How hard is it to have a conversation on Twitter? So hard even the CEO can't - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2019/2/12/18222558/kara-swisher-jack-dorsey-twitter-interview-conversation-karajack-livetweet <comment><USER2> A lot to unpack recently with Twitter and Jack. A few thoughts.

1\. Jack doesn't seem passionate about product, especially Twitter.

2\. Kara seems to lack the vocabulary to talk about product which is both surprising and confusing, given her niche and time spent in it. She also doesn't understand that Twitter has evolved way beyond Jack. "Why don't you know, it's your product!" she kept asking. The fact he doesn't know says a lot. It's out of any one persons control. Maybe the AI has already taken over ...

3\. The most interesting thing Kara said was when she suggested Twitter be a public utility. More and more I think we need the National Public Internet. She almost asked a great question about needing fire, police and garbage. Then she mixed metaphors and started discussing those things literally, and Jack went off about doxing.

4\. The most important take away for me was how unaligned Jack and Kara were. Never did they find common ground. Never were they speaking the same language. Twitter could not facilitate meaningful dialogue between two willing people motivated to be good actors. This isn't about how bad threaded replies are. It's about human connection and conversation in the medium of real time public text. It doesn't work.

Edit: I've tried to clean these thoughts up a bit if you care to read more: [https://www.nicholasjrobinson.com/blog/quick- take/karajack-q...](https://www.nicholasjrobinson.com/blog/quick- take/karajack-quick-take-4-takeaways-from-the-jack-dorsey-and-kara-swisher- twitter-interview)

<comment><USER3> I don't think Twitter _is_ a conversational medium, essentially. It certainly isn't a good one, for complex conversations.

It's hard to find the horse-and-boogie analogy for something that's essentially new, but bumper sticker, or billboard is more apt.

On the public utility front... email exists, RSS exists, the www exists... all open platforms, public by some (the right) definitions.

The problem is that an open field (especially when there're multi-$bn opportunities) is innovative, resourceful and will often outcompete the public utility.

How are you going to stop the next twitter from winning the get users game, ban texting apps?

<comment><USER2> NPR and PBS didn't invent anything, they used an established technology to be a not-for-profit public good. The National Public Internet wouldn't be breaking ground, it would be using social media for the public good.

<comment><USER3> That is all fine. You could have public (state owned) websites, apps, social networks and such.

I'd argue that wikipedia, lichess and such _are_ public services already. I personally have more confidence in that sort of a model (os, community run, etc) than a traditional public service model, but there's room in the bed for three.

The problem is the same though. These services need to do more than just exist. They need popularity.

It's very well to say "twitter should be a public service." I have no doubt that it _could_ be. But, it'd still need to outcompete commercial competition.

<comment><USER4> Oh fuck no.

the last thing we want is state owned and operated social networks and apps. whats next, swipe left to report hate speech? swipe right to report suspicious activity. a site where every picture is subject to scrutiny by government agencies because they were submitted to same?

the idea that twitter should be a public utility vastly over exaggerates its impact in the life of the average person, American or not. If anything that message is tailor made to boost the value of the company. there is nothing twitter is doing that cannot be replicated, you just need time, good marketing, and money. Three needs of every successful business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Regardless of what Twitter is or isn't, how in the world is the _CEO_ surprised by how his product works? And we're not talking some obscure corner case, but basic use case?

Having a conversation was a learning experience for him and his team?

Such a basic level of unfamiliarity with their own product gives me a lot of pause that he can do anything to guide the company on fixing rampant automated accounts or making it less of a frequently hostile forum.

<comment><USER6> The one use case I've seen of Twitter is rapid fire updates about some developing situation, like an emergency. But it can't be a back and forth discussion. It can be one person or many people adding to a combined discussion via that hashtag.

However, even when I see people do what is effectively a long form blog post on Twitter, I often give up on it before the end because it's too frustrating.

<comment><USER7> Twitter was billed as a microblogging platform. Blog posts are 1-way communication.

Want a discussion? Allow comments and make them visually separate and less prominent just like blogs do.

<comment><USER8> Twitter is a million soap boxes in the town square.

Perhaps what we really need is a million meeting rooms that people can enter or leave as they desire.

I don't use Twitter, but I do use Facebook to keep up with family and friends, but the primary value I get out of it is from the groups I belong to, often private, where people can have (moderated, if needed) discussions about topics of common interest.

<comment><USER9> Or reddit. The experience of participating in small subreddits is vastly different from frontpage lurking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Twitter sucks as a discussion platform but it excels as an insult delivery system.

<comment><USER11> Which is how it became a unicorn because it turns out that humans get addicted to being angry

<comment><USER12> Especially when you can deliver insults without the threat of receiving a smack in the face back

<comment><USER13> In the UK you can get arrested for tweeting in opposition to the groupthink, not a smack in the face as such, ...

<comment><USER14> Can you cite some examples of people being prosecuted for saying things on twitter that aren't, you know, bomb threats or holocaust denial etc.

<comment><USER15> Here it goes, from a few days ago (I'm not the OP): [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6687123/Mother- arre...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6687123/Mother-arrested- children-calling-transgender-woman-man.html)

Sorry for the Daily Mail link but it looks like the mainstream press hasn't catch up on the subject. Afaik transphobia is not on the same level with "bomb threats or holocaust denial" but apparently people get arrested for it.

<comment><USER16> Daily Mail reporting will be grossly inaccurate on this subject. I suspect this was not for a single incident but as part of a campaign of harrasment. There's a lot of that going on against trans people at the moment, often enabled by twitter and the gutter press.

<comment><USER15> Boris Johnson has practically said the same thing in his latest editorial in The Telegraph [1], i.e. that that woman was transphobic and that the U.K. police should focus on other more stringent tasks (like knife crime). Transphobia is ugly but it's not on the same level as Holocaust denial and people shouldn't get arrested for it.

[1] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/10/police- wasting-t...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/10/police-wasting-time- arresting-twitter-transphobes-could-tackling/)

<comment><USER16> Boris Johnson is one of the men who lied about Europe so often the EU made the Euromyths page in an attempt to stem the tide. He's not a reliable source (in any case that's an opinion piece), and nor is the Telegraph.

There's a culture war going on, trans people are the current wedge issue, and people like Boris are absolutely part of it.

Again, we need the underlying facts, which I suspect include a longer history of targeted harassment rather than a driveby twitter insult.

