[mightybyte]

It also could happen because tech companies have optimized their products to maximize the amount of time that people spend on them, often in ways that directly result in a worse user experience (by showing ads instead of the most relevant search results, for example).

[IvanK_net]

It makes no sense what you say. If the experience with A was really worse than with B, people would stay with B.

[cgriswald]

The original poster said “more useful”, not “better”, so you’re already arguing something different than what was said. I might spend more time with something less useful because its time efficiency is one of the things that makes it less useful now.

Regarding your argument of “better” you seem to be arguing by definition.

Edit: I now realize you are the original poster who said “more useful”, so why did you change it?

[IvanK_net]

More useful is one of many ways of being better. What are you talking about?

[econ]

You vote with your feet. If you can only follow the world would be exactly as simple as you make it out to be.

If you write things for your own website you would make more of an effort and it would ideally find an audience that enjoys your world view or insights into your topics.

It would be great to lure you into that experience. HN is a terrible dating agency. Gathering down votes here is the opposite of making friends. It is however great for discovering authors like Henry.

He could have spend his time complaining on x how bad it is.

[cgriswald]

If you’re arguing that there are different ways of being better than your argument falls even further apart since you might choose a worse option because it is better in some way…

[mightybyte]

No, this is not at all a given. There could be switching costs that cause people to stay on a product that is actually worse. Users also simply might be unaware of alternatives or that they are better. It's not hard to imagine any number of other reasons why in our imperfect world there is not perfectly elastic competition.