><USER21> Which is why I do get the excitement. Are their selection much bigger?

<comment><USER22> Roughly about the same.

Ad-free YouTube music fills in any gaps. The only thing really lacking is niche music like Immediate Music's back catalogue (since they aren't working with a major record label).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yet the UI for Google Play Music is atrocious. People I give it to that aren't familiar take forever. Myself, despite using it all the time (earphones, casting, car BT) find it frustrating. Hit back a few times no woops too many, OK now I can swipe out the menu and select my library and deal with the ridiculous amounts of scrolling. Sigh.

The hilarious thing is their Wikipedia scraping. Every time I select an artist I'm treated to some lame-style photo, and half the screen gets to tell me "Nirvana was a grunge band from Aberdeen with Kurt.....". Gee thanks Google, that was worth complicating the UI.

Playlist management is also worse than Windows Media Player. Like, how do you get that wrong?

This deal is sweet and I'd buy today, but Google is psycho when it comes to regions. Since it randomly thinks I'm in France or Hungary when in Denver, plus I travel between Canada and Guatemala, my guess is that features will randomly stop working or switch language. Otherwise, cool.

<comment><USER24> Google Music has 3 features that make music playing / discovery light years better than my experience with Apple Music and better than Spotify (I'm a paying Apple Music customer now): 1\. Songza playlists - the playlists for mood and activity are far more detailed for categories outside of pop and hip- hop. 2\. Easily start a radio station from any song or artist. 3\. Catalog. With Youtube Red included nearly every background beat, live show, demo, etc. recorded is now available to listen to with excellent search capabilities. Hopefully eventually mixing and matching GPM and Youtube playlists will happen - but its not a huge problem.

Apple Music has better artist descriptions and artwork - and I like that they and Spotify display the full album cover when playing on mobile. Apple's focus on hip-hop and pop though really hurts discovery and UX for those without those focuses.

<comment><USER23> Yeah they certainly prioritize "discovery" and their radio-ish stuff (which is intermittently available, even when I haven't moved location). Unfortunately, I hate radio, and am not much for "discovery". I just want to quickly access my current library. The fact that Windows Media Player is significantly better at this than Play Music is sad.

(It's really annoying in a car. I pull over, but I wanna be fast. Google Now is hit or miss if it'll properly play. Sometimes it just searches. Sometimes it plays off of YouTube. Etc. You'd think by now they could get this basic flow down, without harming their neato stuff I don't want.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Where can you sign up? I tried on the page linked from the blog. I tried from the Google Play app on my old Nexus 5.

Maybe I haven't had enough coffee this morning?

<comment><USER26> in the google music app, not play, go to the hamburger menu -> settings. Should be at the top under the account section, you may need to hit the refresh button under the same the section.

<comment><USER25> Thanks. The problem was that I had to click on "Free plan" when I was looking for subscribe. It's great that they give 30 days free but that's not what I was looking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Do we know what the deal is with uploading music? Can I upload music for just me or does my family have to share the 20k song limit? I'm not even sure which version of this I would prefer. I know between us we have more than 20k songs we'd upload, but we also could probably get by with being more selective about uploads because I've certainly uploaded some dupes.

</comment><comment><USER28> US only.

<comment><USER29> It's actually US, Canada, the UK, Australia, France and Germany.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I got a similar offer from Spotify this week!

</comment><comment><USER31> that's a good move!

</comment><comment><USER32> Spotify does not have family plan ? Such a bullshit - [http://i.imgur.com/BGhi6uk.png](http://i.imgur.com/BGhi6uk.png). This is what I call paid article. Good job, TechMunch.

<comment><USER33> Why was this comment flagged? It contains factual criticism and provides even sources for why a statement given in the article is wrong.

That's most definitely "contributing to discussion".

<comment><USER34> They don't offer this plan in the US, which is the only place this GPM subscription is available, so it isn't relevant to the discussion, and the tone is unnecessarily hostile to boot.

<comment><USER33> Oh, GPM is US-Only? That's seriously annoying.