<comment><USER15> Johnson himself said the woman was a transphobic, him lying should mean that the woman was in the right and not a transphobic at all. I know about his past records, I only mentioned him to show that the story was real and mainstream, not some journalistic hack (like some of the stuff published in the Daily Mail).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Twitter's 280 characters just don't leave enough room for a nuanced > conversation.

Well, yeah. And cars are a terrible way to travel across oceans. The world discovered this ages ago. Kids, back in my day we only had 140 ch

</comment><comment><USER18> Twitter is like a town hall where everyone can heckle. Here's a tree visualization I made of a portion of the #KaraJack thread, which demonstrates the problem (and only includes a fraction of the non-Jack/Kara tweets): [https://treeverse.app/view/pX89745H](https://treeverse.app/view/pX89745H)

</comment><comment><USER19> Twitter was founded as a micro-blogging service, not a forum. It evolved into the anonymous comment section for the entire internet somewhere along the way.

Seems like neither side were being self aware in this case.

I'm also not sure exactly what the product problem is with Twitter. The only exposure I have to a group of people upset about Twitter are the folks that Joe Rogan had on his podcast, and their complaints are just that it's toxic.

However Twitter unlike Google and Facebook is the least functional as a utility, so refraining from using it if you don't like it seems like a no brainer. You're not losing anything functional

<comment><USER6> Don't you think the inherent design — "microblogging" — encourages a toxic environment? Most people aren't poets or great writers, so I just frequently see people talking past each other or misreading what has been said because there is zero nuance.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure the design is responsible for much of that. I see plenty of people on Reddit and this very site who talk past each other and skip straight over the nuance when it _is_ presented. I also see favoritism shown to the "sound bite"-style comments over the thought out ones, particularly on contentious issues.

<comment><USER6> I agree it's present in any kind of dialogue where people assume the worst of others, but Reddit at least allows unlimited text. Same with this site -- I've seen many reactive comments, but then a thread resolves it and everyone reaches a good place. I've seen similar on Reddit, although less so compared to here.

I don't think I've ever seen the same on Twitter, ever. It usually devolves into something worse.

I do think there are parallels between Reddit and Twitter that encourage a level of snark that is just never appropriate when talking to a human in real life, unless you know them well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is like acting surprised that a skateboard is not a suitable vehicle for going on a long vacation with.

<comment><USER22> The newsworthy bit is that Jack seemed tripped up by it, too. Why agree to an interview in a format that will showcase the worst aspects of your product?

<comment><USER23> My theory is that Jack is trying to expose the flaws of twitter to the rest of the company. A way of bludgeoning the stubborn in the company by a blitz of bad press

<comment><USER24> You seem to be giving him too much credit.

His recent interviews and (lack of) leadership have shown that he bludgeons no one, and the stubborn person is him. He's just an unusual kind of stubborn: unwilling to make any decision at all.

<comment><USER25> That, too, is a form of visionary leadership. He is protecting a bubble of chaos in which creative ferment can occur, by refusing to let outside forces impose too much order on it. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on whether the bubble of chaos in question is working for you or not.

<comment><USER24> > _by refusing to let outside forces impose too much order on it_

He also refuses to let _inside_ forces impose order on it. He doesn't do anything at all. I would call Twitter a camel -- a horse designed by committee -- but it seems it's not even that. He apparently just consults committees ad infinitum and then does nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Twitter is basically broadcasting. Why would expect bidirectional communication?

<comment><USER27> Works just fine for CB radio.

<comment><USER28> Depends on where, I don't have CB because in my country it's as effective at delivering insults as twitter. I don't need insult radio when driving.

<comment><USER29> CB radio: for when you need to road rage to an audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I feel like Kara Swisher just handled this in a bad way. You can easily have a conversation on Twitter: you make a tweet, someone else answers it. Rinse- repeat. Jack would've just needed to load Kara's twitter profile and reply to new tweets. What am I missing?

<comment><USER31> That wouldn't have made the news the way this did, now would it?

<comment><USER30> Sure, but now non-Twitter users will just think of Twitter as being bad for 2 way conversation due to this event/stunt.

But I guess all publicity is good publicity.

<comment><USER31> I assure you Kara Swisher cares not. Turning this into a shitfest is a big win for her.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Getting lost in all this noise is Jack's willingness to have a conversation and also admit his product's shortcomings. How many other CEOs subject themselves to a similar, unscripted experiment? Kudos to Jack for being transparent and accessible.

<comment><USER33> His responses sounded pretty scripted. To a question on what Twitter has specifically done to combat abuse on the platform (a question that's been asked over and over for years now):

1\. We have evolved our polices.

2\. We have prioritized proactive enforcement to remove burden from victims

3\. We have given more control in product (like mute of accounts without profile pics or associated phone/emails)

4\. Much more aggressive on coordinated behavior/gamingAlso this wasn't a real-time face to face conversation, so you can be sure

Aside from #3, all of these sounded like CEO-speak to me. No specifics, so nothing to attach personal responsibility to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> In this case, it's probably not twitter's fault that the conversation fails, but Jack's. I saw him on Joe Rogans Podcast, who tried to get some concrete answers out of him, and he was probably the most evasive guest I've ever seen there.

<comment><USER35> The way he evasively responds to these important questions (not just with Rogan, but Sam Harris too) makes a lot more sense paired with the supposition that Twitter is not "failing" as Jack says here, but _executing according to plan_.

Look at recent bans, across the technology sphere (and more recently the financial sphere with Chase), and a clear pattern emerges. Nobody denies what the pattern is. The only argument is _whether or not you support banning certain ideas_.

From where I'm sitting we're seeing the formation of a new form of exile (I write that without hyperbole). Why bother setting up prison camps or penal colonies when you can completely remove someone's ability to publicly communicate, find gainful employment, or even open a bank account? We are inching closer to a world where, if someone engages in public wrongthink, they can immediately be _shamed into poverty and banned from the public square_.

<comment><USER36> >We are inching closer to a world where, if someone engages in public wrongthink, they can immediately be shamed into poverty and banned from the public square.

And this is so different from the entirety of human history how...?

Tribalism and social ostracization of "deviants" is nothing new.

<comment><USER35> The difference being that the Overton window of "acceptable" opinion is rapidly shrinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Twitter was not made to have conversations. It is not a forum system. And that is not a bad thing. If you want to use a forum, why don't you sign up for one?

<comment><USER38> Are you saying jack should hav signed up for a forum?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Danluu has made a transcipt of the discussion:

[https://danluu.com/karajack/](https://danluu.com/karajack/)

[https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1095569349249851393](https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1095569349249851393)

</comment><comment><USER40> The main problem I have with Twitter is that when you reply to your own tweets, the reply will appear as a new tweet on your timeline.

