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This is true of all free apps and sites, because the only way to monetize them is ad revenue, meaning doom-scrolling is always optimal. Incentives will out.
There are still variety and innovation to be found in paid services, as well as some that are funded by donations or the like. Whether that's subscription-model newsletters/sites that provide unique analysis, paid dating services that provide 'expert' matchmaking, or hell just look at video games - every free game has the same garbage time sink model, meanwhile indies that cost $5 can still be fantastic.
"If you didn't pay for a product, you are the product" applies universally. If something is important to you and provides value, go pay for the real thing. The 'internet' only sucks because it's free.
Yeah. And despite the fact that this is very clearly not making users happier, and is corrosive to attention spans. Then add in a gambling mechanic and you've got your user in a perfect little skinner box.
For me, it makes the choice easy. The only winning move is not to play. I will not install the gamified narcissism slop app. Any of them.
Anyone looking to be a tech innovator should try and invent a monetization method that provably enriches the users' life, or at least doesn't grind their attention span to dust for no gain.
But oh no, they don't want to solve actual hard problems when the easy solution of building a better Skinner Box to siphon money to yourself is right there. They want the status of being a hard-problem solver, though.
I only push back insofar as there's a common 'predatory' model that starts out making the thing free or reduced cost and very carefully implying that this will remain the case, but retain the right to alter the deal at any time. Then alter the deal once you sense that they've gotten invested enough that it'll be too painful to leave vs. shelling out money.
And even if you pay for the thing, they can and will shove ads into it anyway. Netflix did it.
This feels to me like a distinctly unfair practice, only maintained because its usually not worth complaining that a thing you were getting for free went away, since its not like it cost you much. But it kind of did. It cost all the time I could have put into another outlet, and it relied on one's general good faith belief that the free option would stick around unless the entire site/app went kaput.
Like, I've put a whole hell of a lot of time and thought into my Motte posts. I don't believe that I "own" the words on the site, but I would be pretty cheesed off if they started restricting my access to my own content and then stuck a paywall up if I wanted to access comments from longer than a month ago.
AND THEN said "hey its fine if you don't want to pay, we'll just start injecting ads into your comments and slapping a gambling mechanic on the Friday Fun thread unless you pony up.
I would immediately drop the site and never look back. But I WOULD put up some money to keep the site functional at the current level simply because I actually do value the community here at significantly greater than $0, which is something I can't say about many other forums.
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