The Perils of Fan Service

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ernest (00:04):
Hello and welcome to Learn Make Learn, where we share
qualitative and quantitativeperspectives on products to help
you make better.
My name is Ernest Kim and I'mjoined by my friend and co host
Joachim Groeger.
Hey Joachim, how's it going?

Joachim (00:18):
Hello.
Hello.
Uh, I'm good.
Um, we've, we've had a littleunexpected break, but I think, I
think we're fresh and ready togo.
Although you are hinting at thepossibility that you are feeling
rusty.
So maybe I'm just overconfidentand I also will not be able to
string a thought together forthis, for this session.

(00:39):
We'll see.

Ernest (00:40):
Yeah, yeah, so definitely uh, apologies for
missing a couple of weeks.
Um, it's really my fault.
Uh, just the day job basicallyhas gotten in the way of, um,
our ability to record for thesepast two weeks, but we're
excited to be getting back intothings.
Uh, and yeah, hopefully we'renot too rusty.

(01:00):
Um, so this is episode 17 andtoday we're going to discuss the
perils of fan service in thecontext of product planning and
creation.
But let's start with some followups.
And I actually don't have anyfollow ups today, but do you
have anything you want to appendto our previous episode, Enough
is Enough, or to any episodesprior?

Joachim (01:23):
Just a quick one.
We had a couple of discussions afew episodes ago now.
When we were talking about theKahneman stuff, we were
discussing how not to talk downto your customers and your
users.
And I was hinting at the factthat I think, video games have a
very good respectful way ofteaching the player about the

(01:45):
game, but at the same time alsoletting them get more immersed
in the game at the same time.
and I was chatting with anotherperson, um, who is an, uh, an,
uh, interaction designerhimself, Nate Grubbs, and he had
said, Oh, the phrase to describethat is something called
progressive disclosure.
and so I thought I would sharejust this, uh, the phrase

(02:08):
progressive disclosure, mainlybecause I think when you're
describing a concept and youdon't have a way to name it, it
gets very, very difficult tofind documentation, research,
any ideas surrounding that.
So that's the first bit.
And also the Wikipedia is super,super thin.
Um, but the primary example thatthey lean on in the Wikipedia

(02:28):
entry is the work that ChristinaHooper Wolsey, who was a
founding member of the Applehuman interface group, uh, had
conducted.
And she was, it sounds, seemslike the only person to
articulate this idea thatsometimes you don't need to show
everything at once because ofthe complexity of the machine
that you have.
And so progressive disclosurebecame Mac OS's, the early Mac

(02:49):
OS's kind of style of having abutton that would say show
details or advanced.
Um, that notion is exactlyprogressive disclosure, right?
It's saying there's some stuffthat you can do day to day,
don't worry about it.
And then if you want to godeeper.

(03:09):
Here you can go deeper and tweaksome more settings.
I think you find that also onthe print screen is the classic
example in macOS.
So we've encountered this typeof progressive disclosure.
I think we can take it evenfurther.
And again, I can lean back onthe video games as an example
of.
A thing that works really,really well, um, in, uh, doing

(03:29):
that, um, because it's, you getto use and learn at the same
time.
And, you know, if we can do moreof that, that would be amazing.
So progressive disclosure, thatwas my little follow up from our
Kahneman episode, uh, many weeksago now.

Ernest (03:43):
Oh, that's a great one.
And I think that's a great pointtoo, just the importance of
having language to describe athing.
thanks for sharing that one.
Now, if we want to move on toour main topic for today, fan
service is often associated withanime and more recently, big
budget franchise films.
And it's generally understood tobe material added to a work that

(04:03):
has no relevance to story orcharacter development, and is
included solely for the purposeof pleasing existing fans.
The Marvel Cinematic Universeand recent crop of Star Wars
films are full of fanservicemoments, with the most egregious
for me being the eye rollingEarly on in Solo, a Star Wars
story in which we learned theorigins of Han Solo's name,

(04:25):
which no one needed to know.
Um, but fan service is somethingwe also see in product design.
And while it certainly makessense to engage existing
customers when planning for thenext incarnation of a given
product, Tipping the balance toofar over into fan service can
lead to diminishing returns.
One example I'd cite isBlackBerry, which for years

(04:47):
after the introduction ofApple's iPhone, continued to
insist that their fans preferredphones with physical keyboards.
And the thing is, they wereright.
A 2013 article in the New YorkTimes cites one such fan, Gordon
Roscoe.
According to the paper, quote,Mr.
Roscoe said he had usedBlackBerrys for about nine
years.
What I call my fat Polishfingers have a hard time with

(05:10):
touchscreen keyboards, so I'mgoing to keep using this thing
until I can't anymore, unquote.
Now, unfortunately forBlackBerry, Mr.
Roscoe represented only a sliverof the broader smartphone market
opportunity, yet they continuedto insist on serving that fan
base until the company lapsedinto irrelevance in the
smartphone market.
So that's just one example toget us started.

(05:31):
Joachim, does that spark anythoughts on the perils of fan
service in your mind?

Joachim (05:37):
The first thing, just because you mentioned the
BlackBerry example, and thatthere was some potentially some
demand for people to havephysical keyboards.
I mean, very recently there'sbeen clicks.
Uh, I don't know if you'veencountered that product.
I haven't seen it in the wild,but I saw the posts on the
internet about it.
It's a case for your iPhone thathas a tiny QWERTY keyboard that

(05:58):
really resembles the oldBlackBerry keyboards.
So it's just attached to it.
It makes the phone much bigger.
Um, and I think people werepretty excited about this.
Um, for some reason, so was I, Idon't know what it is.
There's something about physicalkeyboards.
I've always liked them.
Um, and so it's remains to beseen if the, this is a form of

(06:21):
fan service.
This product is great.
Finding those ex BlackBerryusers who've just been coerced
into using touchscreens with notmuch choice.
Uh, and, and giving them anoption to bring back the good
old days.
Uh, um, and, and have a physicalkeyboard attached.
So, it'll be interesting to seehow that goes and how that plays
out.
So, in a way that, that pointsto a direction that if you are

(06:46):
doing fan service, then maybethere's a way to find these
products that can have.
potentially some success.
But, so I'm going to start withjust more of an anecdote.
Um, and it was something that Iwas watching a video on complex,
which is of course thatsneakers, um, well, the sneakers
media empire, and they have Um,they go sneaker shoppings with

(07:09):
celebrities and one of them wasJana Jackson, their most recent
episode from a couple of weeksago.
And they go through her historywith sneakers and sneakers.
She's purchased for work forlife.
And then they go through thestore and they pick sneakers
that, and she talks, you know,anecdotes and a little interview
at the side.
So one of the first shoes shementions is her wrestling shoe

(07:32):
that she wore during one of hermusic videos, The story behind
the choice was that it had to bepractical.
It had a, if you've seen awrestling shoe, it has a very
thin sole.
So it gives you grippiness.
You can have a feeling, uh, ofthe, what is under your feet.
You can get kind of grippiness.
You really can dig into theground.
And as a dancer of her level,that was such a big deal.