This way your timeline becomes total chaos. Unless you only tweet a single 280 chars text and never add anything to it.

Otherwise, I would use it to post topics I am interested in. Reply to those topics to add more text or when new information becomes available. And have a discussion with people interested in those topics. I wish there was such a platform. It would be like everybody can run their own mini HN.

<comment><USER41> How about Wordpress? What you're describing sounds to me like the standard structure of a blog with comments.

Twitter is a weird sort of blog platform.

It is chaotic by design: the chaos is consequence of its distinguishing features. Everyone does get their own 'mini HN', i.e. a _forum_. But they lack the tools to rule over that forum. It's idealistically anarchic. Everyone's expected to get along peacefully, totally in public. There's no ownership over threads.

<comment><USER40> Wordpress is a tool to make websites. Yes, you can put your content on a website and then link to that from Twitter.

But that puts a big barrier in front of your content and the Twitter users. Visiting a website is usually a horrible experience. So people are very hesitant to do so. Click through rates from social media to websites are abysmal.

<comment><USER41> Good point. Users are willing to browse around Twitter (and Facebook) where the experience is consistent, tolerable. And functional enough for many kinds of content creators. They've achieved a sort of balance.

User hesitation to follow links out to the open web is lamentable, but wholly understandable.

Perhaps some 3rd party service with a recognisable URL could establish itself as a non-horrible, useful supplement to add extra structure to one's posts.

(Although I was suggesting something to use instead of Twitter, not something to use with it.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I assume people finally realise Jack isn't the next Steve Jobs as the media and supporters ( I now assume they are fake supporters?) likes to paint it.

And Travis Kalanick isn't either, I assume most have figure out by now.

And Evan Spiegel.

If you are a Product CEO, or Founder, which tends to be even more Product focus than any succession CEO, and you don't know the basics of your product, then the company has a problem. Even more so when these "products" are gazillion times simpler than everything Apple were doing.

</comment><comment><USER43> > It's almost impossible to have a smart, healthy argument on Twitter because > no one has the space needed to share their thoughts.

The article gives an example of each user trying to discuss and reply 4x branches of a conversation in 280 characters. At best, this can be mitigated on Twitter by "one person replies with a sequence of tweets", and the other then replies to that sequence.

I don't think brevity is the main reason for a lack of healthy arguments, though. "smart, healthy arguing" is a hard game for people to play, so it's "almost impossible" to have anywhere. (Let alone on a site where replies are open to anyone who might have had a bad day and wants to vent, or whatever).

:-) Twitter's user-experience can also be quite different for users with different following / follower counts.

</comment><comment><USER44> One of my motives for building meowcat2[1] is that Twitter doesn't do threading very well[2]. (Another motive is I don't want the web to be controlled by a few big corporations).

[1]: [https://github.com/cabalamat/meowcat2](https://github.com/cabalamat/meowcat2)

[2]: [https://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2018/03/04/twitter-gets- mess...](https://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2018/03/04/twitter-gets-message- order-wrong/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Has it ever been the place to have an interview or 1:1 conversation? That it didn't work well seems like something that would be known in advance, and so the choice of doing it this way feels more like grandstanding on the part of KS.

Not saying Twitter doesn't have problems, just that this seems to be an interview constructed to support a narrative right from the start.

</comment><comment><USER46> > I am going to start a NEW thread to make it easy for people to follow > (@waltmossberg just texted me that it is a "chaotic hellpit")

It is interesting that this discussion on Twitter about discussions on Twitter ended up being a disorganized mess. It illustrates the problem with Twitter so well.

I consider Twitter a major step back in online discussion and sharing of ideas. It not just made that worse but it changed it in a qualitative way and it infected how people interact in other online communities and maybe in real life as well.

I call this process "twitterification of discourse". Short phrases, sarcastic quips, thrown back and forth are terrible way to build consensus, digest information and participate in meaningful discussions. It can be entertaining and give the poster a false sense of "victory" in "beating" an opponent but mostly just leads to sowing resentment and dividing people rather than bringing them together. "Oh I am a stupid idiot, for thinking this way. Well thank you, I appreciate your thoughtful comment and I'll reconsider my position" said nobody ever. Heck people might be well meaning in posting their short retort but the medium itself brings a coldness and negativity to it by its very nature.

Before this process was mostly happening in the media with talking heads spewing their positions quickly between commercial breaks. But now that has spread and everyone can talk and interact that way. Isn't it great!

Another insidious aspect of "twitterification of discourse" is that it cements people's positions. Once they promote some cause or state some opinions for everyone to see, but then later find out they have been wrong or misled, it becomes much harder to change their position because well their posts were there for everyone to see and now they are judged as hypocrites for example.

<comment><USER47> Just look at bash.org

Short, terse comments are not new. The systemic factors that cause it are somewhat different for twitter. But it's not a new occurrence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Every interview I've seen with jack lately (BS podcast, a couple written profiles + snippets of this conversation) mention a whole ton of changes and fixes and improvements, but twitter remains the cesspool it's been for years.

It would be nice if he gave a publicly accountable timeline with actual consequences for failure.

</comment><comment><USER49> Am I the only one deeply surprised by how badly executed this thing was?

I mean, what was it?

Was it a test?

Then why make it so public and high profile?

I mean; what the heck was Jack thinking? The whole thing was a confusing mess that at best will be forgotten.

It's very strange to see a CEO of a 11 digit public company put something out there like that.

</comment><comment><USER50> This whole conversation was the result of a cop out by Jack to avoid being interviewed by Kara on air. I'm a bit surprised because he's gone on her show / platforms before and even Zuckerberg interviewed with her after the 2016 and Cambridge scandals.

</comment><comment><USER51> Twitter has this public utility value: a place where you can get updates on air quality during a wildfire, when the official agency websites are buckling under the traffic.

Some report having good experiences by following a very selective group of people with shared interests.

But it's interesting that both Facebook and Twitter evolved into these negative, emotional, politically charged, environments when they moved from a chronological list of updates from your curated set of friends and followers, to an algorithmic one that shuffles in "popular" content.

It's hard to have a nuanced conversation in a noisy stadium. Much easier to chant along with the crowd.

<comment><USER52> > But it's interesting that both Facebook and Twitter evolved into these > negative, emotional, politically charged, environments when they moved from > a chronological list of updates from your curated set of friends and > followers, to an algorithmic one that shuffles in "popular" content.

