I credit EverCrack with curing me of my illusions about social computing in the era of predatory capitalism. Around 1999 I was working for one the then majors s

I credit EverCrack with curing me of my illusions about social computing in the era of predatory capitalism. Around 1999 I was working for one the then majors studying (and dreaming of) Snow Crash like massively multi-player environments and all the cool things that could happen in them. I happened to take up EQ and it slowly began to consume more and more of my free time. I loved the fact that there were things like a travel guide that some fan had put together that filled in the back story of the various locations in a way that made you feel like you were somewhere real. Over time, however, I started getting less out of the game and started getting more hooked. EQ tracked how many hours you are spending in world and there was a menu somewhere (unobvious) that would show you your accumulated total. I looked at it one day and realized that over the previous 6 or 9 months I had spent the equivalent of many weeks in world. WTF I thought, even reading crappy novels or watching silly movies gives you some insight into human behavior, while this experience was leaving me with nothing but cranky hands. And that's when I realized that the inherent asymmetry between me as an individual and a company bent on producing the most addictive experience possible wasn't going to end well for me or anyone else who wasn't a stockholder or executive. I quit EQ the next day and changed careers in the next couple of months. Of course, massively multiplayer online games weren't really the fully mature form-that was later assumed by Facebook etc. But the dynamic at play, I think, was the same and I'm thankful I was able to learn about it by experimenting with the less virulent form as embodied in EQ.