8 ms·

There is no escaping the fact that feeding addictions is a great business model.

teekert 8mo ago
It's a real challenge for a society based around personal freedom. Same goes for addictive apps. I feel the conflict within me.
- tristramb 8mo ago
  Personal freedom includes not being manipulated by commercial interests.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    Sure, but all successful capitalist economies revolve around supporting commercial interests which prop up the tax revenue which then hold up the welfare state and public infrastructure, QoL and freedoms we enjoy. THe big challenge is separating the good from the bad commercial interests. It's not a challenge because differentiating the good from the harmful is difficult, but because bad actor industries also make A LOT of money that buys a lot of political power and also employ a lot of people, so removing them from economy would have negative economic and political consequences. Basically it's like a dead man's switch in a mutually assured destruction weapon.
    - deaux 8mo ago
      Just because they employ a lot of people does not mean that removing them from economy would have negative economic consequences. Killing the tobacco industry for example would have incredibly positive economic consequences, despite the job loss.
      - joe_mamba 8mo ago
        >Killing the tobacco industry for example would have incredibly positive economic consequences, despite the job loss. Yeah but both tobacco industry employees and smokers vote. If they make up a large enough voter base, then this is political suicide in any democracy. Hence how it took until 2019 to ban indoor smoking in my EU country, even though it was known for a long time it's a public health issue.
  - randomNumber7 8mo ago
    Personal freedom only works when someone is educated enough to make their own choices imho.
    - panick21_ 8mo ago
      Most people know being fat, smoking and so on are bad. Its mostly not an education issue. But an outlook on live issue.
- shrubby 8mo ago
  We have banned heroin so we should be able to ban anything else that's toxic. For us, close ones or even the generations to come. Algorithm, food, intoxicants, anything that has manipulative potential.
  - teekert 8mo ago
    Well, yeah, but who are you to decide what I do with my body? I'm not hurting anyone. (Nice to meet you, I'm the advocate of the Devil.)
    - randomNumber7 8mo ago
      If I would look onto you as my obedient slavish worker I would like you to not kill yourself.
  - leoedin 8mo ago
    > We have banned heroin so we should be able to ban anything else that's toxic Except banning heroin clearly didn't work so well! There's still a lot of people using it. And the profits from selling it go to criminal gangs. And the people using it often die due to inconsistent dosing. How do you define "manipulative potential"? If you ban sugar in drinks, do you ban fruit juice too? Where do we draw the line for "acceptable harm"? Personally I don't want to live in a society which bans huge numbers of things.
    - fsflover 8mo ago
      You can tax drinks based on the amount of sugar they contain. Yes, including juices.
      - teekert 8mo ago
        Yeah, in my country oat milk is now taxed as a juice, of course milk isn't. So the plant based alternative is now 2x the price of cow milk. Thanx Milk industry.
- kuerbel 8mo ago
  Regulating predatory business models is not in conflict with personal freedom
  - p-e-w 8mo ago
    There is no definition of “predatory business model” that isn’t simply a reflection of the majority’s values, so there absolutely is a conflict between the two. Are churches a predatory business? If the answer is no, then why are sugar manufacturers? If the answer is tradition etc., then that basically proves my point.
    - Arkhaine_kupo 8mo ago
      > Are churches a predatory business? the institution that invented Tithes? The institution that if you go and put money in every sunday will help you organize weddings and funerals which are very important dates for people? Which will take old women aside and talk about getting into heaven and helping missions in poor countries full of poor little children? That institution might have a predatory business model? The threat of hell is certainly very uncoercive yeah
      - cobblestone32 8mo ago
        While I don't disagree with the assertion that churches are somewhat "predatory" with the threat of hell etc., this statement isn't really supporting that thesis: > if you go and put money in every sunday will help you organize weddings and funerals which are very important dates for people So basically you're paying for a service? Your argument would be much better if they didn't actually help people with important stuff.
