Engineered Addictions

Engineered Addiction & Historical Parallels

• Many see modern apps as deliberately “addiction machines,” likened to gambling, casinos, slot machines, and earlier industries: tobacco, alcohol, sugar, fast food, and processed food.
• Some argue vice regulation can “stick” (e.g. cocaine removed from soda, food safety rules) so digital addictions might also be regulatable, even if harder to see than drunk behavior.
• Others frame these designs as a kind of “mind control” or non‑physical violence against users’ autonomy.

Capitalism, VC, and Incentives

• A dominant thread: the core problem is shareholder‑driven capitalism and VC, which reward engagement and growth over user wellbeing.
• Outside investment is seen as a key turning point where “authentic” products become optimized for DAUs and time-on-site; the company itself becomes the product to flip.
• Long debate over whether law truly forces profit-maximization or whether that’s cultural myth; critics say even without a strict legal duty, boards, markets, and compensation structures strongly punish executives who don’t chase growth.
• Some broaden this to private equity and financialization generally: the same extraction logic is visible in healthcare, services, and labor conditions.

Regulation and Policy Ideas

• Proposed levers: algorithmic transparency, limits on targeted ads (or ads altogether), classifying social media as a public utility, forcing platforms to bear more cost for externalities, regulating like tobacco.
• Skeptics note regulators’ tech illiteracy and corporate capture; supporters counter that regulation can target incentives rather than code details.

Alternative Models & Federated/Small Platforms

• Non‑profit, co‑op, or public models (Wikipedia, Metafilter, Mastodon, local forums) are cited as proofs that healthier spaces can exist, usually small, slow‑growing, and modestly funded.
• Federated platforms (Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed) are mentioned as structurally resistant to enshittification but struggle against network effects and marketing muscle.

Feasibility of Paid / Non‑Addictive Social Media

• Repeated question: would people actually pay $2–5/month for an ethical, non‑gamified network? Many doubt it, citing user reluctance to pay for search, email, or YouTube.
• Others argue server+staff costs for a lean, non‑VC social site are modest; success just requires far fewer users, but bootstrapping the initial network is very hard.

Human Nature vs Design & Individual Responses

• Some say the real “addiction” is human preference for emotional stimulus; platforms merely evolve to fit that demand. Others insist behavioral addiction is real and intentionally exploited.
• Practical coping strategies discussed: deleting apps, grayscale or e‑ink phones, feature‑phone or no‑phone lifestyles, and prioritizing offline community and “third places” over digital socializing.