I liked most of this article and found it interesting. Maybe a bit long-winded, but like many people I've been thinking a lot about the same topic in recent years, struggling to break free of a certain mindset. Hearing the images and language how someone else feels when they describe that "machine" that keeps them captive is interesting -- a very "blind men and the elephant" experience. The cargo cult aspect is a new connection to me and something I'll think about more.

That said, like many tech critiques, I found the conclusion underwhelming. In particular, the idea that how we manage our "upvotes, likes, shares, and retweets" is important strikes me as foolish. These are the master's tools and they won't unmake the master's house. Sites like reddit and twitter have long put their thumbs on the scale to rewrite these metrics. Plus, just like with democracy, institutions and norms that encourage uninformed frivolous voting will drown out the meaningful signal. Not to say these forms of engagement are all bad, but they aren't a solution in and of themselves.

The real commodity to regulate is attention, of which "upvotes" are only a simulacrum. It should never be forgotten that this means often means disengaging from certain sites and systems entirely.

edit: on the note of attention being the real metric -- another thing I thought the author could have done well drawing attention to is the trend of watching/listening at 2x speed. It increases our tolerance for drawn out drivel. Maybe an alternative would be to shun media that we don't think would be worth playing 2x times at normal speed.