Because that's where the money is? fake outrage, drama, division and negativity. Reddit is no different. People love dirty laundry and scandals. These social media are the new tabloids, you know, the magazines nobody buys but everybody reads...

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> > Despite the public interview, and a dedicated hashtag (#karajack) for the > event, it didn't take long before the dozens of tweets between the two > started to get confusing. They were listed out of order,

I would have liked to make a higher effort post about twitter's UX, but if you want a platform that lets conversations happen, is there anything more important than this? They've done work to privilege the OP's responses, but giving one party that ability would seem even worse for conversation.

</comment><comment><USER54> Is there a Twitter client / UI that presents threads (with all their replies) on one page with indentation / nesting, i.e. like HN / Reddit?

<comment><USER55> I think this is what you are talking about:

[https://threadreaderapp.com](https://threadreaderapp.com)

<comment><USER54> I don't see any nesting or indentation there; or, for that matter, even replies from other people. It seems to convert ... something ... into a wall of text.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I've always found Twitter to be a bit of a mess. Spam bots everywhere, and not a single cohesive line of thought that I can tune into. It feels unstructured and utterly disjointed, and whenever I'm forced to go on there, I can't wait to leave.

I wonder if they just pay famous people to use it and others follow?!

</comment><comment><USER57> Is analogous to trying to start conversations on YouTube using video. Twitter wasn't meant for that, yet. Is more of a post-commenting system, with potential for response, see Elon Musks tweets. No way can have a conversation longer than 2-3 responses before people fall off

</comment><comment><USER58> Twitter was never designed to be a conversation platform. It's like trying to make a boat fly.

</comment><comment><USER59> I use Twitter a lot and I still don't understand how to view the damn comments to a tweet. The obvious button just prompts me with a form. I need to click on the date or something to see the thread. It's so obscure I don't even remember.

</comment><comment><USER60> I was never under the impression that conversation was a thing Twitter was supposed to do. It is more like a blog than a chat client.

I don't think anyone would complain that making blog updates in Slack via pinned messages is difficult.

</comment><comment><USER61> Twitter's whole experience is convoluted and it feels like either the developers didn't want to update the UI or were unable to, so features like DMs are handled through highly context sensitive means.

</comment><comment><USER62> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19150914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19150914)

</comment><comment><USER63> I've always considered Twitter an excellent platform for shouting into the void, but I can't imagine anyone would even consider having a conversation there.

</comment><comment><USER64> I dislike Twitter but this article is pretty sensationalist. Too much emphasis on the petty complaints. The actual "conversation" was fine.

</comment><comment><USER65> Why would you try to have a conversation on Twitter? Twitter is about commenting on someone else's stream of consciousness. That's it.

</comment><comment><USER66> This seems like an A/B test to find out if there is enough demand to open up twitter or improve twitter for some specific purposes.

</comment><comment><USER67> I had thought threaded discussions were solved, pre modern internet era, pre- slashdot even, by Usenet clients like rn...

</comment><comment><USER68> I always found "wanting to have a conversation via twitter" a laughable concept, to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER69> It's hard to watch videos over email, too...

</comment><comment><USER70> Twitter needs a full time CEO.

</comment><comment><USER71> The real question is why would anyone even _try_ to have a conversation on twitter?

</comment><comment><USER72> Journalism is broken.

<comment><USER52> Only because it largely sourced its news based on Tweets and Twitter trends. They went for cheap then they are surprised people don't want to pay for glorified tabloids?

<comment><USER73> Journalism is broken because journalism is overrun by highly biased and agenda driven ideologues like kara swisher.

[https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1086735766997344261](https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1086735766997344261)

She epitomizes everything wrong with journalism today. It's not about truth, facts or news. It's about ideology.

Hopefully it's a temporary phase and things will get better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> are they talking about private conversations in public?

</comment><comment><USER75> funny, in the recent sam harris interview, jack just couldn't get enough of highlighting how twitter enables "conversations".

</comment><comment><USER76> > Swisher's questions about Twitter's complex abuse policies, and Dorsey's > subsequent responses, were floating around my timeline along with the > regular tech news and opinions I always look at.

Ha! I need to see this episode of Silicon Valley

</comment><comment><USER77> (Checks Twitter) (Finds bots arguing "a man is a man and a woman is a woman") (Deletes Twitter)

</comment><comment><USER78> Twitter is no more suitable to having conversations than SMS are.

This is a case of trying to force a use case on a platform that isn't designed for it.

Edit: It's getting very tiring to receive downvotes at every comment.

<comment><USER79> Agreed, but showing messages in order? That's doable isn't it?

I'd be annoyed if my text messages started displaying out of order.

<comment><USER80> This still happens today - actually I get a lot of dropped and reordered messages in a very well covered area. People don't realize it because a lot of the time we unconsciously design our text messages to be disposable.

The only reason I know is because I'm going through a big project and the big stakeholders are frequently communicating via text messages as well as phone and email. I've considered moving us to WhatsApp but we're nearing the end so its not that annoying, we just know to use it less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I think only Reddit has mastered the large-scale discussion involving thousands or ten of thousands of people at the same time.

<comment><USER30> Eh, maybe for people who've been using it for years. When celebrities do AMAs without guidance by experienced users, they constantly reply to the wrong threads or even the thread itself. Formatting being hard (e.g. you have to press enter two times to do a single line break) also doesn't help.

<comment><USER82> Markdown is the worst kind of formatting except for all the others.

I literally don't know how to write a sentence with more than one asterisk in on HN, and I've been here several years. Formatting is hard but Reddit at least follows a known standard and has a "formatting help" link right under the comment box if you need it.

<comment><USER83> And yet something as basic as a _preview_ is missing. Reddit's community- driven browser plugin ([0]) at least adds that, HN's counterpart [1] sorely needs it.

\---

Come to think of it, is there a definitive guide to HN comment formatting? Implementing a preview feature in [1] would be doable if the markup is documented.

[0]: [https://redditenhancementsuite.com/](https://redditenhancementsuite.com/)

[1]: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news- enhanc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news- enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm?hl=en)

<comment><USER84> [https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc](https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc)

It's hidden behind the FAQ.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interpretable Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://christophm.github.io/interpretable-ml-book/ <comment><USER2> "Interpretability" is probably one of the most misunderstood topics in ML. The key with interpretability is that it's actually an Human Computer Interaction (HCI) problem, not a statistics or math problem.