I agree with you about the tone, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> When will they start selling music in FLAC?

<comment><USER36> When our ears evolve to support such formats.

<comment><USER35> You don't need FLAC for listening. It's needed for storing master copies and encoding to other codecs when you need to. Same feature that audio CDs always offered, and which was gutted by services which only provide some lossy codec as an option.

<comment><USER36> Isn't google play music a streaming service though? It really doesn't seem like the place for that.

<comment><USER35> What stops them from offering an option to get files as well? I always prefer to have my music backed up and available on my devices without relying on any cloud services.

I view streaming as a convenience, and not as an approach that requires one to forgo having a DRM-free backup.

<comment><USER18> _What stops them from offering an option to get files as well?_

Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. If you cancel your subscription you'll lose whatever you have downloaded. Offering you a file you can easily convert into a different format would break that pretty comprehensively.

<comment><USER35> _> Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files._

And why is that exactly?

 _> Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files._

Not sure what they gain by it. I prefer to buy and keep what I bought. Not really interested in renting digital goods. That's why I'm not using Google Play and similar stores for music. Bandcamp offers DRM-free music in FLAC for example, and there once you buy it - you keep it.

<comment><USER37> > > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files.

> And why is that exactly?

As untog says: "Because it is a streaming service, not a download service."

People make a fair bit of money on software and services that attempt (with varying degrees of success) to automate music industry billing. Music industry billing is complicated because music industry licensing is (needlessly) complicated.

Streaming services typically have substantially different royalty rates than services that make it easy to save a copy of a given audio file. What's more, the license is very likely to have reporting requirements attached to it, along with different rates for partial plays and the like. These rates and reporting requirements may vary wildly from song to song and from album to album.

Have you ever wondered why there isn't _one_ audio and _one_ video streaming site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on the Internet?

It's because

* The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash.

* As Big Music learned from Apple, permitting a single entity to distribute pretty much all of your product _substantially_ reduces Big Media's negotiating power. [0] This means that Big Media makes less money and... refer back to point #1.

[0] Being able to credibly threaten to remove something from the catalog, or be a gigantic ass and demand _substantially_ more money for an entire album, rather than " _most_ of the album, _except_ for those couple of songs that are _really_ good" helps to keep their rates high.

<comment><USER35> _> Have you ever wondered why there isn't one audio and one video streaming site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on the Internet?_

I indeed wondered about that :) All those release limitations always looked stupid to me.

 _> The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash._

They are just blind with their thirst for control, which outweighs their thirst for money. They are losing money on making things harder for their users. For instance DRM means lost sales for them. Same goes for fractured releases and poor availability of what they offer. They might gain some power to tell who can get what, where and when, while in practice they reduce reach of what they make which means less profit.

Avoiding too much distributor's leverage can be an issue if there is only one distributor or some collusion between them. If there is healthy competition, they can always ditch one and chose a competitor which balances this issue. In a healthy market, creators should distribute all their content through all available distributors.

<comment><USER37> Whatever theoretical money they _definitely_ lose through their control-freak tendencies is small potatoes compared to the unending money stream that their lust for control all-but-guarantees them. I get your point, and it's a very valid point, but they _already_ make shitloads of cash, their RoI is _huge_ , they -collectively- control and maintain the rights to a really rather good golden goose, and they are _still_ good at acquiring and securing the rights to _new_ stuff that is in demand (whether manufactured or genuine).

> If there is healthy competition, they can always ditch one and chose a > competitor which balances this issue. In a healthy market, creators should > distribute all their content through all available distributors.

Perhaps my brain is poisoned by looking at this through the eyes of Big Media. How would this work? Remember a few things:

* There _really_ aren't that many companies in Big Media, but they've managed to amass _quite_ a lot of power, and influence, and a _fair_ bit of money.

* If all media that is made available is made available through all channels at the same wholesale price, then retail sellers can only distinguish themselves through ease of use, lower overhead (which enables lower retail price), or other "value-adding" things like social networking integration.