(07:54):
And it looked really cool.
Um, and so I was thinking tomyself, there's a cool story
here.
There's a narrative around JanetJackson.
First of all, you know,incredible musician, incredible
dancer has made it throughridiculous things and ridiculous
fake problems with Superbowlperformances and all those

(08:14):
things managed to somehowsurvive all of that.
So there's a story there of anincredible artist.
And then there's this productthat's attached to her.
And here I am just watching aYouTube video going, Oh, man, I
think I need wrestling shoes.
Now, I don't need wrestlingshoes, but there's something
about this story that's reallypiquing my interest.
And so I was thinking in thecontext of our conversation, in

(08:36):
a sense, I am kind of some sortof fan now, you know, I should
be able to tell Adidas, Hey, Iwant that wrestling shoe again.
But then that got me thinkingabout what is it that I really
want?
I don't want her original shoe.
That's not, that's not it.
It's the story that surroundsthe shoe that I like.
And it's the vibe, basically,you know, the, the emotion that

(08:59):
surrounds what it is.
The shoe was chosen for itsutilitarian value as well as its
style.
It wasn't just a thing that shewore.
She was telling me somethingabout why it was valuable to
her.
And I was looking for thatconnection with a shoe that
maybe has the silhouette of awrestling shoe.
Anyway, the reason I mentionedall of that is part of me

(09:19):
wonders in the product domain,whether we could misunderstand
fan service where someone willsay, we need to see X, Y, Z.
If you take that model, theDisneyfication model, I guess is
maybe the way to call it.
And then you say apply it toproducts and you deliver exactly
the thing that a person wants inthat product domain.
I don't think you're going tohit the note.
I think you, what we're tryingto get at is the vibe.

(09:40):
We're trying to get at theemotion and the story and the
narrative, and that's what youshould be leaning on.
So when I think about fanservice in the domain of product
innovation, I think of it, maybethe way to move it forwards and
make it productive is.
ask and interrogate what it isthe fans actually want.
I don't know if they wantexactly the same thing.
They want something that givesthem that feeling.

(10:02):
And so fan service is a reallycheap way.
of pretending that you'relistening to your customer, but
all you're trying to do isreissue something or do
something that you've done inthe past again.
And so I think the, when we leanon fan service, when we lean on
just old modes of having donesomething.
This was successful back thenand people are hankering for

(10:22):
that thing now.
I think what that is actuallypointing at is a failure of our
communication to our customers.
the number of companies I speakto and consult with and discuss
how they pass information fromtheir customers is incredibly
indirect.
You know, they don't buildprotocols from the ground up
that let customers speakclearly.

(10:42):
Everyone says, vote with yourmoney.
I can't vote with my money.
I can't say to you, I want thevibes of the Janet Jackson
wrestling shoe.
I have no.
Way of communicating that to themarket.
Um, and so if you want to get atfan service and you want to have
the market speak, then part ofproduct innovation means I think
you need to develop ways ofcommunicating, uh, in a scalable

(11:05):
way with some discip.
To your customer base and letthem send you real signals back
instead of having to infer whatyou think is going on and build
some very convenient narrativethat lets you lean on, you know,
old molds or whatever it is thatlets you, you know, replay old,
old hits, or just, take theirdrawings as given and say,
that's the, that's the shoe thatthey want.
We'll just give them exactlythat.

(11:26):
And then move on.
I think at its, at its essence,there's a communication problem.
I feel that way about like, um,cars as well.
Like when, uh, you know,everyone wants the BMW M, right?
M is like the.
pinnacle of BMW's engineeringprowess.
And there was always a veryclear labeling of that.
There's the three series.

(11:46):
So there's an M3 that is top.
Then there's the five series.
There's the M5 and that was it.
And now, if you go, especiallyon the European market, where
there's so many more variationsof BMWs, you've got the M Sport,
Which is just, like, a 3 serieswith, with some M y stuff
happening.
And then you've got the M340,which is not an M because it's

(12:08):
not M3, but it's got an M in it.
And it's kind of fanservice,everyone wants the M, but no,
maybe you can't spend 100, 000,you know.
sometimes they will do thesethings in service of the
customer base, but at the sametime destroy what made the thing
desirable and powerful in thefirst place.
It's the vibes.
M three is the vibes.
I mean, M is motorsport.

(12:29):
It's supposed to be sporty.
And when you see an X5M, itfeels really strange.
It doesn't make sense.
It's supposed to be a sportscar, but instead it's this huge
SUV and a tank.
But yeah, my broader point isreally about communication.
Think the businesses that dothis are willfully ignoring the
communication that theircustomers could give them.

(12:50):
They could be working on ways ofactually getting that
information from theircustomers.
So that's kind of my angle.
Where are you coming from?
you picked this topic, so youmust have had something in mind.
what were you

Ernest (13:01):
yeah, yeah.
And actually, what came to mindfor me too was the automotive
space.
And yeah, you've brought up theexample of BMW, I think a brand
that's actually managed thistension well is Porsche, where
If you look at Porsche fancommunities, you see everyone

(13:23):
railing about how much they hatethe SUVs, the Porsche SUVs, the
Cayenne, and then now the, it,Macan or Macan?

Joachim (13:32):
McCann?
Yeah.
I never know how to pronouncethose things.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Ernest (13:37):
that's fair.
If you're a purist, thenobviously you're going to want
that small original 2 plus 2,um, 911, And I think the great
thing that Porsche has done isthey've said, yes, and, you
know, we're going to keep doingthat pure driver's car.
And we're going to do these SUVsthat are going to be the best

(13:59):
driving SUVs on the market.
We're going to bring that, youtalked about earlier, I think
the fan service approach tendsto be very surface level.
So they said, we're going tokind of take into what.
people really care about whatmakes a Porsche a Porsche and
bring that as far as we can intothese other classes of vehicles
that the market is obviouslytelling us they want.