The problem is that people have particular tasks that they need to accomplish and the goal of interpretability techniques is to help them solve those tasks. This is somewhat similar thematically to how a keyboard layout can help someone achieve their typing speed goals. The two main tasks that interpretability is usually geared towards is model error detection and hypothesis generation. In model error detection, the goal is that a human wants to be able to better evaluate (improve their accuracy) at detecting whether or not a model is "incorrect" or not. Hypothesis generation is more about the generation of testable causal hypothesis that can them be manipulated to manipulate the outcome.

The real trouble in the interpretability field is that very few people actually evaluate on those end tasks. The only paper I know of that did such as evaluation had a negative result ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07810](https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07810)) in that the "interpretability" did not improve the ability of people to detect incorrect model predictions. As it stands, there is currently no reason to believe that any interpretability techniques actually work in helping people achieve the tasks they care about.

<comment><USER3> This is plain wrong.

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04938](https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04938)

A simple counter-example. A really neat library called "eli5" and specifically, it's white-boxing functionality for NLP and CV applications does a great job of helping one figure out if their model is learning "incorrect" information in its prediction pipeline. The paper I link show why this does a good job of improving user trust in models, which is your second point on human-computer interaction

[https://eli5.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials/black-box- te...](https://eli5.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials/black-box-text- classifiers.html)

For instance, one can run the same TextExplainer algorithm on a word embedding powered model, which encodes its features in some N dimensional space that doesn't correspond to anything that a human understands directly. TextExplainer can reverse engineer which words were most important for a classifier predicting x sample in y class, when this would otherwise be difficult to do (as is the case for basically all state of the art NLP models)

All you need to do is comb through your models erroneous predictions with Textexplainer and you can figure out what "incorrect" information is being learned. I found out this way that punctuation is pretty bad for generalizable NLP, and should be preprocessed out in most circumstances. I can take the _really simple_ vizualizations and show them to managers and suits to justify why a model was wrong somewhere. This is _value_ gained from _interpretability_

This absolutely is an interpretability technique which actually helps people achieve a task they care about. The only cavet of this method is that the white-box model which immitates the black-box model isn't 100% accurate, but its accuracy is a hyper-paramater.

PS. If you look into who the developers of eli5 are - it's an agency which takes money from DARPA and works with sigint agencies. Eli5 and text-explainer can work on any type of black-box model. Spooks want to crack open the models. That should be your signal that there's valuable information to be gained from interpretable machine learning.

<comment><USER4> As I understand it, DARPA funds a lot of things and they aren't that stingy with money either, so I wouldn't view that as some sort of golden indicator of importance.

For instance, the DARPA grand challenge is a impressive source of footage of robots falling over for no apparent reason...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was doing academic research on this exact topic and Chris' is the only book that I found that breaks down the techniques one at a time this way. This book is nothing short of brilliant.

<comment><USER6> brilliant? really? who didn't already know that linear models and random forests were interpretable and that you can look at feature layers in nets?

I'm not usually a naysayer but I feel like [https://youtu.be/FSubdmYGVEI?t=105](https://youtu.be/FSubdmYGVEI?t=105)

<comment><USER7> To be fair linear models are statistical models and many of those are explainable.

Random Forest is not explainable per say... A decision tree is explainable but an ensemble of it is not to say explainable in at least statistical models sense.

In linear models the coefficients give you a linear numerical sense and also linear associations where as Random Forest give you OOB and feature importance which isn't as clear cut. It also really dependent on the quality of data and most machine learning that aren't statistical models depend heavily on a large amount of data to overcome the model's weakness (random forest being selection bias).

Statistic, to toot my horn a little, have very vast breath and depth in inferences/explainable with huge literatures on it including different fields (e.g. econometrics with time series, biostatistic with longitudinal, survival analysis, etc..). There are also techniques on building parsimonious models too like logistic regression with purposeful selection by Dr. Lemeshow and Dr. Hosmer. And different ways to build inference models versus predictive/forecast model.

I think many people know a general idea but not in depth because I mean there's a field with many deep rabbit holes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice perspective in "Interpreting AI Is More Than Black And White": [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexanderlavin/2019/06/17/beyon...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexanderlavin/2019/06/17/beyond- black-box-ai/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice book, and already included in this awesome list: [https://github.com/r0f1/datascience](https://github.com/r0f1/datascience).

</comment><comment><USER10> Something that is often left out when talking about interpretability is the relationships between the predictors and the dependent variable in simulations. For example:

\- I fit a complex, difficult to interpret model to a dataset, attempting for forecast my sales (structure of the dataset largely irrelevant for this example)

\- I take an entry from the training set and decrease the value of some price attribute by 15%, leaving everything else unchanged

\- I try to predict the sales for the entry I just created using the trained model

\- What happens if the model now predicts lower sales? There is a clear relationship between price and sales volume going in the opposite direction. Would lowering my prices by 15% really lead to a decrease in my sales? How do you track what's happening in the model to create this forecast? Did I use the wrong model? Was my training data incorrect? How do you explain this to a client or to a product user?

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this is great - I wish I'd had this book a year ago. I actually ended up making ICE plots (book chapter: [https://christophm.github.io/interpretable- ml-book/ice.html](https://christophm.github.io/interpretable-ml- book/ice.html)) without knowing this was something people did.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Interpretable Machine Learning

...is called statistics. At least, _truly_ interpretable machine learning is. The whole point of that 'machine learning' (or god forbid, 'data science') moniker, as opposed to 'computational statistics', is a way of saying "we have no idea what we're doing!" It's magic!

<comment><USER10> Not really. I get the dislike for the hyped up terms but there are many companies that work in ML/data science (and hire ML engineers or data scientists) that do know what they're doing. And there are distinctions, though sometimes subtle, between the terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the paper "Explaining Explanations in AI" by Brent Mittelstadt ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.01439v1](https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.01439v1)) gives a really good overview of the different goals and approaches.

</comment><comment><USER14> I cannot stress how important this stuff is for machine learning in production systems. If your ML problem interacts with a client, interpretation matters, and this book gives you a good collection of tools to get started with!

</comment><comment><USER15> Tangential, but I like the website. Has a similar look and feel to the Rust book. Same backend?

<comment><USER16> GitBook. In this case it uses an R package to render it.

[https://github.com/christophM/interpretable-ml- book#renderin...](https://github.com/christophM/interpretable-ml- book#rendering-the-book)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice, except for the first short story about medical pumps! It was quite weird. :D

</comment><comment><USER18> The "Interpretability" part is really just philosophy.

