Some People Are Not “Allowed” to Exist in Certain “Places”
Recorded in Chinese
A discontinued app and a conversation with a bar owner lead me to think about how products and communities select people, whose needs they accommodate, and why personal experience cannot stand for everyone.
00:00 Returning to what I mentioned before
00:04 about social tools for extroverts and introverts,
00:08 what I want to say next is:
00:12 no matter the platform
00:15 or the tool,
00:16 I think it should make room for certain kinds of people.
00:23 Sometimes,
00:24 I understand that some platforms
00:26 and tools
00:28 are really designed to filter people.
00:31 They select
00:35 the people they want,
00:38 and everyone else can stay or leave.
00:43 But I think a super app
00:47 makes room for different kinds of people.
00:52 For example, I was once invited to test an app.
01:00 When I wrote about it,
01:03 I understood its goal
01:07 and what it was trying to do.
01:10 But for me,
01:12 that app—
01:14 however powerful its mission,
01:16 and its vision was also very...
01:19 how should I put it?
01:20 It wanted to be used by a billion people.
01:25 That would be a very large-scale app.
01:29 To become that,
01:32 it would need a layered design.
01:35 It would need to
01:37 make room not only for ordinary users,
01:40 but also for users with more advanced
01:43 reading needs.
01:44 Those layers determine
01:47 how many people
01:50 and how many kinds of people it can serve.
01:53 During testing,
01:56 I realized
01:57 that if it stayed
01:59 with its current design,
02:00 it wouldn't retain me.
02:02 I found its vision
02:05 interesting
02:07 and worth pursuing,
02:09 and I'd watch what it did next.
02:12 But for a user at my level,
02:17 its current design
02:19 absolutely couldn't retain me.
02:22 So I wrote
02:23 from the perspective of my level
02:26 and wrote an article.
02:29 It described
02:30 what features it could add
02:35 to make room for users like me.
02:39 I also explained my reasoning.
02:43 Unfortunately,
02:45 the app...
02:49 I think they invited me to write it
02:53 last November or December.
02:57 But after Lunar New Year this year,
03:02 around the Lantern Festival,
03:05 I received an email—
03:07 an official email,
03:09 sent from the app's official address,
03:14 probably to every user—
03:16 saying it would shut down at the end of March.
03:22 I found that very unfortunate.
03:26 If it had taken one more step,
03:29 it could have designed
03:31 something highly useful for this era:
03:34 an app for absorbing and processing knowledge.
03:41 It could also have integrated
03:45 elements of agent-based social interaction.
03:49 It could have brought together
03:53 different sides
03:55 and functions of familiar things
03:58 and designed
04:01 an app aligned with its goal.
04:04 But it didn't do that.
04:07 Perhaps the article I wrote
04:11 was just feedback from an ordinary reader—
04:15 no, an ordinary user.
04:19 Still, it feels like such a shame.
04:23 There was a path available,
04:25 but it didn't take it.
04:27 Of course, my feedback
04:31 may simply have been wishful thinking.
04:34 I wanted a tool like that to exist.
04:38 But perhaps the founder
04:42 didn't grasp my need
04:45 or where my ideas came from.
04:48 When you express something,
04:51 they may not know its basis.
04:53 So they can't be persuaded,
04:55 nor can they draw from your feedback
04:58 a goal
05:00 that could survive
05:03 or be sustained over the long term.
05:07 That may depend greatly on the founder,
05:13 or the team.
05:14 It matters enormously.
05:19 Back to "making room for different people":
05:25 whether it's a community,
05:31 or an organization,
05:37 perhaps, to some extent,
05:40 people like me might believe
05:42 that different kinds of people should be allowed to exist.
05:46 Only that seems reasonable.
05:48 But many companies,
05:51 organizations,
05:52 and communities
05:54 find their people
05:55 through selection.
05:59 Once I realized that,
06:02 I stopped expecting so many things
06:06 to "have to make room for me."
06:10 Recently, I spoke with someone who runs a bar.
06:15 I thought their work was valuable
06:19 and meaningful.
06:20 To help more people
06:23 understand what they do,
06:26 perhaps they could
06:28 show others
06:33 what their work looks like
06:35 and how they see the world.
06:38 But something they said
06:40 made me pause.
06:43 They said,
06:44 "I don't want to educate users."
06:48 When I heard that, I understood.
06:51 They were still filtering people.
06:54 They wanted their work
06:59 to attract people naturally,
07:02 not draw them in through so-called
07:05 "education."
07:08 Everyone has reasons
07:10 for their choices, of course.
07:12 So I didn't say anything more.
07:16 But sometimes I think
07:20 what you do may not look like
07:22 "education" to other people.
07:23 Perhaps you've simply
07:26 attached too much meaning
07:28 to what you might do.
07:30 Sometimes, people are just
07:32 sharing something simple.
07:35 And that
07:36 unfolds naturally.
07:39 It doesn't involve so-called "education."
07:42 But if you're overly attached
07:46 to the meaning you derive
07:48 from that act,
07:50 then you'll think
07:51 you're engaged in so-called
07:54 "education."
07:59 Hmm.
08:00 As for alcohol,
08:03 everyone has different
08:05 preferences.
08:06 A drink one person likes
08:10 may be disliked by someone else.
08:12 So, how should I put it?
08:15 In a market
08:17 where good and bad are mixed together,
08:21 everyone occupies their own territory.
08:24 Each territory
08:27 gathers a different crowd.
08:29 No single territory
08:30 can bring everyone together.
08:34 The possible exception
08:36 might be something like
08:40 a large wine exhibition.
08:43 That's when it might happen.
08:45 But even at a large event,
08:49 there are many different sections.
08:52 Different people may pass each section,
08:56 but not all of them
08:59 will necessarily
09:04 stop at your booth.
09:07 At heart, it's still a process of filtering.
09:16 Hmm.
09:17 Seen this way,
09:18 everyone—
09:20 or the people I observe,
09:24 the things I notice,
09:26 and the things I experience—
09:27 all of these
09:29 have different facets.
09:32 If you enter through different facets,
09:35 each one can seem reasonable.
09:40 So, hmm...
09:43 This brings me back to what I said before:
09:46 I'm afraid of people
09:48 who are absolutely certain of themselves.
09:52 I think
09:53 from their own experience,
09:56 everything they say
09:58 makes perfect sense to them.
09:59 But they absolutely, utterly, totally miss one thing:
10:02 their personal experience
10:04 does not apply to everyone.
10:07 They, too, are only
10:09 one facet of society.
10:10 They can't represent everyone.
10:12 And for the views they express,
10:16 can they bear some responsibility
10:18 or pay some price?
10:20 I think
10:23 those consequences may be hidden.
10:24 But they don't know
10:25 what their words imply.
10:29 That line of thought
10:31 reminds me of
10:31 a book I'm reading,
10:34 Skin in the Game.
10:35 It's quite interesting.
10:39 Maybe in the next episode or the one after,
10:41 I'll talk about
10:44 some parts that deeply resonated with me.
10:49 I've also realized
10:50 that when I try to talk about something,
10:53 I can't fully
10:54 quote the book.
10:57 I can't cite passages accurately at all.
11:00 I can only mention roughly,
11:01 "I mentioned this book,"
11:03 or "I saw this film,"
11:04 and then talk about how it made me feel.
11:07 Because my feelings
11:08 are more concrete to me.
11:11 And when I express my feelings
11:13 and my understanding,
11:14 that's when I speak most fluently.