1. Introduction: Henry Ford's Quote and the Misuse of "Innovation"
People in the tech industry absolutely love Henry Ford's famous line:
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
It's frequently quoted to mean "break the mold and create an entirely new market" — like Apple did with the iPhone. (Of course, smartphones already existed — but then again, cars existed before Ford's Model T too.)
But sometimes, what you really need is just a faster horse.
2. Netflix in 2012: A True "Faster Horse"
The Netflix of 2012 was genuinely a faster horse.
- A vast catalog of movies and series
- An excellent recommendation system
- Simple library management
"Compared to my limited local media library, it was remarkable."
In particular, the five-star rating system let you fine-tune your taste in granular detail.
3. Netflix in 2024: Chaos Dressed Up as an "Experience"
Today's Netflix is something else entirely. Netflix no longer offers a library — it offers an experience.
- Rather than showing you the content you "have,"
- everything gets reshuffled every time you log in,
- and even cover images change in real time.
"Like a shady market hustler, it swaps the show's cover art on you constantly."
- A meaningless catalog
- Categories with no substance
- Only short-lived, auto-generated groups like "Binge-worthy" and "Festive spirit" remain.
"Even the 'New' section is meaningless. It starts with a 'For You' row, then 'Continue Watching,' followed by generic popularity rows like 'Popular in ~.'"
Now it works like YouTube search:
- Look for something specific and you get a handful of results,
- then a flood of completely unrelated popular and recommended content.
"'My List' shuffles items randomly, cover images change every few hours, and 'Continue Watching' may or may not contain anything you've actually watched recently."
It goes even further:
"A Slovakian cartoon I quit three years ago in Finland because there were no English subtitles will suddenly reappear — even though English subtitles exist in other regions."
I just want a faster horse.
4. Spotify in 2015: Another "Faster Horse"
Spotify in 2015 was the same story.
- It worked just like my iTunes library,
- but with millions more songs added.
- Only the speed of finding and playing music improved — the relationship with music itself stayed the same.
5. Spotify in 2024: Netflixification
But today's Spotify has become...
- Exactly like Netflix.
- An inconsistent content stream
- Weakened library management
- An endless flood of podcasts
6. The Common Thread: The Decline of Consistency, User Control, and Real UX Innovation
These days,
- Consistency
- User control
- Genuine UX innovation
are all steadily disappearing.
Every service is turning into TikTok.
"TikTok is basically TV with infinite channels. All the user can do is change the channel."
This phenomenon can be compared to Carcinisation —
- When different crustaceans evolve independently,
- they all end up looking like crabs.
7. Other Services Going "Crab-Shaped" Too
This isn't just a Netflix and Spotify problem.
- YouTube:
"It was once a video catalog and a place for social discovery. Now? It's TikTok."
- LinkedIn:
"It was once a résumé network. Now? It's TikTok."
- Substack:
"It was a newsletter platform... and now it's rolling out a TikTok-style video feed in its app. For real."
8. Conclusion: Sometimes You Really Do Need a Faster Horse
In the name of innovation,
- user control and
- consistency are vanishing,
- and every service is TikTokifying itself.
"I just want a faster horse."
Key Terms Summarized
- Faster horse: A simple improvement to an existing system — the actual feature users want
- Innovation: Creating entirely new markets or experiences, sometimes at odds with what users actually need
- Consistency, user control: Values that are steadily being eroded
- TikTokification: Every service converging on short, fast, algorithm-driven recommendation feeds
- Carcinisation: The phenomenon of diverse services evolving toward the same form
"Sometimes you really do need a faster horse." 🐎