What's to prevent the five or ten _real_ media distribution heavyweights that would inevitably emerge from doing the _very_ same thing that Big Media currently does to _everyone_ : using strong-arm tactics and back-room collusion to keep Big Media weak and in a position where the _distributors_ set the price?

<comment><USER35> _> they already make shitloads of cash_

And I don't understand why they wouldn't to make more. Removing all those pesky restrictions would just give them even more sales than they already get. All I can guess is like I said above - they value control over reach and profit (calling them control freaks was very appropriate ;)).

 _> Perhaps my brain is poisoned by looking at this through the eyes of Big Media. How would this work?_

I'm looking at it simply from perspective of potential creator. Most of the time I personally don't care about "big media" and its dull commercial mass market art. But going back to creators - for me it seems pretty simple. Let's say someone wrote music, a book or made a film or computer game or whatever other artistic work. They need to break even and profit to be able to create more art. So, the way the do it is by reaching as many people as possible, right? And distributors come in play and help them to increase that reach. The more distributors they use, the more potential people they'll reach. Any kind of exclusives would mean lower reach for them. Pretty straightforward, no?

 _> If all media that is made available is made available through all channels at the same wholesale price, then retail sellers can only distinguish themselves through ease of use, lower overhead (which enables lower retail price), or other "value-adding" things like social networking integration._

Distributors can compete on features like you said. Exclusives of course give them an advantage, but only they benefit. It hurts both creators and people who are forced to use certain distributor to get what they want. For instance, many computer games (which is probably one of the most successful art forms for independent creators today) are released through as many distributors as possible, obviously to increase reach.

 _> What's to prevent the five or ten real media distribution heavyweights that would inevitably emerge from doing the very same thing that Big Media currently does to everyone: using strong-arm tactics and back-room collusion to keep Big Media weak and in a position where the distributors set the price?_

Good question. In theory competition + anti-trust laws should prevent that. Collusion and price fixing are really illegal. But if competition is strong, they won't be interested in doing it anyway. In practice I agree that anti- trust laws are rarely enforced, and bad players manipulate the market way too often.

<comment><USER37> > And I don't understand why they wouldn't to make more.

In the long run, the industry as a whole _might_ make more money, but it's certain that each individual company wouldn't.

As you say, investigations into collusion and price fixing are substantially more rare than they should be. If Big Media loses the ability to refuse to grant parts of their catalog to one distributor or another, enough distributors to matter can easily band together to force reductions in media licensing fees.

> I'm looking at it simply from perspective of potential creator.

Ah. Well, that (in all seriousness) is a useful and valid conversation to have, but you asked why a site that streamed media controlled by Big Media wouldn't do the obvious thing and let you download what you stream. The answer is that Big Media won't let them; sometimes under any circumstances, other times unless the site pays a _lot_ more than they pay for just streaming rights.

I agree that the state of Big Media's licensing regime is really _rather_ bad for society overall, but it's _fantastically_ good for Big Media.

<comment><USER35> Big media control over creators is gradually eroding with crowdfunding providing more independence for creators. But as long as people support bad practices with their money (i.e. buy stuff from DRMed services and the like) they'll of course feed the machine :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


12 Steps To Sucking Less - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelrunyon.com/two3/twelve-steps-to-sucking-less

<comment><USER2> You're right, outlasting everyone is a way to suck less. But it's not a real way to be the best. Being the best and sucking less have similar starting steps but very different ending steps. Where you stop on your list and write "repeat" is where the journey to being the best just begins.

I don't know about you, but I never want to just be mediocre. I want to be really damn good at whatever it is I try. Even knowing that one of the greats could "come out of retirement" and still out-do me is not good enough for me. That's just patience resulting in complacency and mediocrity.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think we agree, but are just missing on semantics. What I mean is that once you get to a level of mediocrity, there's a whole new level of things for you to try out and suck at. Most of these you're not able to try at from the start or you're not ready to try at the start, but as you grow and become mediocre, you can start to reach a little higher.

