>(By the way, if significant portions of your userbase are capable of becoming addicted to your product, consider that it may not be fully ethical to produce it.)
Well, there goes the gaming industry.
Well, there goes the gaming industry.
Would this also apply to products like Uber? I use it all the time, and can't imagine life without it. Am I addicted to it? Is it an unethical company because people love to use it and it provides value to their lives?
Uber doesn't have a monopoly in ride-sharing, and Twitter doesn't have a monopoly in microblogging.
Would you say you have an addiction to Uber?
Social gaming (someone mentioned below) does, to a point, and then it's engineered to go way, way beyond that point.
It's complicated of course - and there's a spectrum - but I think a bad sign is if your architecture is intended to hack the reward systems of your customers.
I think you mean the micro-transaction social gaming industry.
If you re-read what you quoted (emphasis mine):
"By the way, if significant portions of your userbase are capable of becoming addicted to your product, consider that it may not be fully ethical to produce it."