“Zhejiang Propaganda” Five Questions “Byte Time”: From the starting point of making a product, have you considered making users better?

The term “byte time” has recently sparked controversy in public opinion.

It's not complicated. A former media source quoted data from a third party, saying that the share of byte-based time in the top 50 apps with monthly mobile internet usage time in China reached 40%, and suggested that the Chinese Internet is entering “byte time.” A vice president of Douyin Group immediately retorted, and the wording became more and more aggressive, from “extremely unstrict” and “pure nonsense” to “not stupid, but bad.” The dispute ranged from data standards to anti-monopoly thresholds. Eventually, a clash of industry opinions may turn into judicial proceedings.

Onlookers are easily led into a legal proposition: Does Byte have a monopoly? Didn't reach the legal red line for 40% of the time? These are certainly worth discussing. But if public sentiment is understood simply as a concern about “monopoly or not,” the real weight of this debate is being missed. Many people think about “byte time,” not on a legal issue, but on a different subject: every time, they clearly didn't plan to watch it for that long, but unwittingly stayed for a few hours; when the screen was turned off, nothing was left in their minds. This unspeakable annoyance is an important reason why the term “byte time” continues to ferment.

Therefore, what is really worth questioning is not only that the term “byte time” is strict or not, but also the following questions.

1. What did the attention that was taken away actually be exchanged for?

This is the most simple question. After a tiring day, watching a few videos to relieve fatigue is normal. The problem is that I wanted to relax for a moment, but under the guidance of industrial-grade product design, I fell deeper and couldn't stop. As soon as I put down my phone, the feeling of pleasure passed, and emptiness and anxiety immediately surged in. The difference felt by users was specific: they spent hours measured in hours, but what they got back was a bunch of fragments they forgot after reading, and often felt that they were undernourished.

In the case of skits, many skits are bloody, pompous, and rough in production. They use strong clashes and reversals to hook people up and push people down episode by episode. After reading it, I felt even more empty—not relaxed, but emptied. I knew it wasn't worth watching, so I clicked in; after reading it, I wasn't satisfied, and I even felt disgusted with myself: Why did I watch this again? This feeling of “they all hate themselves” is more frightening than simply wasting time. Wasting time is just a loss; self-hatred is a form of harm — it wears out the evaluation of oneself little by little in every cycle of knowing whether something is wrong or open. If a content platform continues to output this kind of experience, it cannot use “the user's choice” to pretend. The user's choice is made in a carefully designed menu of options; the platform bears primary responsibility for what the menu itself looks like.

2. There seem to be so many works every day. How many of them really help to enrich the spiritual world of ordinary people?

The content products are different from regular products. A bottle of water and a bag of rice are used up; however, the content product is not the same; it enters people's spiritual world and shapes people's perceptions, emotions, and value judgments. A video, a short drama, and a tweet may seem flirty, but over time, it will affect how a person views themselves, others, and society. Precisely because content products naturally have this kind of spiritual influence, content platforms should take this responsibility into account and not just pursue data. The data can measure staying, but it can't measure whether a person is more fulfilled or more empty after reading it, whether they believe in themselves more, or hate themselves more.

The platform seems to have a lot of content, but more content doesn't equal more spiritual nourishment. The algorithm prioritizes length of stay and interaction rate, and content with stronger emotions, more obvious conflict, and more direct stimulation is more likely to get traffic. As a result, content requiring patient entry and increased information was squeezed out, and the “digital garbage” produced by the assembly line instead had the upper hand in distribution. The public is not ignorant; they can sense that what they are consuming is a spiritual level of “high oil and salt” — melts in the mouth and is hungry after eating. A content platform with a real sense of public responsibility must not only focus on how long users have been watching, but also weigh the long-term feelings and spiritual impact that content leaves on people.