        Arkhaine_kupo 8mo ago
        Creating a hierarchy in lets say a small town, were people who pay in can have a funeral early/better date/better priest while people who dont pay get a wednesday mid work and no one can attend so the family has to say goodbye to their loved one without people creates the kind of environment where participating is not optional. That is the kind of situation the funeral thing was highlighting, not the provision of a service, but the creation of a coercive incentive for social hierarchy and emotional support around a very difficult moment. Its the same reason predatory loans are predatory, not because loans are bad but because you find people at their lowest and provide a service where they are incentivised to make reckless financial choices
- shrubby 8mo ago
  And the addictive algorithm is not far away from violence. The power asymmetry behind and in the front of the six inch screen is immense.
- keybored 8mo ago
  Notice something curious. The correlation with discussions around regulating businesses, freedom, and social media attention. There is a strong correlation between someone making money and someone arguing that people being able to make money is about freedom. And here we are a few centuries into capitalism and people say that they are conflicted because personal freedom = making money off people. Effectively. Yet there are many freedoms that are not profitable. We just have to sit down in a chair and think it through for ten minutes. Preferably without the corrupting influence of a scren.
smt88 8mo ago
What's your point? We regulated cigarettes and now they have a tiny fraction of their former customer base, saving millions of lives. These are solvable problems.
- tgv 8mo ago
  Perhaps the point is that we need to return to social-democratic(ally inspired) policies of yore. In the current political climate, greed is good.
- XorNot 8mo ago
  Regulated but did not ban and the trick is to keep the availability far enough above the profitability of the criminal enterprise versus demand and your law enforcement potential. Which technically isn't hard because criminal enterprise is pretty damn inefficient!
- panick21_ 8mo ago
  Cigarretes are an interesting example. Its way more about general society attitude, without doing a full baning. And that's likely what we need for other stuff. We litearlly can't ban everything that is bad in the large. That would simply be to many things.
  - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    >We regulated cigarettes Cigarettes were already regulated. More like banning was applied to advertising and indoor smoking in lots of places. >without doing a full baning. This is why it worked, as good as it did. That was enough regulation of the prominent, growing hazard & risk, for the vast majority to experience how much better it was than before, and usage snowballed downward as much as it could. Without fully prohibiting anybody. Advertising has huge persuasive ability.
fredley 8mo ago
If you want to become a billionaire, the best way to do it is invent some new addiction.
- hahahahhaah 8mo ago
  No need. Profiting fron gambling will do it.
  - fredley 8mo ago
    True, existing addictions are a good bet, but a brand new one with no competition, regulation or recognition? That's you you get Zuckerberg wealthy.
    - hahahahhaah 8mo ago
      AI romance partners is the obvious new frontier here. Just imagine: an automated romance scam and you get to sell their data.
fuzzfactor 8mo ago
I've mentioned this before but over 40 years ago the periodical R & D was originally known as Industrial Research, and the R & D 100 was the IR100, showcasing the most promising companies they picked out every year in their opinion. It wasn't too much like an academic publication, there were plenty of those, but lots of times a breakthrough would be reported anyway, and everything was more commercially oriented by far. You know how trade publications can be kind of uninteresting for non-insiders, IR could be so boring that college professors wouldn't even read it. But you could tell when an author had recently left academia and joined industry though because their papers appeared more academic than very seasoned ones. It's still a challenging transition to make, but I'll never forget how it was addressed one time in the back pages. Where you get the occasional cartoon comic like you would in consumer media. There's two scientists in lab coats working at their benches, the boss comes on the intercom and they look at each other as he blasts from the overhead speaker: "Hey you guys in Research, get off your butts and invent something that's habit forming".

