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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#41

Post by danenania »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #27
klik99 wrote: post #20

> Then it raised venture capital, hit scale, and needed to hit growth numbers and meet quarterly metric goals. The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.” Having spent a few years in the VC world I have been increasingly convinced outside investment is the biggest reason why companies lose their morals. The legal obligation to represent shareholders erodes morality. When the people running these co…

To be clear, business operators have extremely, extremely broad latitude in how they interpret their fiduciary duty to shareholders. We actually need to combat this notion that somehow exclusive focus on short term returns is somehow legally, morally, or ethically required. It is actually antisocial and obviously destructive.

> To be clear, business operators have extremely, extremely broad latitude in how they interpret their fiduciary duty to shareholders.

That may be true legally, but practically it's only true if they control the board. Otherwise they will simply be replaced by people who are willing to do what the board wants.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#42

Post by slt2021 »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #38
slt2021 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no latitude. They have only one requirement: growth growth growth. If you hit the growth targets, they will pat you in the back and will demand Hyperscale growth growth growth and will throw money at you to supercharge it. If you refuse to chase the growth, they will simply kick you off the company via Board or fund your competitor that will chase the growth at all means

Your board firing you is not a "legal obligation".

The funding is raised to chase growth, otherwise no VC will ever give money.

If you get the money and then try to U-turn and refuse to chase growth, the board will start asking questions

The legal obligation is that CEO does whatever board tells him to, otherwise board can fire ceo

Re: Engineered Addictions

#43

Post by jfengel »

mouse_ wrote: post #23

Last paragraph seems to speak without speaking. > We built these platforms. We can build better ones. But only if we're willing to abandon the economic models that made the current ones inevitable. Until we change those incentives, every attempt to fix social media will become part of the problem it’s trying to solve. We’ll keep wondering why we can’t just put our phones down, not realizing that billion-dollar compan…

He's not. Anything he has in mind is socially unacceptable and he knows it.

We'd all love to rebuild economics from the ground up. But as soon as you try you realize that everyone has a different idea and they can't agree on anything.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#44

Post by sorcerer-mar »

slt2021 wrote: post #42
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your board firing you is not a "legal obligation".

The funding is raised to chase growth, otherwise no VC will ever give money. If you get the money and then try to U-turn and refuse to chase growth, the board will start asking questions The legal obligation is that CEO does whatever board tells him to, otherwise board can fire ceo

This still does not produce any legal obligation.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#46

Post by sorcerer-mar »

danenania wrote: post #41
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, business operators have extremely, extremely broad latitude in how they interpret their fiduciary duty to shareholders. We actually need to combat this notion that somehow exclusive focus on short term returns is somehow legally, morally, or ethically required. It is actually antisocial and obviously destructive.

> To be clear, business operators have extremely, extremely broad latitude in how they interpret their fiduciary duty to shareholders. That may be true legally, but practically it's only true if they control the board. Otherwise they will simply be replaced by people who are willing to do what the board wants.

The difference between getting fired and getting convicted of a crime is pretty important, actually!

Re: Engineered Addictions

#47

Post by echollama »

nine_k wrote: post #37
asim wrote: post #9

Honestly it always comes back to, we need a healthier relationship with our tools. The phone, social media, etc. It's all a tool. And yes it can be highly addictive but so are drugs, alcohol, TV, etc. all easily accessible and how we deal with it comes down to ourselves. It's what environment you put yourself in, and if that environment is one that includes a lot of screens then there's a sliding scale as to how corr…

> healthier relationship with our tools The point is that these are not tools, they provide a direct kick, which is a goal in itself. Whisky is not a tool.

agreed its like saying that jerking off makes you healthier

Re: Engineered Addictions

#48

Post by egypturnash »

yep, good luck figuring out how to make a social media site that is engaging enough for people to keep coming back, able to pay its hosting bills, and just generally sustainable, without falling into the dark patterns.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#49

Post by UncleOxidant »

chubot wrote: post #30
klik99 wrote: post #20

> Then it raised venture capital, hit scale, and needed to hit growth numbers and meet quarterly metric goals. The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.” Having spent a few years in the VC world I have been increasingly convinced outside investment is the biggest reason why companies lose their morals. The legal obligation to represent shareholders erodes morality. When the people running these co…

It's incredibly simple, but it's also true Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome - Charlie Munger It's the same with politics and money. We don't get the leaders we want, because it costs money to buy people's attention. We get the people who have some way to pay for attention (in recent years, one of those ways is increasingly corruption - e.g. senator of NJ, mayor of NY, etc.) An article today talks…

> "local TV buys" playbook

Who watches local TV anymore? Probably not many people under 60.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#50

Post by DeathRay2K »

aeve890 wrote: post #39
HWR_14 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many segments, especially ones served digitally, only one or a few companies will survive. It's very much "grow or die".

Pardon my ignorance but is that expensive to run a social platform?

Running a social media platform can be very expensive, and it only gets more expensive every day.

Media takes a lot of storage and bandwidth, and you basically have unbounded costs if you want to meet user expectations for posting media.

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