(14:22):
and I think the thing that hashelped them is they've, you
know, quietly but effectivelycommunicated to the fan base
that And the thing that enablesus to keep making these 718s is
the fact that we do these SUVsthat generate the revenue that

(14:42):
lets us invest in these smallcars that on their own are just
not a big enough market for usto be able to survive as a going
concern.
So, um, I think it shows youthat you can do both, that you
can continue to serve this, youknow, base of your most
impassioned fans while still,you know, delivering on the

(15:02):
needs of the broader market,continuing to stay relevant and
viable, uh, as a company.
So I always love it as anexample showing that you can,
can do both things.
Another example that is evenmore recent in the automotive
space is actually, um, Hyundai.
And this kind of speaks to,again, in the automotive, you

(15:24):
know, ultrafan community,everyone says they want a manual
transmission.
Uh, and you know, I thinkeveryone recognizes though that
if a company were to come outand say, oh, we're only going to
do manual transmission cars,they would just, it's just
completely unviable proposition.
But I think Hyundai has done areally great job of again,

(15:44):
mining that and saying, okay,what is it about this that
people love?
And I think what they'veunderstood is, is it's the sense
of control that you are truly incontrol of this vehicle.
And it creates this sort ofsymbiotic relationship and
engages you in the drivingexperience in a way that an

(16:04):
automatic doesn't.
And so they've brought thatfeeling and those principles
into this new IONIQ 5N, I thinkit is, which is their motorsport
version of the IONIQ 5.
And I think, Maybe notcoincidentally, the person who
brought that concept to Hyundaiwas the former head of BMW's M

(16:25):
division, who went over toHyundai, since retired, but he's
still involved in Hyundai now.
And, um, I think it took someonewith, of his stature to bring
what I think, Many would haveconsidered to be a crazy idea
into the electric vehicle spacebecause, you know, if you know
your electric vehicles, theyactually don't require any

(16:46):
gearing at all.
So the IONIQ 5 has no gears.
That's one of the greatattributes of EV motors is that
they have no need for gears toget max torque at zero RPM.
Um, And, you know, that cancreate some interesting
experiences, but you lose that,that feeling of control that you
get from a manual transmissionvehicle.

(17:07):
So Hyundai and this new IONIQ 5Nhave brought artificial manual
control into the five.
And when I initially heard aboutit, I thought it was ridiculous.
It was such a crazy idea.
But as I read more about it, andas I've started to see reviews
from people who've had a chanceto drive, um, uh, kind of had
initial early drive experiences,it sounds like they've actually

(17:30):
implemented it in a way thatdelivers on that That core thing
that made, you know, that makepeople want manual transmission
cars.
So I think that's another greatexample showing that you can
deliver on this if you take thetime to understand, as you were
saying, that core thing, thecore reason that, that fans are

(17:52):
as are fans of that thing, youknow, rather than just do the
surface execution of just givingit to them as is understand why,
and then bring that to them.
to your product in, in a new waythat's more going to be more
broadly viable and help youreach more, um, potential
customers rather than continuingto limit you over time.

(18:14):
Because that is to mefundamentally the risk of fan
service is that over time it'salways going to limit your
opportunity because justinvariably those, um, Those
little nuggets, those Eastereggs, the audience that
understands them is going tojust get smaller and smaller

(18:34):
with every incarnation.
Um, to the point where, youknow, like Blackberry, you just
have no one left to address.
So, um, it's just always goingto be a dead end proposition.
But, There's a way that youcould take that core nugget and
use it actually as a growthopportunity, which I think, you
know, we've seen in Porsche andwe've seen in Hyundai.
I think we're, all indicationsare that this Ioniq 5n is going

(18:56):
to be a huge success for them.
Do any kind of more contemporaryexamples come to mind for you?

Joachim (19:01):
Yeah, I think you're right.
When I was thinking about all ofmy examples, I was thinking
about automotive examples askind of the, the fans of this
one.
And yes, the 911 was one that,that came to mind as well for
me.
Um, but I was, yeah, I was goingto go a little bit on this ionic
path.
Um, because I think what we'regetting at is fans give you

(19:26):
signal on something.
Yeah.
But it's not necessarily thething that they're shouting
about, right?
It's something that is, as I wascalling it, just generically the
vibe of the thing.
And so like you pointed out, themanual transmission is
connection to the car.
That's it.
you want connection and youdon't want to have a mediator in

(19:46):
there.
So I think that comes back to,maybe, a product innovation
strategy isn't really aboutfiguring out what the fans want.
it's more like building theplatform that enables them to
communicate those things out.
And I think if you follow thepath of more, what is the vibe?
What is the emotive bit thatpeople are attached to, then it
will prevent you from going downa very narrow conservative

(20:09):
approach, right?
Fan service is in my mind, avery conservative approach
because fans are people that arealready customers.
And I think that's kind of the.
The downside of the fanservicepart is it turns you into a very
conservative beast.
And you, I don't think youreally push the envelope so
much.
I think again, it's, it justcomes back to if you take it to

(20:32):
literally what the customer issaying, you're going to make a
mistake because we, ascustomers, speaking for myself,
I don't necessarily have thelanguage to express exactly what
it is that I want.
I'll, I'll know it when I see itand it's your job to give me
this thing that I haven't seenbefore, right?
That's the problem with fanservice is that if you listen to
me and I tell you what I wantand you give it to me, I go

(20:54):
like, ah, it's not quite that.
Um, It reminds me of that, um,way back when, that Simpsons
episode where Homer meets hisbrother who runs a car company.
Is that what the story is?
Like some of his twin brotherand his, so he runs this huge
automotive manufacturer andHomer is allowed to design his

(21:15):
car.
and they say yes to everythingthat he wants.
And when the car is revealed,it's an absolute abomination.
and so that's what it reminds meof is like, if you listen to the
customers.
Specific words, as opposed towhat the essence of it is that
they want.
Because if you're a customer,you're not trained in the
language of design, you'retrained in the language of

(21:36):
consumption and you lean on whatyou've seen before by that
nature.
But if your job is to think ofthe possible future, then it
becomes more abstract.
I'm wondering, you know, as a,as a person who is a signal
generator, you know, I rememberwe going back to one of the
episodes where you described,what does it mean to be a
product line manager?
You know, there is that essenceof you're the signal extractor.

(21:57):
You need to infer what the truestory is.
That's coming out of, of thecustomer base, as opposed to
exactly what it is that they'resaying.

Ernest (22:06):
Yeah, that is a great point.
And I did experience thatfirsthand.
Exactly what you've outlined.
Where we were, um, we had thisidea that there might be an
opportunity for a new kind ofproduct, but just like you're
saying, you know, your customersdon't have the language to
describe what that is becausethat's not what they do.

(22:29):
And so just like you're saying,they fall back on the things
that they do have access to, thethings they've seen already.
And so it can be so easy to fallback on that.
And in this project, ourteammates in sales all said, you
know, see, they're all sayingthey just want these things.
So let's just give them thosethings.

(22:51):
And And they're right, right?
If you're literally just takingwhat people say, yes, that is
exactly what they're saying.
The challenge with that is, youknow, you do that for one thing,
those products become stale andundifferentiated and
uncompetitive over time.
And if you just continue to dothat, then, you know, you end up

(23:13):
in a bad place.
so as a, you know, someonemaking products, your job is
really to dig into.
So, not just what they'resaying, but what they mean,
which is, you know, somethingyou talked about earlier as
well.
Um, and that's not easy, uh, butthat's the job, and, it is, it

(23:34):
is something that I absolutelyhave had first hand experience
with.
And what I've found to be verysuccessful for helping people
is, oftentimes people strugglewith, verbalizing what they
want, but they might be betterat articulating it through other
ways, or if you can give themsomething to react to, a

(23:55):
prototype.
So I found in the past thatthat's always been very
effective, because you mighthave a long conversation with
people about something, andthey'll say, You know, something
very specific, and then you showthem a few things, and then
they'll say things completelydifferent.
And it's because, you know, theyjust don't have the vocabulary
to actually articulate what itis they're looking for.

