Comment by willsmith72
2 months ago
But why? The whole premise seems wrong.
> The financial incentives to create addictive digital content would instantly disappear
No they wouldn't.. the business model would change. Facebook sells ads to businesses and entertainment to consumers. People still want to be entertained.
What about the positive effects from advertising? Many products which I never knew existed have gone on to improve my life.
To kill addictive digital content (especially those targeted at young people), just go after them directly. I agree the world will be a better place once we don't spend 10-16 years old online. But the advertising argument doesn't make any sense to me.
Most users are not happy with addictive apps. The psychology of something you pay for is fundamentally different to something that's free. If your choices were paying for TikTok, or paying for actually good entertainment, I think a lot of people would do the latter.
I would be OK with the death of using user data to hyper target ads to people. I think they can be targeted enough based on context, such as a fishing blog having ads for fishing stuff. Modern advertising by the likes of Google and Facebook has too much information, to the point where it can manipulate and target people directly, as they can do with their algorithmic feeds as well.