If you repeat this enough times, you'll outlast enough people to the point where you're pretty _damn good_ at something.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I agree with that :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> See <http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/graphics.html>

"The road to wisdom? Well its plain and simple to express - err and err and err again. But less and less and less" (Piet Hein)</comment>


Ask HN: Can those good at writing be good at programming? - happy-go-lucky I've seen those good at writing get better at it after getting into programming. Also, I've seen some learn or begin to write sufficiently well after they've been programmers for a while. <comment><AUTHOR> Yes, of course. I consider myself good at both. Both practices have the same foundation, at least in my case: organized thought and the concise & illustrative expression of complex ideas. When I am writing or programming, my mental experience of the activity feels the same, like the same parts of my brain are working during both.

<comment> happy-go-lucky I feel likewise.

</comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky Is there a phrase used in programming communities that is similar to _writer 's block_?

<comment><USER2> In programming, is it more a logic block than a block based on fear, such as "writer's block"?

<comment> happy-go-lucky I think it's more a logic block. When I experience it, sometimes my subconscious helps me unblock it while my body continues to sleep :)

<comment><USER2> walking away from the problem...sleep, shower, some activity that flushes the mind, is a great way to overcome a block, be it programming or creative.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: NoChan, Realtime Board in node.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.nochan.fr

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a pet project I have been working on occasionally for quite some time. It's actually a chat where users can share files in realtime: file stream is available for every users of a room as soon as the upload starts. This allow some cool features such as movie streaming!

nochan.fr is currently running on 3 medium servers (hope it will handle the load)

Sources can be found at: <https://github.com/Tug/nochan>

Feedback is appreciated :)

</comment><comment><USER2> Ok a few remarks: \- You should add sound and/or desktop notifications. \- it sometimes causes flash plugin crash \- not important : the design is way too basic and there is no way to understand how it works if you didn't explain it here.

Nice project though.</comment>


Why pornographers no longer love the web - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/17046637 <comment><USER2> I used to work at a large porn company, and the porn industry has been hurting for a long time. They're completely reliant on affiliate traffic (usually paying 60-70% revenue share), because the online porn industry is so competitive that it's extremely difficult or impossible to generate your own traffic.

It's gotten so bad that porn sites are now giving content to the tube sites with affiliate links, in hopes of mitigating losses.

When I worked at that company, I made an "iTunes Store for porn" that did very well on launch, selling full non-DRM scenes for $1.99 each [1]. We even had companies like Hustler, Vivid, and Playboy desperately wanting to get their content into it (they're great at selling DVDs but never quite got the hang of online porn). Unfortunately, I never got the marketing support or budget I needed to keep it going, and the management wanted to keep it exclusive to our brand, so it died off pretty quickly.

It's a shame, I think it could have completely revitalized a struggling industry ("The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it"). I would love to build something like it again, but unfortunately it would be pretty difficult without the resources or industry connections I had while working there.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2008/10/08/come-and-get-it-naughty- ame...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/10/08/come-and-get-it-naughty-america-is- building-an-itunes-for-porn/)

<comment><USER3> > _I used to work at a large porn company, and the porn industry has been > hurting for a long time._

That had to be intentional.

On another note, what insight did your market research yield with regards to the store? I would assume that a lot of people would be turned away at the prospect of porn-related services showing up in their credit card statement, just to name one assumption.

The online porn business actually makes for an interesting study, come to think of it.

<comment><USER4> For the record, almost every business of a sensitive nature uses a bland, nondescript name for the credit card statement and mentions it in big print in their checkout. This obviously increases chargebacks substantially, but it's standard practice so I would imagine is well worth the cost.

<comment><USER2> It actually decreases chargebacks from what I've seen, because most chargebacks (aside from stolen credit cards) come from significant others discovering the charges. The purchaser says "huh, no idea what that is", and the significant other saya "well call the credit card company and charge it back". Then the purchaser is forced to lie to their credit card company and say that they never authorized those purchases.

