The Irony is that in order to read this entry I had to pass a cookie wall, which gave me only ‘Accept all’ and ‘Manage’. Then I couldn’t read it, because I had no subscription.
the author has no control over that
Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
81–90 of 198 posts
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same can be said about Claude, Codex, etc. These tools are amazing (technically speaking) but they don't play in our favor (most of us are regular, replaceable employees). Only the usual suspects benefit from AI (executive layer, investors, etc) Still amazes me how engineers on HN are in awe of AI and LLMs knowing that 90% of us will be affected (we won't be able to bring money to the table) once the higher ups start…
As if Claude and Instagram are remotely similar products. But again, these products make it incredibly easy to cancel. If work requires that you use it, make the next job you get not require it or just use it on the job.
Both try to maximize engagement. Both (soon to be) ad supported. Both driven by algorithms that show the user what they want to see.
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes five minutes to just stop being depressed, it takes 5 minutes to just stop being addicted What works for you, and me actually, doesn't work for most people, humans are complex things
That’s pretty insensitive to people suffering from mental illness. To compare sitting and doomscrolling on social media with something that’s chemically out of balance in a persons body is… a choice.
The parent was obviously being sarcastic to prove the point through comparison.
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#84It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…
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Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#85It takes five minutes to delete your TikTok, Meta, and Instagram accounts. Setting up forwarding rules from Gmail to Fastmail or another provider takes maybe a little longer, after three months hopefully all your emails are going to the new account after changing them. These companies can’t manipulate you if you don’t use their products. Edit: I know what network effects are, I was talking about steps individual user…
It takes five minutes to just stop being depressed, it takes 5 minutes to just stop being addicted What works for you, and me actually, doesn't work for most people, humans are complex things
> It takes five minutes to just stop being depressed, it takes 5 minutes to just stop being addicted
Would you place all the responsibility of drug addiction on drug dealers?
Yes, their practices are predatory, but it is essential to remind the addicts that ultimately change comes from within themselves. They need to change something.
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#86Sure, making instagram as addictive as possible seems bad but I disagree with the framing a bit. Dark patterns get users to do things they don't want, that's why they get super annoyed at the design or the process or the outcome. Addictive apps are a different thing to me. I don't think it's that compelling to say "obviously no one wants to be on Instagram and they're getting manipulated into it." ...yeah they do! Th…
This reminds me of the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds. I’ve been using the internet for longer than I care to admit, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like 300 million junkies all lost their drug supplier at the same time.
> This reminds me of the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds.
That timeline has way more to do with the corrupt politicians than consumer behavior.
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Both in the sense that the original semi-bipartisan law should've been ruled unconstitutional [0], and also in how the Republican party turned around and broke portions of that law for months until Trump could ensure the assets were handed to his major donor buddy--and fixing none of the original PRC influence issues. [1]
[0] https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i...
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/19/tiktok-deal-done-and-its...
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#87This touches on many issues. It's kind of a confused narrative. Predatory practices against minors (in particular), sign up dark patterns, addictive behavior (eg infinite scroll). I don't think you should bundle all of these together like this.
For example, infinite scroll is a product of a news feed and a news feed is algorithmic. What this produces and what it reinforces in the user is one thing but not really related to some small grey text in an Amazon Prime sign up.
So let's break it down. Some of the issues are:
1. Intent to sign up.
2. Difficulty in cancelling a service. This is what I call the "gym model". Easy to sign up, hard to cancel. This can be handled. California, for example, requires companies to offer online cancellation. Most other states don't. This is so much an issue you'll regularly find advice from people to change their address to California so they get that option. There's no reason why every state or the federal government couldn't do that.
3. Selling of your data. Not really touched here but it's going to be a big issue going forward;
4. Addictive behavior to maximize time spent on platform; and
5. What should we allow or disallow for minors. This is going to be a big issue. We're only at the start of the Age Verification Era (like it or not). But IMHO no company should be talking about how to maximize time spent for 13 year olds. And no advertiser should be able to advertise to minors; and
6. Not really touched here but I'm going to add it anyway. IMHO we give tech companies a free pass for algorithms as some kind of mystical, neutral black box. But everything an "algorithm" does represents a decision humans made to get a certain behavior from what training data is used, what they're optimizing for (eg interactions or time spent) and what features they create.
Platforms now essentially get liability protection from publishing content even though they elevate or suppress content based on what it contains. IMHO this is no different than someone deciding what to publish and being liable for it.
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#88Sure, making instagram as addictive as possible seems bad but I disagree with the framing a bit. Dark patterns get users to do things they don't want, that's why they get super annoyed at the design or the process or the outcome. Addictive apps are a different thing to me. I don't think it's that compelling to say "obviously no one wants to be on Instagram and they're getting manipulated into it." ...yeah they do! Th…
I absolutely did not want to go to these websites and did it anyway. I ended up blocking them in my hosts file to get me to stop.
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#89Sure, making instagram as addictive as possible seems bad but I disagree with the framing a bit. Dark patterns get users to do things they don't want, that's why they get super annoyed at the design or the process or the outcome. Addictive apps are a different thing to me. I don't think it's that compelling to say "obviously no one wants to be on Instagram and they're getting manipulated into it." ...yeah they do! Th…
What we've lost in social media just makes me so sad. I hate that reels/stories have become the "new" way of sharing things (over the past 10 years).
I took a trip to Yosemite last weekend and took the (rare) opportunity to post a reel. All of the comments and reactions are DMs. It feels so lonely and weird and isolating. Who asked for this?
I miss the days where you shared things, and people actually commented on them and interacted with each other as well as the poster. And where it wasn't ephemeral.
Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to
#90I'm no defender of engagement algorithms and social media (including upvote based algos and this site too)....but this is a ridiculous argument. Social media is not making you behave in ways you don't want. On the contrary, it's giving you EXACTLY what you want. People want to doomscroll social media instead of engage reality, because the real world requires action, effort and social risk...doomscrolling is pure pass…
I'll agree and add on: doesn't every for-profit enterprise want their products to be as addictive as possible (retrofitting that word in various ways to suit whatever their context)?
If I'm making bicycle wheels, I want all my customers thinking "these are the best bicycle wheels. I don't want them from any other supplier ever again and actually I want some that I don't even need just in case." I want them up at night thinking about how great my bicycle wheels are, looking at pictures of them on their phones.
I'm not sure how people are squaring the circle where companies are supposed to meet market demand by giving people what they want, but, uh, "not like that." If a product people want is really that bad for them, vote for the government to regulate it. We've read this story before.