(24:17):
But if you show them things,then they can react to them and
give you much more usefulfeedback.
So, um, insofar as possible, Ithink it's incredibly useful to,
um, show things, um, you know,whether it's digital mock ups,
physical mock ups, but givethings people to react to so
that, they don't have to justfall back on the things that

(24:39):
they already understand.
I think that is a greatobservation though, because, you
know, you talked earlier aboutthe fact that we can't, as
customers, always vote with ourwallets, because the
alternatives just don't exist.
So we have no way to articulatewhat it is that we actually
want, because it doesn't existout there.
Um, and, and I think that's thechallenge within an
organization, is that, Folks insales are always going to see

(25:03):
and say, well, you know, peopleare buying this existing thing.
So why don't we just keep doingthat?
Um, and it's just, you have tounderstand that there's only a
certain amount of, um, runwayyou have with a, a given
solution.
Um, there's always going to becompetitive forces that are
going to force you to evolvethat over time and to get better
at solving that underlying needversus just, you know,

(25:26):
Continuing to offer that kind ofgreatest hits from the past.

Joachim (25:31):
That makes me think more a little bit about the
digital domain and an examplethat comes to mind there of
breaking fans service, maybe toa certain extent is, is Reddit.
Reddit comes to mind becausetheir product is fundamentally a
place where fans can cometogether.

(25:52):
You know, people can buildcommunity.
So if your product is heavilyindexed on Reddit.
Communities finding each other,the ability to connect,
communicate, and, you know,build an ecosystem where
everyone exists.
Um, then if you ignore them,then you ignore the thing that

(26:15):
made your product cool in thefirst place.
Um, and so I think Reddit is,has been in the news recently.
It has IPOed.
It's a very big deal that theyhave basically been looking for.
Sources of revenue that ignorewhat made it such a funny space.
Now, let's be clear.

(26:36):
Reddit is also an incrediblytoxic place.
You know, there's lots of stuffthat was very bad.
Like if you look at the earlyyears of Reddit and the
subreddits that were popular, Imean, they're bordering on the
illegal or potentially actuallyillegal.
So it's been a, it's taken along time to get to this state
where enough communities existthat you could say.
People have found themselves andfound each other.

(26:58):
And it's been very, you know,potentially net positive for a
lot of people.
And the moderators have gottenso good at stopping bad
behaviors, that it's veryeffective, but that's what made
Reddit special is there aremoderators as community.
There are super users.
There are people that areattached to your product and
they like the product the way itis.
Now, on the other hand, there'sthe business guy who's saying,

(27:19):
you got to grow this thing.
Like I got to go beyond thissuper fan and I got to grow this
thing.
So what do I do?
I've got to just try and turn itinto something beige, right?
Something that I thinkeveryone's going to like, and
that's going to be very safe foradvertisers, or I'm going to
sell data, which is the otherangle of attack that they're
going for.
But in some sense, they're kindof breaking, they're breaking

(27:43):
their community and breakingtheir fan base in order to be
able to create, you know, safe.
Spaces online and, and, youknow, when a business talks
about making their website safe,what they mean is safe for
brands.
Brands want to feel that they'renot going to show up next to
something funky and, um, andthen have to worry about that.
So brand safety is what theyactually mean by safety.

(28:04):
Not, not, not community safety,which is what has already
emerged out of the complexbehaviors on Reddit.
And so that feels like a badchoice.
Because they're not reallyinterrogating the essence of
what it is that created thatcommunity in the first place.
And really what you want to dois, you want to have a way of
using that community to bring inthe next group of people.

(28:25):
As opposed to somehow forcingpeople to join Reddit and then
playing all kinds of games with,Oh, here's where you can find
blah, blah.
I don't know even know what itis that they're going to try and
do to attract news becauseReddit is such a quirky corner
of the internet.
So the only way they could widenthe net is make it less quirky.
I think, from the top.
down if it has to be a centrallycontrolled thing.

(28:47):
Um, but that misses the point ofthe product.
The product was a bottoms up,moderators fix their own thing.
There are subreddits.
They organize around thosesubreddits.
It feels much more like afederation as opposed to a
central platform.
So I think in that sense, I cansee a service breaking itself
because it ignores what its fansor its, its power users or its

(29:08):
regular users are looking forfrom that platform.
If it is about the community, ifsomething is community driven or
built on community or on thatcrowd of people coming together,
um, then you can't ignore theirvoices.
Instead, I think it comes backto, you should be building tools
that give them more ability toexpress themselves, all the
users, you know, and it'sdifficult, obviously it's

(29:30):
difficult, but that's why,that's why we do it, right?
It's more interesting to solvethis complex problem of, well,
how do I serve these people andalso You know, lean on them to
help me get to the next level,because I think it's exactly
what you were mentioning before.
It's the same dilemma thatPorsche faced.
We have the 911 fans.
That's what Reddit is right now.

(29:51):
But, we can't sustain ourselvesjust on that.
So, guys, and people, generally,Hey, people, We need to work
together to figure this out.
this is a community drivenproject, your work is in here,
and we are making money off thatas well by going public.
But now we want to give you backsome agency and, and to be part

(30:13):
of that process of actually, um,figuring out where do we go from
here?
How do we make this a spacethat's sustainable?
You know, maybe that's thestarting point.
Um, and so.
That could that's an interestingdifferent strategy where you're
trying to really you're leaningon that fan base.
But again, you're trying tobuild a protocol or

(30:34):
communication channels thatallow you to get to the essence
of what it is.
And now you're enlisting theirhelp to grow the market.
So, yeah, you're trying to helpinstead of just, you know, Let's
make an SUV type of thing andyou get your 911.
I don't think there's a way todo that on Reddit because of the
nature of websites andtechnology.
I think it has to be donedifferently.

