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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#61

Post by doctorwho42 »

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…

I love that idea, I just wish I knew how to precipitate it in my local community beyond just trying.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#62

Post by monkaiju »

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…

Their purpose is absolutely not "to produce positive externalities" (whatever that even means). What makes you say that? You can, and people do, run a business doing all sorts of heinous things

Re: Engineered Addictions

#63

Post by marcosdumay »

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!

On that level, on the quasi-feudal economy that is taking over the world, it's not clear which of those is more impactful.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#64

Post by johncole »

Thought experiment: what if these apps were owned by non-profits? Would they still be addictive?

I don’t think the VC money does much but accelerate the end state, the apps would become addictive if they were held privately their entire lifespan.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#65

Post by closetkantian »

cushpush wrote: post #53
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?

Battery life isn't as good as I expected, but I do leave the backlight on quite a bit. I'm not a big phone gamer, but some people do enjoy playing original (black and white) game boy games on them.

Texting works very well. I'm typing this on the phone right now. It's one of the smoothest eink devices I've ever encountered.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#66

Post by sssilver »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #44
slt2021 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok but you’ve lost your mission, your tools to accomplish that mission, and effectively your company.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#67

Post by akudha »

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…

While “maximizing shareholder value” is a huge problem, aren’t there other problems too? Founders wanting to get rich as quickly and as easily as possible, customers/users refusing to pay even for most important services (for example, how many people are willing to pay 5 bucks a month for something as important to modern life as email? But they’re happy to pay 5$ for a crappy Starbucks coffee), lawmakers too old or too corrupt to understand the negative effects of the products/markets they’re supposed to regulate, general public more interested in convenience and cheap entertainment than subjects like privacy, parents simply hooking their kids up with iPads so they don’t have to deal with tantrums (one of my colleagues told me he was raised by TV/internet, not by humans)… and on and on.

I suppose we’re living in an age of unchecked capitalism. But there are other issues too

Re: Engineered Addictions

#68

Post by Devasta »

The best thing we could possibly do, besides throwing Musk and Zuckerberg in The Hague, is destroy targeted advertising as a business model. Everything, absolutely all of this is done so they can make fractions of a cent off of clicks. So long as they can, they will do everything possible to damage your brains into clicking more.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#69

Post by DeathRay2K »

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…

The author doesn’t suggest it, but the implicit solution is public funding for social goods.

That could be through a robust grant process, providing funding for social media that is not supported other ways.

Alternately, it could be through a UBI, giving people basic cash flow that could be allocated to paid social media platforms rather than everyone relying on ad-supported social media.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#70

Post by fullshark »

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…

Government regulation / laws
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