This would include Hacker News, Discord, online forums, any video game...
Wrong. Neither HN nor traditional online forums push content selected to keep you "engaged". Not sure if Discord has started peddling "content" yet. If it does now I haven't noticed on my install yet.
As for video games, are you of the kind that believes all video games are competitive multiplayer? You're right about the free to play IAP fests on both desktop and mobile, wrong about, for example, single player games.
The entire purpose of karma here and on forums like Reddit is to keep you "engaged" by pushing the most popular content to the top of the thread. And many people make HN a part of their marketing and SEO strategy, so the incentive for a lot of what gets posted here is just to get eyeballs and clicks, or increase clout for the authors and visibility to YC. And of course YC uses this forum to advertise their own startups, so they have an incentive to maximize engagement.
I see it more as a currency which can be used in exchange for spreading unpopular/controversial/inflammatory opinions.
So do I, but strictly speaking that's not what it's meant for. It's supposed to be operant conditioning - you want to do whatever makes the number go up, and avoid what makes it go down. What makes it go up? Obeying the rules, aligning with the local culture and posting stories and making comments other people want to read and upvote. What makes it go down? Repetition, humor, heterodoxy and controversy. It's the same kind of endorphine based Skinner box that every other forum and social media platform uses, just not as complex.
It is not as personalised as Facebook, Tiktok or Instagram.
Problem is when a machine learning algorithm is designed to find content that has highest odds of keeping you engaged forever and diminishing your dopamine reserves as it is doing so.
Hackernews can have issues, but by far not as much.
Also having text only limits the ability to create such addicting content by far.
Finally Hackernews doesn't play on your insecurities as much.
It's pretty easy to skip the blatant advertisements tbh. And HN doesn't somehow conjure more articles out of thin air when I'm done with the front page, as opposed to the likes of "social networking" somehow finding 10000 more cat photos for me if i scroll down.
I could move that the definition of "social networking" is that it's not social. You get "content" crammed down your throat instead of interacting with people.
While the main attraction of HN has always been the comments.
Comments
This would include Hacker News, Discord, online forums, any video game...
Wrong. Neither HN nor traditional online forums push content selected to keep you "engaged". Not sure if Discord has started peddling "content" yet. If it does now I haven't noticed on my install yet.
As for video games, are you of the kind that believes all video games are competitive multiplayer? You're right about the free to play IAP fests on both desktop and mobile, wrong about, for example, single player games.
The entire purpose of karma here and on forums like Reddit is to keep you "engaged" by pushing the most popular content to the top of the thread. And many people make HN a part of their marketing and SEO strategy, so the incentive for a lot of what gets posted here is just to get eyeballs and clicks, or increase clout for the authors and visibility to YC. And of course YC uses this forum to advertise their own startups, so they have an incentive to maximize engagement.
I see it more as a currency which can be used in exchange for spreading unpopular/controversial/inflammatory opinions.
It's the online equivalent of whatever Dan Aykroyd has which enables him to keep getting invited to parties.
So do I, but strictly speaking that's not what it's meant for. It's supposed to be operant conditioning - you want to do whatever makes the number go up, and avoid what makes it go down. What makes it go up? Obeying the rules, aligning with the local culture and posting stories and making comments other people want to read and upvote. What makes it go down? Repetition, humor, heterodoxy and controversy. It's the same kind of endorphine based Skinner box that every other forum and social media platform uses, just not as complex.
It is not as personalised as Facebook, Tiktok or Instagram.
Problem is when a machine learning algorithm is designed to find content that has highest odds of keeping you engaged forever and diminishing your dopamine reserves as it is doing so.
Hackernews can have issues, but by far not as much.
Also having text only limits the ability to create such addicting content by far.
Finally Hackernews doesn't play on your insecurities as much.
I love HN, and the community here, but yeah, let's not just ignore the fact that this is very much a YC recruitment platform.
It's pretty easy to skip the blatant advertisements tbh. And HN doesn't somehow conjure more articles out of thin air when I'm done with the front page, as opposed to the likes of "social networking" somehow finding 10000 more cat photos for me if i scroll down.
I could move that the definition of "social networking" is that it's not social. You get "content" crammed down your throat instead of interacting with people.
While the main attraction of HN has always been the comments.
HN is literally startup founder type engagement bait - the forum.
Funny because all I've learned from here is that "founder lifestyle" and "VC funding" are dirty words I don't want in my life...
big blind spot you got there
No True Social Platform, huh?
Not any video game! Many video games work without internet at all :)