Of course Lemmy and such inherit some of that design even without the money behind it - there’s certainly a little dopamine hit when I see that one of my comments has gotten a reply, or when I check and see that it’s been upvoted.
Not having the incentive to enshittify is good though.
Here… you can have a little dopamine… as a treat.
I got you both. Enjoy.
What if, instead of having to doomscroll to get that sweet, sweet dopamine hit, you’d just occasionally, and randomly be sent a message with a funny meme, or interesting story, or whatever it takes to convince your brain to hook you up?
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If a product makes money on engagement metrics (ads, eyeballs, time), they’ll do everything they can do to maximize for that.
The slot machine analogy is apt. There’s research out there on how much time to optimize the dopamine hit and how long to go before you dispense the hit.
The trick is, as a consumer, to set limits and step away. Considering we’re here, best of luck to us all.
