Oddbean

And we wonder why people are so fucked up, people building apps just want you to be hopelessly addicted so they can make more money from ads. It’s hard to find design books on optimizing human well-being. Why does our relationship with computers have to be framed around getting users hooked on crack? There is something seriously wrong with our industry. nostr:note12er924k94g2qjpx004758q06tklrwfwp7v5lrh422nfzjdykk53sq87z4k

Fiat incentivizes short term thinking which means businesses need to be focused on growth at all costs. The fastest way to grow your user base is to make the product free and sell ads. This creates as little friction as possible to get users on your site. If you are operating on a sound money standard, you can prioritize differently. Because your money isn’t losing value every day, there isn’t an urgent need to grow your user base as quickly. Obviously, some will still choose to go with ads, but it opens up more possibilities for operating your business differently and focusing on delivering something users find valuable enough to pay for more than once. I guess the big part I disagree with is that capitalism is focused on “hoarding” capital. It’s quite the opposite in fiat world because hoarding dollars means you’re losing purchasing power, so if you’re a business, you need to deploy those dollars as fast as possible. Where most tech companies spend is by fueling more growth via engineering/sales hires, exasperating the problem, and the need for more of your attention. So yes, sound money standard might equal more “hoarding” but that would actually be better because you’d likely be focused on sustainable growth since your money isn’t melting away.

Thankfully the community is starting to push back organically. A lot of us are no longer willing to use ad supported services that abuse us because of their bad incentives. When a service uses ads for support, the person paying them is not the consumer but rather a disinterested third party. That creates very perverse incentives, but with a neutral censorship resistant digital money services can monetize without having to rely on ad revenue. Here’s a great example: https://blog.getalby.com/block-ads-and-pay-in-bitcoin-today/

Back in the 80s the TV 📺 was the crack, kids don't watch the box anymore... queue the Internet.....maybe in the 30s it'll be the brainchip nostr:nevent1qqs8vl3wglqvsldg2tzgpueuwcfj2q04qspjtnxk4h0qs5x5wcpmz5gpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qygpjuxp8vd29p6ancknaztql3eajk52y8xkppfn7au7elkw9c68zg5psgqqqqqqsa48e20

he rationalizes it this way in this interview using the Bible app as an example but also ignores all the religious people that don’t believe that using an app is a religious experience — hooked is the mantra that apps can be gateways to religious experience the subtext being divorced from reality — hence why this contradiction can exist for him https://image.nostr.build/4d624ce87b5d4aba5338030b8faf23e8b88655f9d8bfa6728f565b830fec63a5.jpg

Well. People wouldn't need the second book if he hadn't written the first book. Talk about creating the solution to the problem you originally created. Like selling diet books and pills after selling cake recipe books and junk food.

Sad but true. Have to admit to being a founding member (sadly not investor) of a content based company that sold online adverting space. We were early and at least focused on quality content (times have changed). Sold for £20m but this was 20 years ago.

i think the trick to make people feel like they are addicted and yet they are getting real community, real service....so after a month or six months it doesn't feel like they are spending their whole paycheck on a penny slot machine, but instead, in a roundabout way, they are advancing, so yes be "slimey" but do it in a way where they are benefitting, you know?

High signal thread to find design and product adjacent nostriches Finally nostr:nevent1qqs8vl3wglqvsldg2tzgpueuwcfj2q04qspjtnxk4h0qs5x5wcpmz5gpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygpjuxp8vd29p6ancknaztql3eajk52y8xkppfn7au7elkw9c68zg5psgqqqqqqstnr928

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狩猟採集時代は噂話を聞き逃がせば死に直結します. 人間の脳は狩猟採集時代のままほとんど進化していません. 広告やアルゴリズムに関係なく人間はタイムラインをスクロールし続けます. 知らんけど

Toda industria entre ellas la tecnológica se dedican a satisfacer emociones humanas, y esas emociones son llevadas siempre al límite en nuestra sociedad consumista lo que termina convirtiendo en adicto a las personas. Como cualquier otra droga las aplicaciones dan satisfacción, toda una industria provee, y los desarrolladores son el distribuidor que cubre esa necesidad. No es lo correcto pero la sociedad lo pide y solicita a gritos, y alguien siempre estará dispuesto a abastecer.

It is a natural result of a liberal world order focused on individual will and power. We will only resolve to do any better if we return to a society focused on human dignity, the common good, and God.

Wait … what are we measuring? “Active users” on the protocol or per app “vendor”? Being “hooked” on the former (decentralized protocol with no owner) is not quite as “insidious” as the latter. Maybe? And while vendors MAY measure “active users” on their own “platform”, the nature of the open protocol kind of makes it a moot point. Vendors are welcome to compete for addictiveness… right?

The internet, to the casual, has shrunken down so much it's more like Cable TV than ever. Just peek at the world of streaming services. I'll stay on the seas... precisely because of that. Dont want to be part of this shit. :/

Because all forms of monetizing were built on advertising foundations, thus making an inevitability within the industry to capture users attention. That until is until bitcoin, nostr, zaps and the paradigm shift on value 4 value came about.

Was it always like this? Or was it the emergence of big tech/web2.0 that askewed the landscape dramatically? I remember books in the 90s being so full of hope for the future and where the WWW and internet would take us. Now? Everywhere I turn is people trying to make money from these 'habit forming' tendencies we're trying to get the rest of mankind hooked on. Internet needs a huge paradigm shift!

nostr:nevent1qqs8vl3wglqvsldg2tzgpueuwcfj2q04qspjtnxk4h0qs5x5wcpmz5gpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyqewrqnkx4zsaweutf739s0cu7et29zrntqs5elw70vlm8zudr3y2qcyqqqqqqgd40t7c nostr:nevent1qqsfwv958yxa06e6py7v9pe88g6yyllzdqp46k530qzlhu4cg0hvqzgpzamhxue69uhkummnw3ezuendwsh8w6t69e3xj7szyr3zvzn67vanhgcqwsg3c3t8j080trf2ks79jedahdj4ly8ewwv6cqcyqqqqqqg7p4a2a