This reminds me of the time YouTube introduced a more lightweight version of the... | Hacker News

Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit

login

rcthompson on Nov 7, 2017 | parent | context | favorite | on: Robot-assisted surgery associated with longer oper...

This reminds me of the time YouTube introduced a more lightweight version of their video page code and were distraught to find that the average load times for the lightweight page were drastically higher than the standard page. They eventually figure out that this was because most of the people switching to the lightweight page were people on very slow internet connections, since people on fast internet connections didn't find the video page slow enough to bother switching.

SteveGregory on Nov 7, 2017 | [–]

This is the classic Simpson's Paradox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

kilotaras on Nov 7, 2017 | [–]

AFAIK it was even more drastic. People were timing out before the change. It went not from slow -> quick but from unreachable to reachable.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact