alt Hacker NewsAs someone who's worked with population data, I found that there is an enormous rift between reported opinion (and HN and reddit opinion) vs revealed (through experimentation) population preferences.
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Well that's what akrasia is. It's not necessarily a contradiction that needs to be reconciled. It's fine to accept that people might want to behave differently than how they are behaving.
A lot of our industry is still based on the assumption that we should deliver to people what they demonstrate they want, rather than what they say they want.
Exactly, that sounds to me like a TikTok vs NPR/books thing, people tell everyone what they read, then go spend 11h watching TikToks until 2am.
Sounds both true and interesting. Any particularly wild and/or illuminating examples of which you can share more detail?
This is why I work in direct performance advertising. Our work reveals the truth!
I always thought that the idea that "revealed preferences" are preferences, discounts that people often make decisions they would rather not. It's like the whole idea that if you're on a diet, it's easier to not have junk food in the house to begin with than to have junk food and not eat more than your target amount. Are you saying these people want to put on weight? Or is it just they've been put in a situation that defeats their impulse control?
I feel a lot of the "revealed preference" stuff in advertising is similar in advertisers finding that if they get past the easier barriers that users put in place, then really it's easier to sell them stuff that at a higher level the users do not want.