<comment><USER5> That's what digital cash money are good for. Unfortunately, there are no porn provider who would willingly accept an unknown cryptocurrency called bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reporter seems confused.

1\. Craigslist is NOT a pornographer, so talking about the voluntary (and not for lack of users) removal of their adult section doesn't make sense.

2\. I think we all understand that at any time some websites will be shrinking, if we're going to talk about pornographers as a whole let's see some statistics about pornographers as a whole.

3\. I would be very interested to know which sites are growing and which are shrinking. My guess is that themed sites are loving all the piracy, because some percentage of customers will want to see more of the same. Random porn scrapyards are probably getting it the worst, because that's exactly what's being offered for free.

-wfg

<comment><USER7> In regards to #1, I think you read the article wrong.

These are tough times _for peddlers of e-sex_. Craigslist, a huge online marketplace, closed the "adult services" area of its website last week, under pressure from the attorney-general of Connecticut, a crusader against prostitution. That will mildly inconvenience internet pimps, but they will soon move to new websites. _Pornographers are in bigger trouble_ , thanks to technology

<comment><USER6> Fair enough. Craigslist posters aren't pornographers either (even according to the article they're engaged in prostitution, not pornography).

The writer shouldn't have spent 87 out of 312 words talking about an only tangentially related topic (do we really think that Pornographers No Longer Love The Web because craigslist stopped letting local prostitutes post ads?)

<comment><USER8> Do you know the etymology of the word "pornography?"

<comment><USER6> It's like seeing an article titled "Online Music Sales Drop" only to have 1/3 of it be about online movie sales. Yes they're related, no that doesn't mean it was a good title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the problem is that it's too difficult to pay for the porn compared to torrenting it. Nobody wants their credit card company to know they're looking at porn (as though they care), and nobody wants to deal with the shady auto- renew-every-month business model.

99c-per-video paid for with some generic account (paypal or google checkout -like) would make everyone's lives much easier. No strange charges for your bank to see, no remembering-to-cancel hassle, and cheap enough that you don't worry too much about the price. (And, nobody will pay the $30 for a one-month subscription, rip all 10 years of archives from your site, and post it to Usenet. If you want all 8000 back episodes, you pay $8000.)

They're still doing a lot better than Hollywood, though; at least there is no DRM.

<comment><USER10> I think paying for porn is easier than torrenting it if you have any discrimination at all in what you're after.

How would a generic account be any better than a credit card? How about a pre- paid credit card? Unless the account is usable for purchases other than porn, it will look just as odd on a credit card statement / bank transfer etc. Paypal is a mess as it is, and even still Checkout is doing a poor job of competing with it.

I also suspect 99c videos wouldn't be competitive with current products. If we're talking impulse purchases here, such that free porn clip sites aren't doing it, I think there's something else going on. Porn vendors have to walk a tightrope: show enough of what's available to encourage the purchase, but not so much that the customer gets satisfaction too early. I think the way they prod the customer over the line is by promising a lot in return for the commitment. And of course, they're betting that the commitment lasts longer than is in the customer's best interests.

<comment><USER2> Most porn companies are registered (and listed on credit card statements) under innocuous-sounding names anyway, partly to prevent wives/girlfriends from finding out and partly so you don't remember to cancel your subscription.

<comment><USER11> I barely recognize most of the companies I purchase from on my CC statement, and they're non-porn. I always wondered if that was intentional, but it's definitely annoying. Of course companies like Amazon don't obfuscate their name, but many others do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This reminded me of the pre-Google days, when pornographers really loved the web. Porn sites were extremely effective at gaming search engines, so several of the top-10 results for most search engines were usually porn. That sounds harmless, but popup blockers didn't exist yet (or they were unknown), and IE4 and IE5 had no problems letting popups spawn. Landing on one of these pages led to a potentially irreversible sea of porn popups, and a chance that your computer would be infected with a virus. Since this was pre-Google, odds are good that every popup window was profitable via ad platforms that paid per impression. Those were the days.

