Thomas

Pretty much every marketing tactic is built around treating people as a means to some end (making money). In fact, Kant struggled much of his life with the ethical implications of capitalism and wealth inequality. He believed that it was impossible for anyone to amass a fortune without some degree of manipulation or coercion along the way.

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Digital platforms are largely devoted to making users consume more, faster—think of TikTok’s frenetic “For You” feed or Spotify’s automated playlists. Curators slow down the unending scroll and provide their followers with a way of savoring culture, rather than just inhaling it, developing a sense of appreciation.

In a speech delivered years ago, Ev Williams used agriculture as a metaphor to understand what’s possible on the Internet.

Agriculture was a tremendous invention – it got people fed and freed them to do many things. But agriculture – taken to the extreme in the pursuit of profit leads to a sick and obese population and industrialized farms with... See more

Theoretically, a social media feed should heighten awareness and memory, and dilate time, because it selects for content that’s exciting, outrageous, and scary. And yet we seldom remember such content. The reason for this discrepancy is simple: when every post is alarming, your brain quickly becomes desensitised, and starts to interpret alarming... See more

Social media is designed to cycle through content rather than encouraging people to sit with it, to understand it at a deeper level. New content is the fuel on which these platforms run.