3. Speaking of some good works, how much do they actually account for in the mass of products?

To be sure, the platform does have some good works. Excellent skits, knowledge and science, and documentary-style content all exist. Saying that the platform “doesn't have any good stuff” is completely unobjective. However, the real experience of many users is that after spending an hour, they really haven't been able to buy any good works. When you open the app, you are often confronted with content such as emotional antagonism, edge wiping, and repeated handling. The really nutritious content is like a needle in the ocean. Occasionally, it pops up and is quickly swept away by the flow of information. This brings up an unavoidable question: In such a huge content pool, how much does good work actually account for? Is it a few percent, or a few thousandths? If a good work is just an embellishment of a large amount of content, only a sample of foreign exchange reporting times, and is only occasionally promoted in front of users to prove that “we also have quality products,” then it's hard to say that the platform's content ecosystem is healthy.

What the public is concerned about is not only whether there are good works on the platform, but also whether good works can be seen more and whether they can account for a large enough share. The platform cannot prove how good it is overall just because it occasionally has some boutique products. When the volume of a boutique cannot suppress the noise of the assembly line or the traffic of the edge-cleaning video, then the brilliance of the example simply cannot cover up structural problems. The standard for a good platform is not that it has released some good content, but rather how likely it is that an ordinary user can find a masterpiece that is really worth watching when they refresh it at will.

4. As the starting point of the product, have you considered making users better?

The platform pursues time, daily activity, and growth, and there is nothing wrong with it, but when user length of stay, interaction rate, etc. become core indicators, product design will inevitably slide towards “how to make people stay a little longer” rather than “how to make users better.” The two aren't always consistent, and sometimes even clash. A responsible platform should at least face up to the existence of such conflicts and give high weight to “improving user welfare” in the product target system.

Any enterprise that makes products to make users better and achieve their own interests should be unified, not antagonistic. Of course, enterprises need to develop and be profitable, but if this kind of development requires continuous consumption of user time, use of user emotions, and make people feel empty or even dislike themselves after turning off the screen, it is difficult to say that this kind of development is healthy and sustainable. Content products, in particular, should “make users better”; they are nothing more than making people mentally healthier and mentally richer, rather than making people feel more anxious and empty the more they browse. This goal should occupy an important position in enterprise development; we must not simply pursue “making users feel happy” and “making users love to watch.”

Some people say that the essence of business is to understand human nature, respect human nature, and even learn to dance with human nature, but there is a bottom line: using human weaknesses to make money is called harvesting; creating value by responding to human needs is called business. This statement is particularly pertinent in the “byte-time” debate. There is nothing wrong with understanding human nature. Smooth recommendations and immediate feedback can also be a service in itself. But is the purpose of understanding human nature to help people make better use of their time and get what they really need, or to let people unknowingly hand over time and focus?

5. If you stand in a bright place, do you still know how to be in awe?

When a person is in a bright moment, they must know how to be in awe; when an enterprise is in the spotlight, it is even more important to know how to be in awe. The bigger the company, the more people reach the product, and the less they can treat public questions as “not being able to get along with themselves.” Questioning is not hostile; more often it's a reminder: the product in your hands is no longer just a profitable business; it is also shaping the time allocation and public opinion environment for hundreds of millions of people.

Enterprises should understand that, ultimately, products must serve the community and the common people. The machine is behind the algorithm, but the person who designed the machine must have a conscience. Machines don't have values; people have to; codes don't blush; people who make products should. If all questions are treated as public opinion battles that need to be “won,” rather than feedback that requires careful listening, then this is where it is really dangerous.

We also need to see that today, many netizens' concerns and questions about “byte time” are not just directed at a certain company. This emotion reflects an awareness of personal life: knowing that one's time cannot always be spent on useless things, knowing that one should not spend the night “watching again” time and time again, hoping to regain control of the rhythm of life. Questioning is ostensibly a platform, but deep down it is also a reminder to oneself — time is mine, life is mine, and not all can be arranged by an algorithm.

Therefore, “byte time” is more like a folk name, used to mark an imbalance that has been going on for too long but has been slow to be taken seriously: algorithms take time efficiently, but have not returned value equally. Public discussions have never pointed to just a legal characterization; there is also this gap that cannot be more real. Acknowledging the existence of this gap is far more important than arguing that “byte time” is strict or not.

The true awe of a high-profile enterprise is to fear the user's time, the trust of society, and the machine in its own hands — because the faster it moves, the more it needs to have a sense of responsibility.

This article is reprinted from the WeChat account “Zhejiang Propaganda”, Zhitong Finance Editor: Chen Yufeng.