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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

They very first version of Reddit used spark lines instead of points. People hated it. We experimented multiple times with removing karma from the equation. It always reduced engagement.

People just really need that dopamine hit of seeing their points go up.

Honestly I prefer the way HN does it, where only the submitter can see their own points.

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I can see that; there are literally thousands of people "farming karma" on Reddit every day. It's definitely engagement but I don't necessarily think it's healthy engagement. Unhealthy engagement is what this article is all about.

Measuring engagement seems a bit like Goodhart's law.

Unless you can show healthy engagement clicks more ads than unhealthy engagement the people who pay the bills won't care what kind of engagement you have.

In hindsight, maybe optimizing for engagement also optimized for polarization?

You're probably correct, but what product owner is going to take the chance on purposefully chasing lower engagement?

Hacker News. :)

Ad-supported business can’t solve this problem.

Considering that this is also the biggest problem regarding youtube, you may be right.

However, if it's true, the consequences are terrifying, if you take into account that engagement is directly tied to the financial success of every company whose money comes from advertising.

(And here it is: yet another reason to despise advertising and surveillance capitalism...).

EDIT: typo.

>It always reduced engagement. Exactly. All these companies optimize for "engagement," regardless of how vapid, destructive or banal it is.

When all the advertisers and investors care about is clicks...

This is also why cancel culture is a thing—pressuring advertisers to remove funding is the only input we really have to what goods and services our society produces.

I miss being able to see up vs downvotes per post. With only the total displayed, it feels like only the hivemind opinion wins out.

Well, engagement for the sake of karma is likely not a worthy engagement, I would consider reducing that sort of engagement a good thing. Surely it's not a black and white matter though.

Without having seen what kind of content really gets moderated, I'd say HN got a good balance.

I've often wondered about a reddit like site that just egregiously and unapologetically showed fake metrics to make it look like people loved your comments and read them, regardless of the truth. You might have to do it a bit randomly to keep people guessing or enjoying the tension, but just make a large chance of hitting the karma jackpot from a comment slot machine - it might make people feel happier.

What about a variant of shadowbanning?

You can't see your real scores, but everyone else can.

This makes sense to me, perfect sense. Removing metrics would reduce engagement, and that's all that matters.

> People just really need that dopamine hit of seeing their points go up.

In other words, people are naturally vain.

It’s hard to notice those who don’t care.

> Honestly I prefer the way HN does it, where only the submitter can see their own points.

FWIW lobste.rs has another interesting take: it doesn't show points on comments until after a while and then they become public.

I have figured out the reason is to avoid vote piling while keeping transparency.

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