(30:54):
But the equivalent of that, theanalogy is exactly that.
There has to be something thatcan be done.
And everyone in this communityagrees that this is the right
way to do it.
Especially because so much laboris So much labor that Reddit is
leaning on is unpaid labor.
People's just spending time onthe website.
And it's this magic bit ofcommunity that's developed.
I think in those environments ofhighly complex ecosystems with

(31:17):
emergent behaviors and complexbehaviors that come out of that.
That's subtly different thanjust, do I want to buy this?
Do I not want to buy that?
Give me the green thing.
Give me that.
There's more complexity therebecause it has to do with the
social interaction.
Um, and so that I would say anyproduct that involves, you know,
interaction with others, um,that also becomes important to

(31:38):
think about that community.
I think we talked about thisseparately.
We were lucky enough to meet inperson a couple of weeks ago.
So we got to chat just aboutActually, it sounded like an
episode almost, because we werejust chatting about the same
stuff.
But, um You had mentionedVollaback.
I think I'm pronouncing thatcorrectly.
Um, who leans heavily onnarrative to kind of set up

(31:59):
their products.
And I think today or tomorrowthey're announcing a new
product.
And the tagline is simply,Imagine something that has the
power to weight ratio of AntMan.
And, you know, there's just,their products are so expensive,
so niche.
But I'm already a fan.
Like, I feel connected to thisbrand.

(32:20):
I was, I texted you that theother day.
I was like, I just can't getthese guys out of my head.
What is going on here?
And so there's, I'm not acustomer yet.
But again, it's this.
Indirect vibe.
I'm feeling something here.
I feel like you guys areinnovators and you're trying to
push fabric to the next leveland the apparel is something
special.
And yes, it's very, veryexpensive, but there's only

(32:41):
going to be a handful of thosemade.
And then you move on to the nextfrontier of whatever it is that
you're going to develop.
Um, so I think in that domain,you know, the I am technically a
fan.
I just haven't purchased yet.
So if they started moving awayfrom that thing, I think you
would lose the magic of thatweird community of people that
are geeking out about havingsomething that has the same

(33:03):
power to weight ratio as I'm at.
I don't even know what thatmeans.
I don't even know if I, I didn'tknow I needed that, but I
somehow need it now.
It doesn't.
And that's exactly the thingthat we're talking about.
The fan service here is you'refeeding me this vibe that I
like, that's one of those brandswhere I think they've leaned
into the narrative and they'rebuilding a community of people
that are engaging with thatnarrative before they even buy

(33:25):
the product.
So again, it comes back to our,or the point that we were
making, which is generally,Customers like the language to
do these things and you have to,Show and tell and, and build
narrative around those things,and then, um, And then their
voices will make more sensebecause now they're anchoring on
this story.
They've opened up a verydifferent communication pathway

(33:46):
for this stuff.
So,, that, that came to my mind.

Ernest (33:49):
You know, they, um, I love Vollebak as well.
I can't wait to see what it isthat they're actually talking
about.
Um, but.
I think the point you madeearlier about brand safety in
the context of, um, Reddit wasreally important as well.
And it reminds me of an articleI think I shared with you.
It was an interview with JackDorsey, just following, uh, his

(34:10):
departure from BlueSky's board.
Uh, and he also, he talkedabout, the fact that they
focused so heavily on brandsafety and prioritized the
voices of their brand partnersover the voices of their end
users.
And that in his opinion was whatled to their decline.
I think that that's a reallyimportant point to make here

(34:32):
because when we talk about theperils of fan service, we're
definitely not saying don'tlisten to your customers.
Uh, you know, and we're notsaying don't listen to your most
avid customers.
So that's still vital.
And it is also really importantto think about who it is that
you're going to prioritize whenyou, when it comes to listening,
for example, Reddit and as theywere approaching the IPO really

(34:53):
prioritized the voices of theirbrand partners.
And, you know, with Twitter,once they went public.
Um, and I'd say, for example, inlike a wholesale business, a
business where.
You're technically yourcustomers are not the end user,
they're actually the retailerswho are buying the product and
then reselling it or in thecontext of automotive, your

(35:14):
customers are actually the cardealers, not the end users.
But you have to be aware that,at least in my experience, the
people you need to prioritize interms of listening to are those
end users, that is the voicethat ultimately matters the
most.
And, you know, also recognizingthat those.
gatekeeper voices, the folks inthe middle, the, the dealers,

(35:37):
the salespeople, the brand, uh,representative folks, they're
typically going to be talkingfrom, uh, you know, a very
different perspective and withvery different interests in
mind.
So, you know, I would say centeryour customer's voices, but, you

(35:58):
know, just echoing what you'vesaid earlier, I think the vital
point is.
don't take what they sayliterally.
dig into the intent of whatthey're saying, not just the
literal words that they'resaying.
That's what I think tends tolead you to bad places where you
end up with that terrible Homercar that you talked about

(36:19):
earlier, which is such a greatexample.
We'll, we'll provide a, a linkto an image of that at the
least.
Um, but, but there is nuance toit, right?
I mean, I don't think there's aThere are black and white rules
that we can put up against this,there's definitely nuance,
there's definitely, um,interpretation in terms of, how
do you interpret this feedbackthat you're getting, uh, in a

(36:42):
way that can be, applied moreprogressively versus just
looking back at the past, beingregressive with it.
So, you know, I wish we couldprovide hard and fast rules
around that, but I guessultimately, at least from my
perspective, it is that idea oflisten for the meaning, not just
the words.
because if you do that, thatopens up a lot of opportunity

(37:05):
beyond just, you know,regurgitating what you've done
in the past.
Right.

Joachim (37:14):
episode, exactly like this is the era of fan service
in the media domain.
Like, it is literally, uh,please make this movie.
Okay, here it is.
It's a movie about, God knowswhat, something that someone out
there really, really wanted aremake of, Pick whatever.
Um, and so, and I think Netflixis kind of the, this, this is

(37:38):
the thing.
Someone pointed out that almostevery episode I have like just
crapped on Netflix and I thinkmaybe that's going to be my
thing.
So I have to, but I was thinkingabout, uh, in this context, like
the Russo brothers, the movie,the gray man, and it's just, the
title is perfect.
Cause it is the color is just.

(37:59):
It's so lame, the whole thing,it's just so lame.
Um, and it has everything right,Oh, I want a film with Ryan
Gosling and Chris Evans.
Two incredibly handsome peoplein a film.
Let's just put, let's just smashthem together.
Cause that's what Avengers was.
Bunch of good looking peoplebeing really superhuman.
And we'll just do that again.
No, I don't think anyone evencared about this film.

(38:20):
And so, sorry, Netflix, youmissed the point.
You forgot what it was.
It was the vibes, Actually, youknow, I don't know if it was
Soderbergh who said this, but Ifeel like he's a good example of
this.
If you follow, as a consumer, ifyou follow more the creator as
opposed to the output, then Ithink you will be rewarded more
with this.
And you will start learning thelanguage of how to Get out that

(38:42):
thing that you actually enjoy,right?
I enjoy a lot of Steven.
I mean, Steven Soderbergh isprolific.
He just makes so many movies allthe time.
And yeah, some of them are alittle bit odd.
Some are very good, but I stillfollow him.
I just want to know what he doesnext.
I don't care what the projectis.
I care that his eye is on it.

