[aleph_minus_one]

> too many smart people were building out social networks and similar services trying to maximize ad impressions.

Honest question: where should these very smart people work then in your opinion? Nearly all suitable-looking, "smarter" ideas that come to my mind will bring less revenue/profit in expectation than, for example, letting them maximize ad impressions.

I of course wish we lived in a "more intelligent" world where this is not the case. :-(

[codingdave]

> will bring less revenue/profit

Call me crazy, but the smartest people I know have rejected maximizing their employer's revenue and profit as their goal. Or even their own company if they go that route. Find a niche, work it, enjoy it, and enjoy the rest of your life, too.

[duped]

Probably not on systems that rot democracy, freedom, and human expression. Companies like Google and Meta are net negative for humanity and the people that built these companies and continue to work for them are evil in their apathy towards the human cost of their salary.

[yoyohello13]

If I had one wish, it would be to make 'common good' more incentivizing than 'maximize revenue/profit' but sadly it's not the world we live in.

[lbriner]

The problem with this is people investing their time/expertise/money/energy into the common good and then have a small number of people ruining the benefit for their own ends, knocks the well-meaning out of the most positive people. The common good only works well when everyone wants the common good.

[willturman]

You seem to have independently discovered the market failure commonly know as the Free-rider problem, for which there are many solutions, and which is not a dispositive preemptive argument against the establishment or management of common good(s).

For example, Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize for her work illuminating design principles illustrated by long enduring common pool resource institutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom#%22Design_princi...

[yoyohello13]

Ah, then my second wish will be for everyone to want the common good.

[aleph_minus_one]

> Ah, then my second wish will be for everyone to want the common good.

People have very different, often contradictory opinions what the "common good" is.

I would even claim that this question is a special case of the millennia-old philosophical problem of defining what "good" actually means (i.e. defining ethics), which has resulted in myriads of different opinions:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_ethics

[hightrix]

> where should these very smart people work then in your opinion?

Anywhere else. Ads are a net negative to society and provide no value. ANY activity outside of pushing ads is a better contribution to society as a whole.

[sebastiennight]

So, let's reinvest those resources into surveillance and war?

[wolvesechoes]

I mean, war, in all its cruelty and tragedy, at the same time it brings the worst from people is also able to bring out the best.

Ad business, and business in general, doesn't. It only brings out the worst.

[sebastiennight]

> I mean, war, in all its cruelty and tragedy, at the same time it brings the worst from people is also able to bring out the best.

I can see it from here: out of tens of thousands of people, one man takes a stand to save a handful of children from all the pillage, rape and murder.

In an alternate world, this man might have (gasp) tried to run a business instead. Sure, the children and city would still be alive instead of burning to ashes, but who cares?

Look, there's not much positive to say for the ad-driven Internet, but to consider "pixels on screens that you disagree with" to be worse than actual mass killing is maybe a tad hyperbolic here.

[wolvesechoes]

> but to consider "pixels on screens that you disagree with" to be worse than actual mass killing is maybe a tad hyperbolic here

And who considers this?

I never wrote that world with war but without business would be overall better than world without war but with people profiting from ad business. I merely pointed out that war can bring out the best from people - mercy, valor, honor, sacrifice, selflessness. Business cannot, as it is about commodification and profit.