> How do you know what people want? Because someone in charge told you so? No, I say this as an interpretation of people behaviors and assuming some degree of

> How do you know what people want? Because someone in charge told you so? No, I say this as an interpretation of people behaviors and assuming some degree of free agency. Users aren't coerced to use Instagram, so it likely means they use it because they want to. > Last time I condicted a poll, not a single person said their preferred content is misinformation and clickbait. I'm sure. There is a big difference between preferences as expressed in polls and actual preferences observed in fact. People say they consume educational content way more than they actually do. Neither kind of preference is the absolute truth, they're both valid. Should companies optimize for opinion polling outcomes instead? Is it really progress if people have a high opinion of a service but few people use it, and another exploitative service steps in to sweep users away? What about regular old media doing rage-baiting of their own? Isn't Fox News or NYT also behaving the same way to some extent? I'm not sure people would answer a poll saying the reason they watch the news is that they're looking to be upset and outraged, but that's a lot of the apparent audience strategy. IMO this is just natural capitalistic response to incentives and the systemic "fix" would be to regulate the media sector so that it be forced to stop feeding people's worst impulses. The only problem is that by American standards this would amount to censorship - the notion that "someone knows better" what is good for me. One's clickbait filtering strategy always ends up being someone else's muzzled speech, so it's easy for the cure to have unwanted side effects. It's a tough nut to crack especially in the US given the cultural and legal bent towards maximalist free speech.