> Isn’t that… pretty much exactly what my friends from the cafe did? How do you draw the line between “sensibly taking into account how real people react” and “

> Isn’t that… pretty much exactly what my friends from the cafe did? How do you draw the line between “sensibly taking into account how real people react” and “manipulative dark patterns to literally get people to join your cult”? Perhaps there is no clear boundary. I find the final questions interesting... bc for me, it is obvious that there is no clear-cut line, just degrees on a continuum which is healthy on one side and toxic at the other extreme. Human attention is the ultimate currency - we literally spend all of our conscious time allocating it to different uses at a constant rate, and anything that we do to catch the attention of others is asking them to divert part of that use towards ourselves for a benefit. For me, it is a moral duty to make sure that any such interaction is geared towards producing a win-win situation. This is why I consider intrusive advertising to be morally abhorrent - not just for being annoying, but because it is taking away our most valuable resource from us, without even asking for permission. Advertising should be confined to appear on limited, pre-agreed channels where you don't mind finding the occasional relevant ad. In the near future I expect that personal attention managers will supplant the dreadful Skinner boxes that social networks have been built on, and instead provide applications that serve our interests - not those from an outsider. Now I have this little private group to discuss this kind of things, wouldn't you be interested in joining? ;-)