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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#51

Post by egypturnash »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #40
throwawayoldie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a better idea: let's combat the notion that putting shareholder value ahead of the common good is moral.

Great! You've convinced nobody of anything. Businesses are powerful tools for the common good and the fact they produce returns for investors is absolutely critical to their continued existence and long-term viability. But the point for businesses to exist at all is to produce positive externalities and they need to produce those externalities for more than just their owners. It cannot be "either/or" and it's not imm…

You can explicitly build the business to say "delivering shareholder value is not our highest goal, we must remember that we live in a society and upon a planet".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation

Re: Engineered Addictions

#53

Post by cushpush »

closetkantian wrote: post #35

I'll tell you what's been working for me: an e-ink phone. It's a Bigme Hibreak Pro. The interface is a bit clunky but it gets the job done. Social media is just not fun on this phone. It's still very usable if I need it, however. I'm also knocking out books at a rate that I haven't in years.

Fascinating, bet the battery life is great. Probably no games on your phone but texting works like normal I'm guessing?

Re: Engineered Addictions

#54

Post by UncleOxidant »

quaintdev wrote: post #29

> We need a fundamental re-evaluation of what our phones should be for, whether these platforms can ever return to their original purpose of actually bringing us together instead of keeping us scrolling Unpopular opinion but I think we need to stop building social networks if we want to bring people together. Let people meet each other in real life. Let the relationships flourish organically. No amount of tech will e…

> Unpopular opinion but I think we need to stop building social networks if we want to bring people together.

Agreed. Social networks not only didn't bring us together, they've actually done the opposite and made us more tribal. Excellent book on the topic is Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear us Apart by Nicholas Carr.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#56

Post by danenania »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #46
danenania wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

The annoying tone is unnecessary. Yes, legally speaking operators can go against the board and get replaced, which they certainly should do if they feel they're being asked to do something unethical. But it's not going to change how the company is run.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#57

Post by UncleOxidant »

echollama wrote: post #47
nine_k wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Wait, it doesn't? /s

Re: Engineered Addictions

#58

Post by DeathRay2K »

Narciss wrote: post #10

My hope, and it may be a naïve hope, is that with the rise of AI will see more and more people be able to build the kind of digital experience that they envision, including social media experiences, because of the democratization of software engineering. That being said, what does it take to build a social media app using AI and also perhaps just as important to market it worldwide?

Building the social media platform you want to see isn’t really the problem though. They are relatively easy to build, the hard part is making it valuable enough to attract users and earning enough to keep it running.

Using AI introduces additional costs without solving the core challenge there.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#59

Post by DenisM »

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".

So you don’t get sued, but you lose control or even your stake or even the whole business. Remember how Uber founder got kicked out? He had a strong hand.

Chilling effect is there one way or another, and even when that does not work adverse selection does.

You have to have a very strong market position to resist the investor pressure. Kinda like Google had twenty years ago.

Or you can have a diverse set of investors who can’t or won’t be swayed by activist investors. But that usually means being public at which point your employees are incentivized by RSUs.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#60

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

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…

I feel that it's even simpler: The company is the product.

When we have that mindset, we absolutely don't care about the thing that we call "our product." It's just food for the actual product, where we want to fatten it up, and sell it to the biggest slaughterhouse.

That starts almost immediately. You can't even get an A round, without an "exit plan."

I feel that the very existence of an exit plan, dooms the user. No one cares about them. It's all about fattening the company, and making it look good. When we do that, we'll feed it nothing but junk food, in an effort to make it as fat as possible, as quickly as possible, with absolutely no thought as to long-term viability.

I would love to see the tech industry return to concentrating on truly delivering good to the end-user. It's still possible to make a decent living, but maybe not at the insane rates we see.

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