I've been thinking about why the internet feels so exhausting lately.
It's not the content. It's the architecture.
Every major platform you use today was, at some point, actually good. Twitter was chaotic and alive. Facebook connected you to people you actually knew. YouTube surfaced things you actually wanted to watch. Reddit felt like stumbling into a community that got you.
Then, slowly, invisibly — the feed turned on you.
The algorithm stopped asking "what does this person want to see?" and started asking "what keeps this person scrolling?" Those are not the same question. One is service. The other is extraction.
Top comments (1)
The shift from serving the user to extracting engagement is a crucial point, and I think it's rooted in the fact that many platforms rely on advertising revenue, which creates a perverse incentive to prioritize click-through rates over user experience. The author's observation that the algorithm's question changed from "what does this person want to see?" to "what keeps this person scrolling?" highlights the tension between these two goals. I've seen this play out in my own work, where A/B testing and metrics-driven design can sometimes lead to decisions that compromise the user's interests. Do you think it's possible for platforms to balance their business needs with a more user-centric approach, or are these goals fundamentally at odds?