[ouid]

This is so wrong in its conclusion, that its hard to know where to start. First, we should be clear that we are talking about involuntary, undisclosed A/B testing.

I have not experienced a product become better for the user as a result of involuntary A/B testing in my entire adult life.

Producers and consumer have both an adversarial relationship and a mutually beneficial relationship, and the distinction between these two is essentially the split between voluntary A/B tests and involuntary ones. In the adversarial component, the producer is trying to figure out how to extract more money from the consumer, without improving the product. Alternatively, (and equivalently), how to make the product cheaper, but also worse, in a way that yhe customer doesnt notice (with their wallet). A proactive version of the "market for lemons".

For instance, if you A/B test your cancellation process to minimize the number of people who cancel their subscriptions, you will almost certainly do something that makes you some additional money, and is also unambiguously evil.

Any A/B testing that is mutual benefit to consumers and producers can be done with consent, by volunteers. And the miniscule amount of scientific rigor you would lose by doing so is not worth the tremendous sacrifice we have seen in quality of consumables in the past 2 decades (probably longer, but i do not have the personal experience to go longer)

You might be compelled to describe involuntary A/B testing as a strategy for maximizing evil subject to the constraint that it be legal, but it often dips its toes into seeing what is illegal but still profitable, and is capable of fundamentally undermining our legal system and even our political system.

The technology has grown more powerful. The addition of computers that can optimize essentially arbitrary objective functions has serious existential implications for humanity.

A blanket ban on the practice, incurring the total dissolution of any corporate entity found guilty of the practice of involuntary A/B testing, would be a start.

[dlkf]

> I have not experienced a product become better for the user as a result of involuntary A/B testing in my entire adult life.

If you did, how would you know?

[ouid]

well, for starters, there would have to have been a product that improved at all. Those are already rare enough that I can enumerate them, and in each of those instances involuntary A/B testing can be ruled out for other reasons.

When craigslist added the map that shows you where all of the people are offering the thing you are interested in. That was a very good change, but thats pretty far from how craigslist operates.

When dominos stopped serving hot glue on cardboard, its pretty easy to see how that didnt come about by furtive A/B testing. They were pretty confident people would like the new pizza more than the old pizza. So they told them about it. Boy did that work for dominos.

That actually speaks more generally to my point. If you're making a change that you think people will like, you tell them about it, because even if it turns out that they dont like it more, the fact that they thought they would and you did it generates quite a lot of good will for them.