report: facebook examined user Loyalty by Sabotaging Its Android App

If the facebook app were down, would you retain checking it every short time?

to test its users’ loyalty, facebook occasionally made its Android app crash for a few hours over the route of a number of years. fb would then track these customers to see in the event that they stored returning to the app or gave up.

A supply informed news web site the ideas that facebook customers had been so hooked that they “by no means stopped coming again,” regardless of the blunders. Some even tried to get right of entry to facebook on their cellular browser when the app failed to work.

facebook declined to remark.

For fb and other apps, loyalty is a key indicator of future success. Duke college behavioral economist Dan Ariely informed quick firm that app makers will regularly check loyalty with the aid of taking a look at issues like seven-day activity developments. however it turns into some distance extra tricky when app makers need to check loyalty in scenarios they are able to’t keep an eye on, like a hypothetical battle during which Google forces the fb app out of the Play store.

“They were trying to simulate an surroundings the place bad issues have been happening to them,” said Ariely. “in my view, it can be brave.”

Ariely mentioned that some customers might be peeved to discover that fb had booted them off the app on goal. but Ariely mentioned it’s one of the few ways that fb might find out how its users would respond in nightmare eventualities, and adapt as a consequence.

“If this report is correct, it is a superb outcome for facebook,” Ariely mentioned.