It absolutely is a "shady way to keep you using the app", in addition to a whole host of other subtle things you wouldn't even notice. My intern project one sum

It absolutely is a "shady way to keep you using the app", in addition to a whole host of other subtle things you wouldn't even notice. My intern project one summer was a (failed, thankfully) experiment with one of the darkest patterns imaginable. Everything is very carefully tuned and measured against relevant stats. If it looks good in some place like Venezuela or Zimbabwe, it gets lined up for general rollout.