[mkr-hn]

Twitter "optimizes for engagement" too. The effect is it burns me out and I crash off it for weeks at a time, and the only way to stop the cycle is to use a plugin to kill the engagement by removing visible metrics and the algorithmic timeline. This, of course, makes the site incredibly boring because nobody's talking on tweets that don't slide into the engagement machine since they aren't as engaging even if they would make a good start for a deeper, worthwhile comment in a place like this.

This is also why I use old.reddit. The new design has the same effect as Twitter's optimizing for engagement. Reddit is headed down the same path where all the interesting long-tail communities and big well-moderated spaces will vanish, and all that will be left is clickbait. It's only objectively better if your objective is to juice people for ad views.

I wish sites would stop optimizing for an endless loop of quick, semi-random dopamine hits (Skinner box) and optimize for long-term mutual value. HN's community is annoying on an average day, but I come back because there's an occasional solid thread that nobody had to growth hack into existence.