<comment><USER13> Just because there are lots of ads for Viagra in your in-box doesn't mean the pharmaceutical industry loves the Internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This Levitt/Dubner article about prostitution argues that the increased availability of premarital sex hurt the prostitution "industry":

[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertai...](http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6879237.ece)

Perhaps societal changes are decreasing the stigmatization associated with on- camera participation in the porn industry, and the result is increased availability of actresses? Supply up, price down? Is Reddit's Gonewild the equivalent of the Levitt/Dubner "premarital sex as a substitute good" argument? What about Girls Gone Wild? Aren't the "actresses" trading their time for free publicity?

Hasn't the porn industry relied for years on the illicit nature of its product as a means of avoiding consumer price comparison and the free exchange of information? Are online porn reviews preventing second-rate products from being profitable? I recall reading that, as an experiment, one city made on- site ticket scalping legal as long as it happened in some particular place (a roped-off area in a park across from the stadium or something similar), and the free flow of information led to lower prices. As porn actresses achieve mainstream fame (Sasha Grey, etc.), is it becoming more socially acceptable for men to talk to each other about porn and give recommendations? As with car prices, are better educated consumers becoming more powerful relative to the producers?

Fundamentally, if there were no social repercussions from participation in the porn industry, wouldn't more women choose to "go on cam" between classes or after the kids go to bed as a means of income? What if a short-lived "career" as a porn actress or stripper no longer carried a lifelong stigma? I believe we are seeing the economic impact on the porn industry as these societal barriers to industry participation begin to decrease.

Yes, the OP's linked article is about piracy, but this problem seems like the tip of the iceberg for an industry which is likely experiencing more fundamental structural change.

[Note that I've entirely ignored male participation in the porn industry as I've read that the availability of men is not a rate-limiting factor for straight porn. And, I've ignored gay porn entirely.]

</comment><comment><USER15> I see a big national campaign here.

On blogs and t-shirts and billboards. And in the movies themselves: Tattooed onto the butt of every pornstar. Worked elegantly into the already finely wrought dialogue. Exclaimed with uncontainable despair on the brink of orgasm:

"Home Uploading is Killing Porn! And it's Illegal!"

(In less colorful times: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music> )

Wicked funny last line by the way, not so much for the silly pun as for the jaded supercilious tone of the delivery.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have and currently work for adult companies (AFF / Stockroom / AEBN etc...) and this problem is even bigger then this article explains. Several companies have closed their doors. One interesting thing I have found is that niche / fetish sites are immune to this because their content is so unique (and sometimes disturbing) that tube sites wont run it and cam sites are doing better than ever. The sites bitching about their content being pirated need to innovate and do so in a way that can not be stolen. AEBN attempted to do this w/ the real-touch but failed miserably because the thought of having sex w/ a machine does not appeal to men and it was far to expensive ($299.00 a unit & 1 dollar a minute).

</comment><comment><USER17> 1) Piracy is a very difficult problem to solve and like always, porn is on the forefront of this emerging technology. If there is a solution to it, the internet porn folks are going to find it soon. If they don't find the solution, there is going to be a major change to the way that media is distributed online.

2) The online porn industry is cannibalizing itself. Those tube sites must cost _a lot_ of money (in bandwidth costs) to run. Other online porn companies are buying ads on those sites and some content companies are paying to have their content featured. Why? Seriously? Why would advertisers pay for something they know will continue to degrade the industry as a whole? I understand that organizing something like this would be tough, but if all of the people stopped buying ads on the tube sites, they would be gone in a month.

3) Advertising income is down all over the web and no one (porn or not) is breaking new ground. We're looking at the same ads at the same times in the same places. Traditionally, advertising has evolved and changed so that people don't become desensitized to it. I don't think that we're being creative enough with the way we create and place our advertising online. Naked or not, refining the way that we present and consume ads will be an important evolution of the web.