(39:05):
his lens is the thing that Iwant to look through.
Um, and I think that's exactlywhat it is with a product thing.
It's exactly, it's the lens thatyou want, not the.
The specifics of it, but anyway,I feel like there's something
about.
The discipline of how you, um,how you consume stuff will also
help you start formulatingexactly what it is that, that

(39:27):
appeals to you, uh, in aproduct.
And then hopefully you'll have away of expressing that back into
the.
Back to the marketplace, whichis really difficult.
And that's like, that comes backto my earlier frustration, which
is always, why are we notleaning on this technology to
build greater ways ofcommunicating.
what it is that we're thinkingabout as an innovator and how we

(39:49):
can get the customer to say, Oh,that, that sounds very cool.
I would love to see something abit more like that.
Right?
So there's this, it's moreabout, I'm going to paint the
picture of what's possible.
And now I want you to imaginewhat else could come from that.
And if this is something thatappeals to you, uh, and the more
abstract the better, um, Oh,actually, another call out to,
to Nate Grubbs, who talked aboutprogressive disclosure.

(40:12):
He talked to me about thumbnailsketches a long time ago and the
value of a thumbnail sketch.
and literally just a crappydrawing of the thing that you
were interested in making.
And he said, the interestingthing that comes from a poorly
rendered image is that peoplemisinterpret what it is that you
are doing.
And then you get a new idea fromthe original idea.
and so again, that speaks tothis idea that, you know,

(40:34):
sometimes even if you're askilled designer of some kind,
leaving enough fuzziness inthere gets that Feedback from
someone else that lets you pointit into a new direction.
So, I think that's, that speaksto the idea that we just, we
need better protocols.
We need more of these ways ofgetting that fuzziness across

(40:57):
that fundamentally human thing.
Um, and, and let the designersspeak, have that dialogue back
and forth, you know, at scale.
Because these, you know, we'dlike this to operate for billion
dollar companies, obviously.

Ernest (41:10):
love that point.
I think, I'm so glad you broughtthat up.
That's such a great point aboutleaving room for interpretation,
whether it's a digital prototypeor a physical prototype.
That's so good.
And I do think that's a concernthat I have around.
the use of AI based, generativeAI based tools for prototyping
is that you end up with thingsthat end up looking too finished

(41:32):
and don't leave that space forinterpretation that, helps you
then take these leaps into thesenew territories that you just
never would have pursuedotherwise.
So yeah, absolutely.
That's such a great point to,to, when you do prototyping.
Don't make them look perfect.
Make them fuzzy, because they'renot meant to be a finished

(41:53):
product.
They're meant to get you fromhere to somewhere else.
I love that.
Um,

Joachim (41:58):
I think, I think we had discussed this a while back,
way, way, way back when we werejust talking about this.
I think it was in the context ofsomething like Kickstarter.
Kickstarter is a good example offan service, right?
It is, someone has an idea inisolation.
They have an idea for a machineor something, and then they go

(42:19):
out there and And then they ask,is there, do you guys want this
and people put money behind itand, and so on.
So that, that is a good exampleof a rudimentary communication

Ernest (42:34):
yeah.

Joachim (42:34):
between the customers, the potential customer base and
the maker, and not onlycommunication, but also
investment vehicle, right?
It becomes an investment in thefuture of that product to exist.
Um, And so a lot of interestingthings can come out of that.
So.
Kickstarter is a good exampleof, you know, maybe we need more
types of things like that.
Maybe not the full investmentinto the completion of the

(42:57):
project, but maybe directionallygiving us, giving the customer
the voice and saying, yeahthat's the vibe, that's the
thing that we're going for.
Um, as opposed to this exactspecification, the customer has
said this sneaker, this manymillimeters, that color, and it
has to be, laced exactly thisway., there's definitely

(43:19):
something about the fuzziness ofit all as well as very valuable
and having these opencommunication platforms and
having the ability to, yeah, Ithink that's what it is.
I think what we want is aplatform where the fuzziness can
be communicated and everyonehops on there and knows.
This is fuzzy.
It's okay.
You know, we'll, we'll, we'regoing to work together to refine

(43:42):
exactly what it is that youwant, the, designer's vision and
then the mangled interpretationof the customer base, and then
pushing that back to thedesigner and then having this be
a cycle that can go around andaround until something magical
comes up and then do that foreveryone.
Everything, everywhere, all atonce.
Um, and then using the textfavorites phrase at scale.

(44:05):
Billions of users.

Ernest (44:08):
Um, well, I think we could actually go into a whole
big side of our conversation ofone of the big, big problems
these days being this desire to,to achieve scale overnight, you
know, and the definition ofsuccess being measured in
billions of users.
Um, but we can reserve that foranother day.

Joachim (44:28):
Oh, actually what I was going to say is, yeah, it is
still related.
It's the fact, the fact that Ithink we've hinted at this in
other conversations.
Maybe you do just want to serveyour fans, right?
Maybe there is a niche and it'sjust them, but they're repeat
customers, you know?
Uh, and again, I think apparelis a good example.

(44:48):
Like you always need apparel.
And.
Maybe there are only 500 peoplethat really like it and maybe
that's okay, you know, and thatbecomes the thing they are.
It's such a small number ofpeople.
You can actually communicatewith them and you can actually
extract what it is that theywant and what they like and you
build a community around that.
So now, instead of it just beingan apparel producer, you're an

(45:09):
apparel producer with acommunity that is very committed
to you and committed to thebrand.
And.
There are ways to make that moreformal.
But I think that's alsosomething quite interesting.
So niches, like you're saying,like everything billions in that
scale, it's such like, why,where did this come from?
Where did the small business.
There's no small businessesanymore.
Everything's a startup.

(45:30):
Like, no, it's not.
It could just be a smallbusiness.
Maybe it is only 500 people, butthat's enough to sustain the
business for that person.
And, um, it could be, you know,again, you have a loyal fan
base.
Um, and that is, you know,You're serving them and someone
will show up and say, Hey, whatabout me?
I want the thing.
And I want it to be a little bitlike, no, this, I serve this

(45:52):
community of people again,reminds me a lot of those small
bars in Japan where you try andhop on and everyone's like, Hey
dude, this is, this is not foryou.
There are loyal customers here.
There are three seats and theguy who's going to sit there is
coming in five minutes and youbetter back off.
I don't want to, I'm not goingto make you another spot here.
I don't care.
You know, I'm, I'm a capacitywith three or whatever.

(46:13):
So.
There's also some, some romanticappeal to that that focus on
this is what I'm good at.
I could do those things anddon't go too far.
It's, it's, it's, this is asmall business.
It's not a startup.

