The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes • Hacker News Board

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#461

Post by annjose » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 6:24 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #209

hatthew wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For typical social media sites, engagement will pretty much always be proportional to both revenue and cost per user. Either revenue > cost, and the site is incentivized to increase engagement, or revenue < cost and the site dies. There is no middle ground where a site gets a healthy revenue that's greater than its costs, but increasing engagement won't increase revenue. The exceptions are niche sites that do things…

You assume that subscriptions wouldn’t become more common without targeted ads. It’s certainly possible. (I’m not sure if it’s even possible to ban targeted ads, haven’t thought much about it. Perhaps there’s a regulation of commerce angle. I do think that businesses could be forced to provide more clarity about the exchange that’s taking place, the value of the data, how the data is used, and so on.)

I agree it’s very possible subscriptions would become more common if targeted ads were restricted. Personally I’d rather pay money for a good product/service than 'being the product' for a bad product that monetizes my data.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#462

Post by carljungslabtek » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 8:18 PM UTC

gghackernewsgg wrote: post #459

carljungslabtek wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a Buddhist, so I really do see what you’re saying about personal responsibility and agency, but the other problem I see is that the companies at the forefront of these ultra-addictive industries (including mass social media) get busted eventually every single time for working overtime to hide what they knew about how damaging their products can be, and in fact to convince the public that their products do the opp…

> Does nicotine have some beneficial health effects? Yeah, it actually does. But do they outweigh the downsides (and societal costs)? Absolutely not. What are the downsides and societal costs of social media addiction? We have decades of strong evidence on the harms of nicotine and cigarettes, but the evidence regarding social media addiction is nowhere near as clear-cut, at least from what I've read. Likewise, the c…

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11594359/#sec3

That article gives a superficial overview of some of the research, which for obvious reasons is still in its infancy.

I didn’t mean to compare the harms to tobacco, but to how these companies tend to operate.

That said, the fallout of social media addiction and overuse is far weirder than the fallout from tobacco (which mostly just gives people cancer). Social media appears to be tearing the fabric of society apart.

I don’t have studies to cite but it seems like half of americans are one type of conspiracy theorist or another now, and that’s directly attributable to these new media channels.

I think the negative effects have been most pronounced on young women (body image issues and bulemia) and people with low media literacy (the misinformation plague).

There’s also the algorithmic “extremism” pipeline, where anything you show a little interest in gets turned into more and more extreme iterations to keep you engaged.

So maybe “addiction” isn’t even the right word to use here. But just look around outside in any major city or event in America and see how compulsively almost everyone uses their phones during downtime. It’s reflexive at this point, not really a conscious decision.

Some of the scariest stuff is coming from primary school teachers. Most of them act like late gen z and gen alpha are genuinely illiterate. It makes sense, you have little kids trying to swipe on physical photos in picture frames and stuff. That says something big about their lifestyles and then imagine the downstream effects of that…

I think it really tells you something when the CEOs and people who work for social media companies don’t let their own kids use the product, or drastically limit access to it.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#463

Post by stonogo » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

ethin wrote: post #397

stonogo wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are also studies that completely refute the "social media is harmful" narrative too, and I'm talking on the order of millions of participants across more than 50 countries. Why not link to those instead of a youtube video?

Because the youtube video essentially says what the studies do (and it's a developmental psychologist who's giving that talk too). I felt it would be a bit easier to digest than more than 6 separate studies that you'd have to read. But if you really want them here are at least 6 of them all essentially saying the same thing: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/18/yet-another-massive-stud...

Thanks; it's much easier to examine assertions and weigh evidence when I can actually see the evidence instead of someone talking at me, regardless of their credentials. I appreciate the link.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#464

Post by tt24 » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

gghackernewsgg wrote: post #456

tt24 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d have no problem with this as long as the building makes it known that it contains asbestos. Infinite scroll is immediately evident. Just don’t use it if you don’t like it

Completely agree. What are your thoughts on introducing a law that requires social media sites with infinite scroll to feature an addiction warning, something like: "Using this platform may cause addiction in some users."?

Not thrilled about it but it would be way better than this