<comment><USER18> 1\. Piracy and free stuff are hurting. Do you know what we are doing to combat it? The goal this year has been to offer increased quality and enhanced services. We can't stop pirates or free content. We can, however, offer a better service. This means catering to a wide variety of wants. You'd be surprised, not everyone is looking for a quick fix. We have customers that have been around for years.

2\. Advertising via this method brings in customers. There are things being done this way. Don't assume all free content is "free."

3\. See 1. By building in new features, and giving existing customers better, quality choices, and new ways to access that content, is helping. You'd be surprised at the numerous things that are done to bring in the customers. All legit, all above board, and all surprisingly effective.

It's what I love about this industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The YouTube video referred to in the article (SFW): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xNzsTHA1nI>

</comment><comment><USER20> The biggest problem the online porn industry has was not specifically said in the OA. It is the fact that once an image, video or story is released anywhere on the net in non-DRM form, it can be saved and shared effectively forever out in the bits-are-free ecosystem. And a good work of art (even where the art is porn) is timeless. The world could stop producing any new porn/erotica today, permanently, and the existing supply of free stuff out there should make the vast majority of porn consumers satisfied for the rest of their lives.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think the industry is ripe for change.

Consider the price for a 2 hour video. It used to be the typical price can be $20 - $40, even more for higher-end material and this was a quite a several years ago. That's kind of steep.

People would rent videos, though, sometimes half a dozen at a time. They didn't watch all 12 hours; they just fast-forwarded to the parts they wanted to see.

So, it seems the price people are willing to pay is much, much lower and the industry will have to adapt to it, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER22> Well, tube sites have ads going to dating sites. Dump the porn, click here to find someone and screw each other's brains out. Tube sites will always have someone buying ad space. The solution, if you ask me, is interactivity. Wanna know what it's like to do it with pornstar X? Buy the interactive DVD. That's impossible to rip on tube sites. Even a dvdrip torrent is useless because it destroys the interactivity.

Making sure everyone buys and does not pirate? Simple, offer some sort of hardware enhancing interactivity. Without it it's not fun anymore. There you go - torrents, tube sites, anything is down the toilet. Maybe there will be a new problem, people who clone the equipments and sell them cheaper, but that's already a different story.

<comment><USER2> Designing, manufacturing and selling computerized sex toys is the simple solution?

<comment><USER22> Yes, simple as in "sureshot" :) Also, keep in mind that you only have to design the hardware once and only the content you sell is different. Debugging the hardware isn't something you do with every DVD/BluRay release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would love to (assuming it was any good, and the price reasonable) but I don't want my credit company to this.

So no, I won't be paying for porn.

<comment><USER24> This is interesting. Why do you think it matters? If I cared at all, I'd be more concerned about all the other entries on the credit card bill that probably personify myself better than some random xxx site. By now, I think they already know that some non-marginal percentage (I would assume) of male credit cards have been used to buy porn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't copy that floppy!

</comment><comment><USER26> Porn is suffering from the same circumstances as other media, movie and music industries, except they don't have the fall backs those other industries do, concerts and theaters, so they're on the front lines.

But the solution is the same though, the industry will indubitably compress, it's currently way oversized for what it is, there is such a plethora of porn produced with very little difference in quality, it's a commodity product that deserves commodity pricing.

The ones who'll survive this contraction are the ones focusing on niche or high quality works that premium users will pay for. The low quality porn market will probably just be completely swallowed up by amateurs... in other words, power in that market will shift from content creators to aggregators.

</comment><comment><USER27> Let me guess - free user-generated-content sites everyone knows and a ban from an iPhone? ^_^</comment>


Show HN: Griddle, a simple grid component for use with React - <AUTHOR> http://dynamictyped.github.io/Griddle/

<comment><AUTHOR> Beyond the docs and the github repo some additional information is available here. [http://ryanlanciaux.github.io/blog/2014/07/08/introducing- gr...](http://ryanlanciaux.github.io/blog/2014/07/08/introducing-griddle-a- react-dot-js-grid/)</comment>