It's a real challenge for a society based around personal freedom. Same goes for addictive apps. I feel the conflict within me.

tristramb 8mo ago
Personal freedom includes not being manipulated by commercial interests.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  Sure, but all successful capitalist economies revolve around supporting commercial interests which prop up the tax revenue which then hold up the welfare state and public infrastructure, QoL and freedoms we enjoy. THe big challenge is separating the good from the bad commercial interests. It's not a challenge because differentiating the good from the harmful is difficult, but because bad actor industries also make A LOT of money that buys a lot of political power and also employ a lot of people, so removing them from economy would have negative economic and political consequences. Basically it's like a dead man's switch in a mutually assured destruction weapon.
  - deaux 8mo ago
    Just because they employ a lot of people does not mean that removing them from economy would have negative economic consequences. Killing the tobacco industry for example would have incredibly positive economic consequences, despite the job loss.
    - joe_mamba 8mo ago
      >Killing the tobacco industry for example would have incredibly positive economic consequences, despite the job loss. Yeah but both tobacco industry employees and smokers vote. If they make up a large enough voter base, then this is political suicide in any democracy. Hence how it took until 2019 to ban indoor smoking in my EU country, even though it was known for a long time it's a public health issue.
- randomNumber7 8mo ago
  Personal freedom only works when someone is educated enough to make their own choices imho.
  - panick21_ 8mo ago
    Most people know being fat, smoking and so on are bad. Its mostly not an education issue. But an outlook on live issue.
shrubby 8mo ago
We have banned heroin so we should be able to ban anything else that's toxic. For us, close ones or even the generations to come. Algorithm, food, intoxicants, anything that has manipulative potential.
- teekert 8mo ago
  Well, yeah, but who are you to decide what I do with my body? I'm not hurting anyone. (Nice to meet you, I'm the advocate of the Devil.)
  - randomNumber7 8mo ago
    If I would look onto you as my obedient slavish worker I would like you to not kill yourself.
- leoedin 8mo ago
  > We have banned heroin so we should be able to ban anything else that's toxic Except banning heroin clearly didn't work so well! There's still a lot of people using it. And the profits from selling it go to criminal gangs. And the people using it often die due to inconsistent dosing. How do you define "manipulative potential"? If you ban sugar in drinks, do you ban fruit juice too? Where do we draw the line for "acceptable harm"? Personally I don't want to live in a society which bans huge numbers of things.
  - fsflover 8mo ago
    You can tax drinks based on the amount of sugar they contain. Yes, including juices.
    - teekert 8mo ago
      Yeah, in my country oat milk is now taxed as a juice, of course milk isn't. So the plant based alternative is now 2x the price of cow milk. Thanx Milk industry.
kuerbel 8mo ago
Regulating predatory business models is not in conflict with personal freedom
- p-e-w 8mo ago
  There is no definition of “predatory business model” that isn’t simply a reflection of the majority’s values, so there absolutely is a conflict between the two. Are churches a predatory business? If the answer is no, then why are sugar manufacturers? If the answer is tradition etc., then that basically proves my point.
  - Arkhaine_kupo 8mo ago
    > Are churches a predatory business? the institution that invented Tithes? The institution that if you go and put money in every sunday will help you organize weddings and funerals which are very important dates for people? Which will take old women aside and talk about getting into heaven and helping missions in poor countries full of poor little children? That institution might have a predatory business model? The threat of hell is certainly very uncoercive yeah
    - cobblestone32 8mo ago
      While I don't disagree with the assertion that churches are somewhat "predatory" with the threat of hell etc., this statement isn't really supporting that thesis: > if you go and put money in every sunday will help you organize weddings and funerals which are very important dates for people So basically you're paying for a service? Your argument would be much better if they didn't actually help people with important stuff.
      - Arkhaine_kupo 8mo ago
        Creating a hierarchy in lets say a small town, were people who pay in can have a funeral early/better date/better priest while people who dont pay get a wednesday mid work and no one can attend so the family has to say goodbye to their loved one without people creates the kind of environment where participating is not optional. That is the kind of situation the funeral thing was highlighting, not the provision of a service, but the creation of a coercive incentive for social hierarchy and emotional support around a very difficult moment. Its the same reason predatory loans are predatory, not because loans are bad but because you find people at their lowest and provide a service where they are incentivised to make reckless financial choices
shrubby 8mo ago
And the addictive algorithm is not far away from violence. The power asymmetry behind and in the front of the six inch screen is immense.
keybored 8mo ago
Notice something curious. The correlation with discussions around regulating businesses, freedom, and social media attention. There is a strong correlation between someone making money and someone arguing that people being able to make money is about freedom. And here we are a few centuries into capitalism and people say that they are conflicted because personal freedom = making money off people. Effectively. Yet there are many freedoms that are not profitable. We just have to sit down in a chair and think it through for ten minutes. Preferably without the corrupting influence of a scren.

smt88 8mo ago

What's your point? We regulated cigarettes and now they have a tiny fraction of their former customer base, saving millions of lives. These are solvable problems.

tgv 8mo ago
Perhaps the point is that we need to return to social-democratic(ally inspired) policies of yore. In the current political climate, greed is good.
XorNot 8mo ago
Regulated but did not ban and the trick is to keep the availability far enough above the profitability of the criminal enterprise versus demand and your law enforcement potential. Which technically isn't hard because criminal enterprise is pretty damn inefficient!
panick21_ 8mo ago
Cigarretes are an interesting example. Its way more about general society attitude, without doing a full baning. And that's likely what we need for other stuff. We litearlly can't ban everything that is bad in the large. That would simply be to many things.
- fuzzfactor 8mo ago
  >We regulated cigarettes Cigarettes were already regulated. More like banning was applied to advertising and indoor smoking in lots of places. >without doing a full baning. This is why it worked, as good as it did. That was enough regulation of the prominent, growing hazard & risk, for the vast majority to experience how much better it was than before, and usage snowballed downward as much as it could. Without fully prohibiting anybody. Advertising has huge persuasive ability.

fredley 8mo ago

If you want to become a billionaire, the best way to do it is invent some new addiction.

hahahahhaah 8mo ago
No need. Profiting fron gambling will do it.
- fredley 8mo ago
  True, existing addictions are a good bet, but a brand new one with no competition, regulation or recognition? That's you you get Zuckerberg wealthy.
  - hahahahhaah 8mo ago
    AI romance partners is the obvious new frontier here. Just imagine: an automated romance scam and you get to sell their data.

fuzzfactor 8mo ago

I've mentioned this before but over 40 years ago the periodical R & D was originally known as Industrial Research, and the R & D 100 was the IR100, showcasing the most promising companies they picked out every year in their opinion. It wasn't too much like an academic publication, there were plenty of those, but lots of times a breakthrough would be reported anyway, and everything was more commercially oriented by far. You know how trade publications can be kind of uninteresting for non-insiders, IR could be so boring that college professors wouldn't even read it. But you could tell when an author had recently left academia and joined industry though because their papers appeared more academic than very seasoned ones. It's still a challenging transition to make, but I'll never forget how it was addressed one time in the back pages. Where you get the occasional cartoon comic like you would in consumer media. There's two scientists in lab coats working at their benches, the boss comes on the intercom and they look at each other as he blasts from the overhead speaker: "Hey you guys in Research, get off your butts and invent something that's habit forming".