Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

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Again as mentioned above I'd strongly recommend using an LLM to search for some info from this era. These systems were all considered extremely addictive.

As for the algorithm - in modern times all these companies driven by advertising. The algorithm works as a means to enable more effective advertising, and especially native advertising. It also likely helps build more effective profiles on people which can then be further monetized with advertising. I'm certain it increases addiction, but that's like saying that the special jingles and bells and whistles on a slot machine increase addiction. You're just adding to an already highly addictive baseline.

I also don't think TikTok really 'won' because of their algorithm. Facebook is now for parents and grandparents, while younger people moved onto other services to find their own place. I think the same sort of view of a service being dated became true of YouTube, even moreso as it moved more from YouTube to CorpoTube. Most, if not all, alternatives tried to be YouTube but with less content and worse CDNs. TikTok actually tried to put the 'You' back in 'YouTube' and caught on exactly like YouTube did back in the day. Go figure.

>Again as mentioned above I'd strongly recommend using an LLM to search for some info from this era. These systems were all considered extremely addictive.

Which is so relative it's meaningless. Cigarettes are also extremely addictive but i'm not about to compare it to TV

>I'm certain it increases addiction

Then what's the discussion about? Companies incentivised and given the technological means to create a more addictive product create a more addictive product. Don't tell me it's by hapenstance or that it's just an insconsequential increase on an addictive baseline when the difference is so easily noticed and the things only wielding the addictive baseline are comparatively abandoned if not for societal innertia.

>I also don't think TikTok really 'won' because of their algorithm. Facebook is now for parents and grandparents,

There I think it's actually both. It's both the new things away from the old and the algorithm was actually good whilst youtube's was garbage in comparison. There were other contenders and ones that died (vine) so i think their execution was also part of it. For all the outrage about slop, dances and dangerous and short form addictive content if the tiktok algorithm detected you liked ....let's say science and gardening videos in medium to long form it would give you exactly that and would only deviate enough (unless you searched on went on your own tangent) to see if your prefrences deviated but in a way that wouldnt be bothersome. In the meantime youtube was putting the same recommended unappealing vids among others in the sidebar for more than a year straight. It had all the annoying incentives that led to clickbait titles, thumbnails, intros, fillers. I deleted tiktok because i have an addictive personality and it was too good at giving me both that dopamine fix and what i actually wanted in the moment. Oh and as a 3rd factor it had less and less intrusive ads.

The issue I'm trying to point out is that attacking the algorithm isn't attacking the problem. It's like attacking, per your example, flavorings in cigarettes. Those certainly make them more addictive and more appealing to a certain demographic, but even without those flavorings they're harmfully addictive.

And I think without understanding the core problem, solutions are going to fail. If I were a self centered oligarch in charge of one of those companies, I would certainly ensure there was astroturfing focused on the algorithm, as the tides of society turn more towards regulating these businesses, because you can drag that issue out forever, make a surprised face when nothing meaningfully changes, and continue to play this game for decades.

And yeah I agree TikTok did some other things right as well, but I don't necessarily think it was the short-form stuff. It was the fact that 'you' - a regular nobody, could put out a video and have a reasonable chance of it reaching a massive number of people, very much like in the early days of YouTube. YouTube created a system where the big get bigger which inevitably leads to stagnation. TikTok created a more 'decentralized' system, for lack of a better term.

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