[A_Duck]

Why is the iPad so addictive that children have to be kept away from it?

Because every single person designing apps and websites is incentivised to try and win 100% of your attention. Reed Hoffmann put it nicely — "We're competing with sleep, on the margin."

The default apps, browser excluded, are pretty harmless - their incentive is to create a device you decide to welcome into your home. I don't see children spending 4 hours doomscrolling the calculator.

The challenge is to think of another model for creating apps and content — one that retains most of the innovation without the harm

[Kvakes]

Absolutely, 100%. Not all tech is the same. A chair is a form of technology, but it doesn't try to make you sit all the time. Although some technologies (like books) are replaced with e-readers through which we handle over a certain degree of freedom to whomever the platform we use belongs to.

[A_Duck]

The challenge is the system of incentives around the technology

If chair designers were paid based on the number of hours you sat in the chair, I expect we'd see some very different chairs. Probably not better ones for anyone whose life ambitions involve getting up out of a chair.

[_Algernon_]

>The challenge is the system of incentives around the technology

The solution is simple: Outlaw advertising. It should have been done decades ago, considering the negative externalities it puts on society (in terms of visual pollution, and harmful incentives it creates).

There is no real reason for it existing. The original argument was that it provides customers with information based on which to make purchasing decisions. It hasn't done this since at least Edward Bernays'[1] time. And there is no argument to be made that customers with internet existing lack information based on which to make purchasing decisions.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

[i80and]

I'm deeply jealous of the few US states that have banned billboard advertising -- it really feels like pervasive advertising is outright caustic to my brain.

[TheSoftwareGuy]

On the other hand, I can imagine that banning that banning one form of advertising drives those would-be advertisers to other mediums, such as the ones that drive addictive apps and such. This would in turn increase the revenue of those apps, and make that business model more attractive, compared to e.g. apps that are a one-time purchase

[theoreticalmal]

> There is no real reason for it existing

Except the fundamental human right to be able to say what you want, when you want, how you want, even (especially?) for commercial purposes.

[blacksmith_tb]

That seems like it requires a notion of corporate personhood? I don't mind some neighborhood pizza place boasting in their front window that they're the best in town (even though that's unlikely). But targeted ads across devices don't strike me as the free expression of a person.

[jodrellblank]

There is no fundamental human right to walk down the street at 2am with a megaphone and scream "BUY MY USED CARS" into people's open bedroom windows while they're asleep. That counters "where you want, how you want, when you want". "Especially" for commercial purposes is even more objectionable - as if anyone should get more rights if they are trying to extract money from people than if they aren't?

[ben_w]

Gratis vs libre.

I don't mind freely given personal recommendations for products, paid recommendations are suspect.

[lm28469]

> fundamental human right

Meh, someone wrote them, we can change them, they're not universal, even in the US true free speech doesn't exist. libel ? slander ? incitement ? defamation ? &c. you can't even swear on tv...

And even if... what does it mean ? Should I invent a 400dB personal loudspeaker for people to express themselves 24/7 because they have "the right to say whatever they want however they want, whenever they want" ?

That's a schoolyard level take on what freedom of expression is...

[Kvakes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXMhwF4EtQ

[yapyap]

a chair is a form of technology?

[TheSoftwareGuy]

Technology: Noun

1. The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives.

[wil421]

YouTube kids was banned quickly in my house. My kids can select a movie and sometimes a kids show. They can also play this playground app, 2 iPads can connect and they can play together.

They also don’t have free rein over iPads and maybe they get access to once a week in the car or something. They are 6 and under so I’ll probably tweak rules as needed.

[reaanb2]

If you don't pay for the product, you are the product.

[the_snooze]

A very outdated saying. Cars and IoT are very much things people pay for, but tech enables companies to double-dip and turn them into billboards for the highest ad bidder.

[Miraltar]

> The default apps, browser excluded, are pretty harmless - their incentive is to create a device you decide to welcome into your home. I don't see children spending 4 hours doomscrolling the calculator.

At least Facebook and Youtube are default apps nowadays

[freeone3000]

Not on Apple devices.

[dartos]

> The challenge is to think of another model for creating apps and content

The original content model was sustainable for centuries.

Customer pays per viewing, and experiences entertainment for an hour or so.

Then another model emerged after the printing press and record player.

Customer pays once and experiences the same thing as many times as they want.

Now we have a model where a customer pays constantly for no specific entertainment in particular and has no control over when they lose access to some entertainment.

Maybe we just go back to people paying for just what they want…

The issue is the addiction to growth and VC money tech has. We can’t have simple transactions in tech. It needs to be recurring or predatory.

[FollowingTheDao]

> The challenge is to think of another model for creating apps and content — one that retains most of the innovation without the harm

This is impossible! You missed the whole point of the article! Like sugar is addictive because it is extracted from the fruit that carries all the nutrients, the apps are addictive because they are extracted from the challenge of imagination and boredom.

The last line of that essay: "You don’t win by keeping up. You win by stepping out."

[A_Duck]

I disagree with the conclusion of the article

An invention comes as the solution to a problem. The qualities of the solution depend on the parameters of the problem.

Many/most technologies have not scaled to the point where their negative externalities outgrow their benefits: GPS, Cordless power tools, OLED TVs, Contactless payments. Of course all have some negatives.

We're learning that if the problem is 'make as much ad revenue as possible for the inventor', the solution is going scale harmfully

[FollowingTheDao]

> An invention comes as the solution to a problem.

What is the problem that the invention of email solved? And what problems did the invention of email create?

Inventions do not solve problems. An invention is a mental fabrication, nothing more.

[freeone3000]

It solved piles of papers and faxes for inter-office memoranda. It solved a 2-week delay for communications with customers (everything from “your order has been placed” to “you still owe us money” to “here’s our christmas catalog”). Email solved the problem of the physical post being (comparatively) expensive and slow.

[FollowingTheDao]

All of thosethings were not problems at the time, they’re only problems in retrospect.

[keybored]

You read what you wanted from the article. Think about what the article is saying. A technologist saying that the technology that they ostensibly co-created is so toxic that it has to be opted out of, the whole game and all. That is rank shirking of responsibility, a self-centered and anti-social non-remedy.