Ernest (46:27):
What I love though is that construct you introduced
earlier of trying to cultivate,um, a relationship where you
fall in love with the creatorand their vision, but not the
output.
So, you know, you're not stuckin this one moment in time.
Instead, you know, you're buyinginto this journey with this
person whose vision you're, youknow, you really align with and

(46:48):
really vibe with.
Um, I think that could be areally exciting place and, you
know, to your point, it doesn'thave to be giant.
It doesn't have to be atbillions of users scale.
Um, all right, well, I thinkwe're actually just getting
started, but in the interest oftime, um, now that you've heard

(47:09):
our perspectives, we want tohear from you.
Please share your thoughts withus at learnmakelearn at gmail.
com.
let's move on to ourrecommendations of the week.
Joachim, do you have anyrecommendations you want to
share?

Joachim (47:26):
Yeah.
I have two actually, one isdirectly related to what we've
been talking about, which is,it's another YouTube channel
that I, enjoyed watching.
Uh, it's, they're called secretgalaxy TV, and this is fan
service, 100 percent fanservice.
Uh, this channel basically isjust a nostalgia, nostalgia

(47:48):
trip.
Like there's nothing, there'snothing innovative here.
This is just, let me tell youthe history of obscure cartoon
from the 1980s or 1990s orobscure kids TV show.
So this is a channel that justtells you the secret history of
a thing that you watched whenyou were a kid and the toys that

(48:09):
went along with it.
So they have, of course, all ofthe big ones, but then there are
TV shows that, uh, I don't knowhow many people watched.
So I was obsessed briefly withGalaxy Rangers.
There's an episode of GalaxyRangers.
I don't know.
That show is so bizarre.
Um, I played the theme tune tomy son the other day.
He said, what is this?

(48:30):
This is awful.
Um, and I said, no, it'sactually very, very cool.
Okay.
Um, and then they also did anepisode on Brave Star.
Did you ever watch Brave Star?
Uh,

Ernest (48:42):
never, heard of it.
Uh,

Joachim (48:45):
are some pretty weird animation shows that exist.
I think people just had theseideas and it's about this Native
American guy who can channel thepower of bears, hawks, wolves,
and the speed of the Puma.
I think he has those powers sohe can tap into some magical
power and, but it's an outerspace.

(49:09):
So he's out in outer spacefighting the good fight.
His horse can transform from toa bipedal.
Gunslinging horse.
Ernest is, by the way, Ernest islosing it right now.
He's can't focus cause it's sucha ridiculous, it's so insane.
I don't understand.

(49:30):
I love that show.
And it turns out Tina, my wifealso loved it.
So we, we.
We reconnected on that.
Anyway, this YouTube channelcovers all of this obscure
stuff.
Oh my God, they talk aboutBionic Six.
No one cared about Bionic Six.
I watched Bionic Six.
It made no sense.
It's a family of special people.
It's like a sequel to the BionicMan, but it's his family.
It's so, it's so great.

(49:53):
So if there is a TV show thatyou remember from your past, I
guarantee, almost 100 percentguarantee that Secret Galaxy TV
will have an episode on it.
And, um, it's very, it's donereally, it's just very fun.
It's very, it's just a nostalgiatrip.
There's nothing else to it.
Um, But sometimes they uncoversome pretty interesting little

(50:14):
factoids about the developmentof a show, how it came about,
the conflicts that emerged fromthat.
I recommend the channel.
I think if you just wantsomething light and, and
nostalgic and don't want to taxyourself too much, this is
exactly the thing to do.
Um, and then this other thing isthat I want to recommend this
article that I.
Uh, stumbled on that reallyjust, it made me chuckle and

(50:38):
then I read it and I thoughtactually this is, this is pretty
cool.
So it's, it's a slightly grosstopic, um, but it's about
treating, uh, warts, you know, WA R T, the, um, and this was a
randomized study where they wereexperimenting whether Generally,
the people, what people do isthey freeze them off, uh, so

(51:00):
they'd freeze it and then acouple weeks later they'd freeze
it again and then hopefullyit'll be dealt with that way.
Now, it's very painful.
Some people thought, what if wejust, um, not what if we just,
but they tried occlusiontherapy, meaning they put duct
tape on it for like a week orsomething.
And then they let it open for 12hours and then they seal it off
again with duct tape.
Anyway, this paper, spoileralert, duct tape is better than

(51:24):
cryotherapy for Verrucas andwarts.
They're really centering thesechildren's pain that, that comes
out of these cryotherapies.
They're really trying to avoidthat.
And the solution is cheap, veryeasy to implement and looks like
the sample is tiny, but.

(51:44):
Looks like it does better thanthe, the other therapies.
So I think it's just a reallyinteresting read to see the
thought process.
It's an academic article, butit's pretty, it's
understandable.
And, you know, they try and beserious and rigorous about what
they're doing there.
And, I just found it quirky andstrange.
So I thought I'd share that witheveryone here.

(52:05):
Yeah, it's, it's interesting.
And again, it's the, speaks tothe power of duct tape and the
references in there.
The authors are from thechildren's hospital in
Cincinnati.
So they're not just like in themiddle of nowhere.
They're like really trying tofigure something out here.
So anyway, I leave that with,uh, with our listeners and with
you now, Ernest.
So you get to read that.
Um, what, what's, uh, what'syour rec for the weekend?

Ernest (52:25):
Uh, well, mine, I, I, Is somewhat related to our topic
from today, maybe we could talkthrough some of the connectivity
at the end, but I want to sharea blog post by someone named
Ernie Smith at the Tediumnewsletter, and he shares a
fantastic new tool for heavyusers of Google search.

(52:45):
Smith's blog post is in responseto the new AI overviews feature
that Google started adding atoptheir search results this week.
This is a feature that's been intesting for the past year and is
just now being rolled out to USbased users of Google search.
Now, in case you're not familiarwith them, AI overviews differ
from traditional search resultsin that they attempt to answer

(53:06):
queries directly via generativeAI technology powered by Google
Gemini.
The overview system provides afew snippets of a quote unquote
answer based on itsunderstanding of your search
query.
And then the sources used togenerate that answer are
displayed below that AI overviewresponse.
Um, and then below that and abunch of other cruft Google

(53:27):
displays, it's traditionalsearch results.
Uh, the reaction from many inthe tech community to the AI
overviews has been, I guess,let's say mixed.
Uh, for example, quoting ErnieSmith from Tedium now.
Quote, if you're using Google toactually find websites rather
than get answers, aI overviewssuck.
Uh, but in the midst of allthis, Google quietly added

(53:50):
something else to its results.
A quote web filter that presentswhat Google used to look like a
decade ago.
No extra junk.
While Google made its AI focuschanges known on its biggest
stage during its Google I/Oevent, the web filter was
curiously announced on Twitterby search liaison Danny
Sullivan.

