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by Jaruzel 2743 days ago
> When I joined the growth team at Pinterest

There it is, right there. 'Growth team' - a team dedicated to using every dirty trick in the book to retain users. Facebook has one too, and that team was responsible for all the shady cross-app data sharing on peoples phones.

Instead of treating your users as 'assets' simply to be owned and controlled, why not actually ask them about their experience of using your service? Sure, you'll only get a few percent of responders but it's a start.

Also, these sites need to factor in that a significant number of people are reducing their social media usage, and this includes sites like Pinterest. Sometimes a service just reaches the end of it's life, and that's ok.

Personally I really dislike Pinterest, I do not see the purpose it serves, and as a non Pinterest user, I have issue with Google searches throwing up Pinterest links that are of no use to me whatsoever.

2 comments

I like Pinterest. I'm bad at decorating, and I'm a bad cook, so having recipes and decorating stuff that I can sift through and save into distinct idea books is nice. However, the website/app is basically glorified bookmarks. Trying to turn this into a Social Networking Empire is just pure greed, and I agree with you: the "Growth Team" concept is wretched. Sure, it's an interesting problem from a CompSci perspective, but the underlying motivations make me ill. Stop trying to manipulate your users. If they like and have a use for it, they'll use it. If they no longer have a use for it, they'll stop. BUT, if it's good enough, then the incoming users should eclipse the outgoing, and you'll float on just fine. Alas, for Social Network Empire wannabes, that's just not good enough!
I really enjoy using are.na (https://www.are.na/about) for collecting images and random bits of text into spaces where I can view them together. It's a small, creative community and definitely not of the repost, repost, repost quality that you find at Pinterest. It is run by a small team and they offer a very useful free plan for getting started and membership is only $45/year.

I am not affiliated are.na. I am just a happy user.

Is there not a self-hosted open-source solution you could use?
I do not see the purpose it serves

Yeah, you do, you said so in the first paragraph. But as I just told my wife, it’s why I (and you, I presume) aren’t billionaires: I’m all focused on how it serves the user, while completely ignoring that I’ve built a Christmas wish list for adults and I can beat that monetization drum until the head breaks.