<comment><USER19> Philosophy, at least the real one, isn't "just". It's almost by definition deepest and widest study of what's possible to study, with all consequences and offsprings like sciences.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you decide features set of your product? - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a side project which is not something that is new or unique or out of the world. There are many similar apps available which are being downloaded but I still want to make one by believing that I will find my market anyway.
My question from experienced entrepreneurs/product designers, how do you initiate a process to define features of your product that you think could make you different from others? Is it adding MORE or reducing some features of existing competitor's product?
Thanks in Advance. <comment><USER2> My advice: Read _The Four Steps to the Epiphany_ or _The Startup Owner's Manual_. @sgblank talk about this in detail.

At the risk of sounding flippant, you can basically reduce it to "talk to customers". _Note_ however, that @sgblank does NOT advocate collecting the union of all requested features and implement all of them! The idea is to identify the most requested features, or, to really be more specific, the _features that somebody is willing to pay for_.

The principle behind this is easy to understand, although the actual process of doing this isn't necessarily _easy_ as it takes a lot of work to go out, find potential customers, interview them, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not in a place to find the link, but 37signals has a very good article about this. Start right from the core function (for example if the competitor is photoshop, make paint). The only real issue I think of with this method is bloat of code and UI, but I still think this way lends itself better to a strong product.</comment>


Ask HN: What infrastructure would you use to host an open, free JSON-based API? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Google App Engine is great & free for low volumes of traffic. I use it for my crypto dashboard: [https://priceeth.github.io/](https://priceeth.github.io/)

Github pages if it's static enough, or for any static part.

If the amount of data is small / static-ish, and can/needs to be changed by non-tech people, I've also used Google spreadsheet. Example: [https://hasgluten.com](https://hasgluten.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> FaaS/Serverless will be a good starting point for something like this, so either AWS Lambda, Azure Functions or Google Cloud Functions will be good enough.

</comment><comment><USER4> The free tier of AWS Lambda gives you up to 1 million calls per month. You could use this for the actual fulfillment of your data. Paired with AWS API Gateway (1 million calls for free per month for the first year), it seems that you could do this relatively cheaply.

The only thing I haven't accounted for here is if you're querying against some sort of database, which would incur additional hosting costs.

</comment><comment> tony-allan It would help if you have some additional context. Use case, volumes, cost objective...

</comment><comment><USER5> What's the nature of your data? Is it static or dynamic?

<comment><USER6> ^ important. If you're trying to provide free access, I always seek ways to mitigate cost. If the API can be slowly updating, like once a day or w/e, then I stick everything behind a static CDN or something such that it should cost you next to nothing. Just a small CPU somewhere to build the JSON endpoints per update cycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Django / Zappa

Which is basically AWS lambda / gateway with minimal setup and extremely cheap.

</comment><comment><USER8> In the odd case that the json is static hugo and s3 make for a painless deployment.

</comment><comment><USER9> Heroku is the easiest set up imo

</comment><comment><USER10> given the limited amount of context, i would go with:

kotlin+jooby+jersey</comment>


The Pay Gap Is Way Too Entrenched to Be Solved by Women Alone (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-pay-gap-is-way-too-entrenched-to-be-solved-by-women-alone/ <comment><USER2> Throw away so my career doesnt follow.

Not all employers[1], Not all roles[2], Not in cities[3], Not due to gender[4] and even if true, probably Not for long[5]

[1]: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/google- gender-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/google-gender-pay- gap.html)

[2]: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/09/10-jobs-where-women-earn- mor...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/09/10-jobs-where-women-earn-more-than- men.html)

[3]: [https://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/sl-gender-pay- gap.html](https://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/sl-gender-pay-gap.html)

[4]: [https://fee.org/articles/harvard-study-gender-pay-gap- explai...](https://fee.org/articles/harvard-study-gender-pay-gap-explained- entirely-by-work-choices-of-men-and-women/)

[5]: [https://www.studyinternational.com/news/record-high- numbers-...](https://www.studyinternational.com/news/record-high-numbers- women-outnumbering-men-university-globally/)

</comment><comment><USER3> "What's more, when women become more represented in a job, the pay for that job tends to go down."

This is what is most fundamental about what happened to the labor force, it's supply and demand at work. More people willing to do a job with a similar number of openings. Pre-WWII the (formal) labor force was overwhelmingly composed of men, and that proportion has gradually shrunk in the past century to now where there are some professions that are overwhelming done by women.

The reason Aerospace Engineers get paid pretty well is not because 91% of them are men and women cannot enter the profession, but rather because few women entering the labor force are training for and choosing to enter that field. This nearly halves the labor supply, which has kept wages higher.

This works for the lower end of the labor market as well, garbage men are mostly men and get paid pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER4> I refuse to read this with that unremovable obnoxious floating banner covering up 20% of my vertical space. Geez.</comment>


Ask HN: Why are many new Launch HNs written like recipe pages written for SEO - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Because it's "growth hacking" /s

<comment><USER3> No need for the /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> \- recipe pages written for CEO

FTFY</comment>


Netflix Stock Price Crashes in After-Hours Trading - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/15/netflix-stock-price-crashes-in-after-hours-trading/ <comment><USER2> I know the Netflix story is all about streaming now, but I'm kind of sad that according to the financials, Netflix's DVD section has halved its subscribers over the last two years.

That service definitely seems to be degrading, almost everything in my queue has become perpetually stuck on "very long wait," something rare for me of a couple years back. They're clearly winding things down.

I don't know what happens in a couple years for anyone who wants to see an old movie. The streaming libraries are still incredibly thin. New releases will be available somewhere, sure. But we're facing the death of access for film history buffs or hardcore genre fans.

<comment><USER3> This is pure fantasy, but I feel like a good solution would be for Netflix to legally be allowed to stream X concurrent sessions of a movie with X being limited at the number of physical copies they own. Perhaps if all concurrent sessions are being used you could schedule your session for a different time window.

It obviously wouldn't work for new content but might solve the issue for rare or older movies which you cannot find elsewhere.

<comment><USER4> I beleive public libraries that support kindle use a system like this with books.

<comment><USER5> The library near me actually has to pay licenses for digital copies of books that they then get to 'check out' z number of times rather than based on the number of physical copies they have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would say mostly about the lower subscriber growth.

When expectations are high, if expectations aren't met, the adjustment can be abrupt.

Time Warner (HBO + Warner Brothers + numerous cable channels) is in the same content/TV distribution business, $4.3b in profit, market cap of $62b.

Netflix, $0.2b in profit, $5b in REVENUE, market cap of $27b (well, now $20b).