(54:11):
As Sullivan wrote, we've addedthe web filter after hearing
from some that there are timeswhen they'd prefer to just see
links to webpages in theirsearch results.
Alright, so coming back to ErnieSmith now, quote, The results
are fascinating.
It's essentially Google minusthe crap.
It looks like the Google welearned to love in the early
2000s, buried under the Moremenu, like lots of other old

(54:33):
things Google once did more toemphasize.
It's worth understanding thetradeoffs though.
A simplified view does notreplace the declining quality of
Google's results, largely causedby decades of SEO optimization
by website creators.
The same overly optimizedresults are going to be there,
like it or not.
So, it's not Google Circa 2001,it is a Google Circa 2001

(54:57):
presentation of Google Circa2024.
A very different site.
If you understand the tradeoffs,it can be a great tool.
But is there anything you can doto minimize the pain of having
to click the web option buriedin a menu every single time?
The answer to that question isyes.
Unquote.
Um, and in the remainder of thepost, Smith explains how to

(55:19):
configure the built in searchfunctionality in your browser to
make this new web filter yourdefault for Google results.
Smith's instructions are basedon Vivaldi, which is his browser
of choice.
I was so intrigued by thisfeature that I installed Vivaldi
just to give it a try.
And first, that browser isactually really cool.
I hadn't heard of it before.
And I, I look forward tospending more time with it.

(55:41):
It's highly customizable.
It has some really interestingfeatures to it based on the
Chromium engine.
But as for the web filter, um,it really is as, just as Smith
describes it, a Google Circa2001 presentation of Google
Circa 2024, which to me is ahuge, You know, still a huge
improvement over the standardpresentation of Google Circa

(56:02):
2024.
I didn't realize just how muchcruft has accumulated atop
Google search results over theyears.
So seeing the results withoutthat cruft was really striking
and genuinely refreshing.
Now, in addition to Vivaldi, Iwas able to configure Chrome to
show the results in this newsimplified web filter view by
default as well.

(56:23):
And Smith also provides links toinstructions for Firefox and
Safari on iOS.
Unfortunately, for the timebeing at least, there's no way
to set this new web filter viewas the default for Google
results in Safari for macOS.
so a blog post titled, Does OneLine Fix Google, is my
recommendation of the week, andwe'll provide a link to Ernie

(56:43):
Smith's blog post in our shownotes.
And the, the way I saw thisconnect again with our topic is,
you know, I guess you, somecould argue that this, web
filter view is kind of fanservice, right?
In that it's servicing those,you know, handful of people who
want that old 2001 view ofGoogle.
Um, you know, versus the new AIoverview, which is, you know,

(57:08):
what I guess Google would argueis what people really want,
which is answers to theirquestions.
Um, so I'm willing to kind ofget pushback on that and, you
know, um, to maybe spend sometime thinking about whether
that's the case or not.
But I think to me, at leastSmith's point is valid in that

(57:30):
Google has ceased to do what itwas intended to do, and which
most people go to it for, whichis to help you find, um,
resources, uh, based on queriesthat you enter.
Um, and so this new web filterview gives you a way to just get
back to that actual originalfunctionality.
So I guess I would argue it'sless, fan service and more

(57:52):
actually, you know, thisplatform getting back to doing
what it was meant meant to doand originally did.
Um, but I think it's, uh,something that maybe could be
argued.

Joachim (58:01):
Yeah.
I think that's the, as, as youand the author of this blog post
point out, it's, we're still inthe hellscape that is the SEO
over optimized set of Googlesearch results.
Like that's, that's not going togo away.
We kind of, we've lost that,that earlier period of the
internet where things wereheavily websites and people just

(58:21):
used websites.
And now we hop between two orthree walled gardens.
And everything is cross postednow as well across those walled
gardens.
Right.
TikTok videos are on YouTube.
YouTube shorts are on Instagram,Instagram, TikTok.
I mean, it's all just like thesame stuff.
So to a certain extent, it's notsurprising then that the Google

(58:43):
search is no longer the thingthat it needs to be, you know,
actually.
I think you can see in the, inthe platform battles and the
platform wars, as I just alludedto the fact that people just
cross post videos everywhere.
That's the thing that's so badis when TikTok was taking off
and everyone was convinced thatthis magical top secret

(59:04):
algorithm was operating thereand could read your mind and
knew exactly what content itwas.
People forgot that the onlything that was going on was it
was a fresh platform with noadvertising and people were not
optimizing for that platformyet.
There's nothing to optimizeagainst.
People just tried it out and itwas the same weird.
Internet that we always know islike the full mix of human

(59:25):
stuff, right?
And then, um, so that just aside note on human creativity
showing up on TikTok, but thenimmediately getting in shitified
and advertisers and stuff.
But the joke being then that'sthe, you should know that that's
the natural, the naturaltrajectory of platform.
So what does YouTube do?
Oh, we need shorts.

(59:46):
Everyone needs to make shortsnow.
So you get more money if youmake shorts.
What do you do?
You're chasing this TikTokthing.
What?
And then Instagram.
Oh, oh, reels, reels,everything's reels now.
Okay.
And so in a sense that that isthe worst type of fan service.
It's just, you're just trying toshow up and say, Hey kids, we're
cool too, come and post.

(01:00:06):
But, um, I think that is alsothis, that could be construed as
listening to the customer andfollowing them.
You've missed the point again,right?
The point was not short formvideo is the future.
Well, the point was, uh, was aplace where people felt that
they could share stuff andpeople would find it.
You know, if you're trying topull fans from one service to

(01:00:28):
your service, that's veryfoolish, right?
That's, I think that is just atotal dead end.
You're not doing anything.
You're not innovating.
You're trying to convince themthat your thing is better.
Yeah, I do wish that this, Ithink it's the, sorry, general
point.
The business model of theinternet is just so, so broken,
you know, again, it's, whatwould that look like in a
healthy way in this technology,technological context?

(01:00:51):
It's very hard to see becausethe business model is so
predicated on scale and sellingeyeballs.
Anyway, yeah.

Ernest (01:00:59):
Uh, man, there's a bunch of stuff in there we could talk
about in future episodes aswell.
Um, but for today, I think thatdoes it for us.
Um, thank you so much forjoining us here at Learn.
Make Learn as we, always say wewant to hear from you.
So please send any questions orfeedback to learn, make
learn@gmail.com and tell yourfriends about us.

(01:01:19):
In our next episode, we're goingto discuss how you, as someone
in the business of makingproducts, can escape the weight
of history.
The two most powerful forces inany organization are inertia and
history.
Inertia is easy to understand,and it is a cousin to history,
in that history is the pressurethat develops within companies
to beat, or at the very least,repeat history, as in the

(01:01:41):
previous year's sales for agiven product.
This leads to a tendency to fallback on the tried and true, what
you know works, because lastyear's numbers are always
looming in your rearview.
But, ultimately, this leads tostagnant products and puts you
at risk of disruption by morenimble competitors who aren't
weighed down by your historicalbaggage.
We'll share our own experiencesand perspectives on how to

(01:02:03):
counter the weight of history onthe next Learn Make Learn.

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