Perhaps I'm a bit old-fashioned, but paying writers to write doesn't seem like a particularly nefarious activity to me. I mean, I believe the NYT does it too, and a few other organizations.
it's a shame substack continues to get more and more visually bloated. I remember when it first launched, thinking the site looked really clean and simple. i figured it was only a matter of time before the simplicity went away, and it became more like Medium.com (in a bad way). it seems like there is a very predictable model for how a site like this devolves:
- it starts ultra clean, posts have a title and body, maybe (reluctantly) a share link appears somewhere on the page .
- then "modern" looking custom web fonts are added, making elements on the page flicker/move around when the page opens.
- then the entire site adds a sticky header that animates as you scroll up and down.
- then the site is rewritten using some client-side rendering framework that requires javascript to run 'correctly'.
- then a popup modal is added to every single page asking you to subscribe or sign in.
(substack is currently here)
- then "reading time indicators" (e.g. "5 min read") are added to the top of every story
- then "related" stories are inter-spliced throughout the text of the story.
- then it becomes hard or impossible to even find the actual content of the story, as the entire site is engulfed in "related" content
PM here, and though I've only worked on delivering one web app, I was forced to follow this model because "we have a UX designer for a reason".
At some point the future vision of the UI was getting so unnecessarily bloated, our UX genius independently came up with Clippy, but if he were a fox...
Luckily we were sold and I got a new job because I knew I was gonna lose that fight
The PMs, and the senior engineers. "Leave well enough alone" is never a winning pitch.
We see this phenomenon literally everywhere. The Patent and Trademark Office just replaced their perfectly usable Search page with something vastly more complicated, and incomprehensible at first glance.
When I was researching my article about Twitter and firing all those engineers, I looked at the R&D spending for Proctor & Gamble and other consumer products companies. It's usually 1-2% of revenue. They spend their money on marketing, where it belongs when your product is mature.
Not sure what the economists call it, but if a business spends $8M producing goods they sell for $10M, the money they can potentially spend on research is $2M, not $10M (the revenue).
Yeah, I read that as "of all the money they could spend these greedy bastards only spend 1-2% on R&D", but in reality their "disposable income" is much less the revenue.
I think you read "revenue" as "disposable income."
R&D as a percent of revenue is a pretty common metric in the investment world. It's not perfect, like most accounting metrics. Maybe there are people who measure R&D as a percent of (revenue - COGS) but I haven't seen that.
> then "reading time indicators" (e.g. "5 min read") are added to the top of every story
Many CMSes and static site generators include this and it's genuinely useful (it matters if an article is a short read or something that needs to be saved for later because it requires 30 minutes reading). Is it really "bloat"?
After Twitter I hope we're all starting to realize that these billionaire VC backed media platforms are not the place to pour our heart and souls into. You are giving them power over you and your content. No matter what they promise, eventually they will abuse their power against you.
37 comments
[ 26.3 ms ] story [ 626 ms ] threadAnd who in the world is not dependent on someone else right now, when it comes to getting anything on the Internet.
It’s the read/write part that gets you.
- it starts ultra clean, posts have a title and body, maybe (reluctantly) a share link appears somewhere on the page .
- then "modern" looking custom web fonts are added, making elements on the page flicker/move around when the page opens.
- then the entire site adds a sticky header that animates as you scroll up and down.
- then the site is rewritten using some client-side rendering framework that requires javascript to run 'correctly'.
- then a popup modal is added to every single page asking you to subscribe or sign in.
(substack is currently here)
- then "reading time indicators" (e.g. "5 min read") are added to the top of every story
- then "related" stories are inter-spliced throughout the text of the story.
- then it becomes hard or impossible to even find the actual content of the story, as the entire site is engulfed in "related" content
At some point the future vision of the UI was getting so unnecessarily bloated, our UX genius independently came up with Clippy, but if he were a fox...
Luckily we were sold and I got a new job because I knew I was gonna lose that fight
We see this phenomenon literally everywhere. The Patent and Trademark Office just replaced their perfectly usable Search page with something vastly more complicated, and incomprehensible at first glance.
When I was researching my article about Twitter and firing all those engineers, I looked at the R&D spending for Proctor & Gamble and other consumer products companies. It's usually 1-2% of revenue. They spend their money on marketing, where it belongs when your product is mature.
Is the $8M "cost of goods sold", i.e. variable costs, or does it include the fixed costs (buildings, salaries, utilities, etc.)
My point was that OP equated revenue with profit, which is clearly and substantially wrong.
I said "It's usually 1-2% of revenue."
Yeah, I read that as "of all the money they could spend these greedy bastards only spend 1-2% on R&D", but in reality their "disposable income" is much less the revenue.
Did I miss your point in some way?
R&D as a percent of revenue is a pretty common metric in the investment world. It's not perfect, like most accounting metrics. Maybe there are people who measure R&D as a percent of (revenue - COGS) but I haven't seen that.
Perhaps one day I'll revolutionize accounting with my ideas, but for now I'll accept this :)
Many CMSes and static site generators include this and it's genuinely useful (it matters if an article is a short read or something that needs to be saved for later because it requires 30 minutes reading). Is it really "bloat"?