Netflix is competing with Amazon streaming, Apple TV/iTunes, to a lesser extent Google, Hulu.

Also now HBO, they announced today they would start letting people subscribe over the Internet without a cable subscription, all the other channels are getting in the over-the-top streaming business.

Comcast + Time Warner Cable (different from Time Warner) are looking to merge and perform a cashectomy on Netflix via 'fast lanes', before TV subscriber losses from cord-cutting really start cutting into their flesh. (Can anyone doubt that's about to happen? Anyone who has compared the experience of e.g. Roku with a cable box can see over-the-top is a 10x improvement in UX at a lower price. And with even HBO available over-the-top, literally the only reason left to subscribe to cable is live sports.)

Growth is not a given. It's a tough landscape and no guarantee Netflix will be the last one standing.

$20b is still a lot of money for a company with no profits, in a fight for its life.

<comment><USER7> I'd add as a cable-cutter sports fan that even live sports is not a big deal without cable. Buy a HD antenna and you get ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, which covers at least the NFL and a bunch of other prominent sporting events. Buy mlb.tv if you're into baseball, NBA league pass if you're into basketball, or NHL center ice if you're into hockey - or just find live streams of the games online (but YMMV on the quality of course). Throw in a shared login with a friend for Comcast/DirectV/whatever, and you get ESPN/ESPN2, TBS, Fox Sports, NBCSN, and others.

<comment><USER8> I disagree wholeheartedly as a fellow sports fan cable cutter. The problem with those sports packages is that you can't follow your home team. You can follow literally every other team, but not your own. As a White Sox fan, I would have missed probably >70% (a guess) of their games had I paid for the MLB.tv package.

<comment><USER6> hmmh... how about with a VPN?

ESPN's attempt to block World Cup in USA if you didn't have a cable was pretty easily circumvented. And then there's the option of using a buddy's cable login.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there is plenty of growth opportunity for Netflix 1- After hours trading is notorious for volatility 2- HBO announcement today 3- Subscriber growth did not meet expectations

Are all likely affecting the stock. However when it's all said in done who else is competing with against netflix?

<comment><USER10> > However when it's all said in done who else is competing with against > netflix?

Well, HBO, Amazon and Hulu in the US. In my country (the UK), there are several local competitors; Now TV, Sky, BT, 4oD, BBC iPlayer (sort of), Amazon. I would assume it's a fairly similar situation in most of the markets they operate in (e.g. HBO Nordic in Scandinavia).

<comment><USER11> That raises the question of what it means to "compete" with Netflix. All three you mention currently have severe deficits compared to Netflix.

HBO won't be available to non-cable/satellite subscribers until next year, has limited content, and at this point unknown pricing. (Seems unlikely to be less than Netflix, might end up being 2x Netflix.)

Amazon has limited content, a crappy UX, and a pricing perception problem (your only option is $99 up-front).

Hulu has very limited content, ads even for paying customers, and a crappy UX, all while charging the same amount as Netflix.

A cord-cutter is almost certainly going to be paying Netflix. They might pay some of the others, too, but maybe not, and probably not all of them. It seems unlikely they'd pay any of the others without paying Netflix.

Is it really competition when your competitor's customers are your customers?

<comment><USER10> > All three you mention currently have severe deficits compared to Netflix.

I agree to your points to a certain extent. However, you're forgetting that Netflix also has deficits to the other three. HBO, as I understand it, would most likely have up-to-date recent films, something Netflix severely lacks and people actually want. Amazon is bundled with Prime, a big draw for a lot of people which makes it's offering look more desirable in many ways. Hulu is free (except Hulu Plus). Probably most importantly, all three have unique content which is not available on Netflix (especially true of HBO).

> It seems unlikely they'd pay any of the others without paying Netflix.

I don't think this is necessarily true. With VoD services like these, people will use the ones which have the content they want to watch. As the 'incumbant', Netflix will have certain first mover advantages in terms of brand recognition, but this won't last forever and the market still has lots of room for growth.

<comment><USER12> >However, you're forgetting that Netflix also has deficits to the other three.

This is a pretty good point. I subscribe to both Hulu and Netflix, and I feel like they provide very different services. Netflix provides a large back- catalogue of movies and TV shows, while Hulu is more for watching things which are currently airing. If netflix was able to get episodes of shows on a real- time basis, instead seasons at a time the season after the season is over, it might be competing on a more direct basis with Hulu. As it stands, I feel like they are for different markets, and somebody who wants a Hulu subscription isn't going to be satisfied with Netflix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to be really bullish on Netflix, but then Amazon started giving Amazon Prime members streaming access to a huge collection of free TV and movies. The offerings aren't exactly the same and each platform does have its own exclusive shows, so a huge TV fan might want both. But for a lot of people, one is enough and if that one is Amazon Prime then you get free shipping of all your Amazon deliveries as a bonus! For those of us who had already become Prime members for the shipping, Netflix has even less of a hope of competing.

Due to its size, Amazon can also expect to extract an better selection of streaming titles from media companies.

Netflix should be terrified.

<comment><USER14> I don't think Netflix has to worry about Amazon Instant Video at all. The problem with AIV is a total lack of consumer awareness. If I'm talking to a friend about the movie they saw last night, or what TV show they binge-watched over the weekend, they're almost always going to say "Netflix" (and it's not like "Amazon Instant Video" exactly rolls off the tongue). And there's not even any discussion about how there's an alternative. As far as the majority of consumers are concerned, Netflix is _the only_ player in its category. It's basically like iPhone vs. Android in the US, but a lot, lot worse.

<comment><USER15> If we are making the comparison that they are iPhone vs. Android respectively (Netflix == iPhone && Amazon == Android) then we should expect that Amazon will eventually dominate the US market place, just like Android is doing now.

[http://bgr.com/2014/07/01/android-market- share-2014/](http://bgr.com/2014/07/01/android-market-share-2014/)

TL/DR; Android market share in US = 61.9%/iPhone US market share in US = 32.5%.

<comment><USER14> The comparison has nothing to do with the change in their market shares, or who will dominate in the future. I'm purely giving an example of how _consumer awareness_ is completely different between nerds and the general population. Just because everyone on HN knows about AIV doesn't mean that the average consumer knows about it.

Predicting whether or not AIV will _gain_ consumer awareness is a completely different matter, and I don't think that comparisons between iOS and Android have any place there, since the markets are completely different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's not a zero sum game. The only limiting factor is how much really great content can be created. When the market for premium streaming matures it's going to effectively be what we always wished cable was. Netflix can only lose if they fail to keep going.

<comment><USER17> _> When the market for premium streaming matures it's going to effectively be what we always wished cable was._

Which is what, exactly? A la carte programs? Netflix isn't that. A la carte channels? Netflix isn't quite that either.

Netflix is positioning itself as something between a streaming TV network (producing original content) and a streaming Time Warner (bundle all the content, acting as gatekeeper to the end consumer). I like Netflix, but I doubt it's long-term intent is to be the streaming utopia we've dreamt of.

In that context, Netflix currently enjoys the advantage of being one of the few popular streaming networks/content providers right now (along with Amazon Prime, and perhaps Hulu Plus in the U.S.). Moving forward, they could swallow up or crush new competition, consolidating their power and pushing them more into the Time Warner category. That would be very good for them, financially. Or competition could build up around them, relegating them to the streaming network category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I find myself using Amazon Instant Videos, Vudu, and Google Play Movies more and more, so, no wonder if I'm not the only one. The DVD service is a friction, I have it, but I have DVDs with me for over 6 months, and no time to watch them and get new ones. Before that, I had a DVD with me for nearly 2 years! Weirdly, Redbox Instant just died, so, this should've helped Netflix by a tiny bit, but still... Why are the movie studios so greedy? People still steal their movies and torrent them, so, I'm missing a lot of movies for which I could've paid a premium, but having kids, and all prevents me from watching them at the premiere, so, I rent them later and they make a lot less from me and many are like me, I'm sure. It's not about the price, it's all about the convenience, and I hope those old crooks get this once and for all. I'm sure if people had an option to watch a new movie without going to the theater, piracy would drop significantly, but I know there are people who'd always pirate even if the movie is $0.99 - people who don't value their time, nerves, and don't mind the risk of getting sued, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm no finance expert, but looking at the graphs, hasn't it already recovered?

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ANFLX](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ANFLX)

The story reported it was at 339. Looks like it's currently at 448.

Edit: Nevermind, didn't notice the "After Hours" price in tiny-text above the graph which shows similar numbers to those reported in the story.

<comment><USER20> You can click on "Settings" and then check the box for "Extended hours" to see the after-hours trading in the graph itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think people are missing the big picture on what happened... This is not that the market is giving up on Netflix. It's that most of Netflix's value is based on an enormous increase in growth.

Taking a look at their financials [0] their PE was 139 pre-announcement. It's still north of 100. Compare that with 27 of Google. Very high growth assumptions.

Another way to look at it is they are still up ~250% over the past year and a half.

When you're this highly priced, there is no room for mistakes or missing Wall Street expectations.

One other note... There is a lot of hedge fund activity on Netflix, which can increase the immediate pop before or after a hit.

That said... Speaking as a subscriber... I'm still paying, but I'm not using nearly as much as I used to, and I'm using Amazon Prime more and more.

[0] [https://www.google.com/finance?cid=672501](https://www.google.com/finance?cid=672501)

</comment><comment><USER22> The reason for this is their EPS being down by about half of the expectations: [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-15/netflix- obliterated...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-15/netflix-obliterated- after-guiding-half-expected-q4-eps-streaming-adds-hit-brick-wall)

</comment><comment><USER23> Sorry not relevant to the subject, but who is allowed to trade after-hours? How come some people are allowed to take advantage of trading while the general public is not allowed?

<comment><USER24> Anyone is allowed, but there is lower volume and more volatility.

<comment><USER25> genuine question - how come when I submit an after hours trade through my bank it says "trading is closed, your order will be submitted first thing tomorrow" ?

<comment><USER26> It could be your bank just doesn't offer it. For most retail brokerage accounts you have to specifically request an extended "time in force" if you want to send orders outside of the core session.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> With so many players in the mix, I wonder if some consolidation is likely in the near future. Less streaming services with more content breadth is much more valuable to consumers than figuring out which services offer which content.

</comment><comment><USER28> Price increase killed their U.S. growth. Hulu makes over half their money from ads, I'd expect Netflix will eventually go down that road -- $4.99/mo or free with ads and $9.99 without.

</comment><comment><USER29> I know comcast is more diversified, but wouldn't this be a threat to them too? Why no effect on their after hours price?

</comment><comment><USER30> Blame Popcorn Time. Why would people pay for far fewer selection and mediocre movies and tv shows when they can have unlimited access to every movie and tv show?

<comment><USER31> I just installed popcorn time, I tried a few tv shows but couldn't find many, or any, peers on many of them and the show wouldn't play well, with lots of buffering, or at all, or it was missing aired episodes in available seasons. No tv show on Netflix does this to be and that's why I pay. While the selection seems better on Popcorn Time, it's really just the most popular shows near the latest episodes that seem to work so the "extra" selection just made it a more frustrating experience.

<comment><USER30> it worked fine for me. although i watch movies more than tv shows. i think it works pretty good given that its free and they are constantly improving it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> After hours trading almost always means nothing. Ignore such headlines. Reality takes place during normal trading hours. After hours is for amateurs.

If you want to get stupider than this article, I've seen some stocks trade down 50% after hours but open normal the next day.

Besides, the whole market took a nosedive today.

Means nothing.

<comment><USER26> That is true in some cases but not for NFLX today. You should pull up the chart. Volume in NFLX _exploded_ after the earnings announcement.

<comment><USER32> Any chart you pull up is not for after hours trading.

Note that, while you agree what I said is true for most cases, I was downvoted. What is this? Reddit?

<comment><USER26> Go here

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NFLX](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NFLX)

At the top left of the chart set zoom to 1d. At the bottom left of the chart click settings and tick the box for "Extended Hours". That gets you volume data for the post market session. I didn't downvote you, but I do see these kinds of comments ("hey don't trust the post-market session") after earnings announcements a lot, and I usually try to cross-check the chart to see whether they're on point or not.

<comment><USER32> I was a day-trader for 15 years so I know how to find that info. I'll say it again, after the market closes, the professionals go home. Anything you see after that is by amateurs.

<comment><USER26> Ok the market just opened on 10/16 and NFLX is trading around $342, which is around $100 below yesterday's closing price but almost exactly equal to the after hours price from yesterday. The after hours trading was 100% real and not amateurs trading in a thin market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Netflix has strong fundamentals. They could be a good buy actually considering the stock is down

<comment><USER34> > _Netflix has strong fundamentals._

It has a P/E of over 130, and just reported slower than expected subscriber growth. Of what specific fundamentals do you speak?</comment></comment>