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But that's exactly the issue. You need to hijack those dopamine pathways to get adoption. That's what adoption means - somebody found an activity appealing en

But that's exactly the issue. You need to hijack those dopamine pathways to get adoption. That's what adoption means - somebody found an activity appealing enough that they alter their behavior and give you some attention. If your product doesn't generate enough of an emotion to get people to alter their behavior, you won't get adoption. That's why other successful products like Twitter, crypto, vaping, clickbait, greenwashing, political rage-bait, gaming, gambling, arguing on the Internet, pyramid schemes, etc. have been successful too. The one thing they all have in common is they hijack your dopamine pathways. Lots of other things like exercising, eating your vegetables, saving a small portion of your paycheck each month, becoming a homeowner, maintaining your home, investing in your relationships are all good for us, but people don't do them because they don't give us enough of a high to be worth doing daily. You're metaphorically saying "If you build a product that helps people eat their vitamins, they will come." Spoiler alert: they won't.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> You need to hijack those dopamine pathways to get adoption. That is absolutely untrue, and in fact has it backwards. Lots of tech products (even social media) got tons of adoption by appealing to a smaller set of users and fulfilling their needs extremely well. It's only when products, pushed by the demands of "infinite growth", decide the drug dealer path is the only way to go, that we're all just lobotomized versions of ourselves with "one working thumb" (seriously, this HN discussion of the tyranny of the marginal user is one of my all time faves, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37509507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37509507) And my argument isn't that, as you seem to say, that checking in with your friends is somehow equivalent to eating your spinach. I'm just arguing that apps only need to go down this "lowest common denominator" version of ourselves when they're not satisfied being great products for a lot of people - all that matters to them is more people than last year, which requires an enshittification of the app eventually.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

> You need to hijack those dopamine pathways to get adoption. That is absolutely untrue, and in fact has it backwards. Lots of tech products (even social media) got tons of adoption by appealing to a smaller set of users and fulfilling their needs extremely well. It's only when products, pushed by the demands of "infinite growth", decide the drug dealer path is the only way to go, that we're all just lobotomized versions of ourselves with "one working thumb" (seriously, this HN discussion of the tyranny of the marginal user is one of my all time faves, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37509507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37509507) And my argument isn't that, as you seem to say, that checking in with your friends is somehow equivalent to eating your spinach. I'm just arguing that apps only need to go down this "lowest common denominator" version of ourselves when they're not satisfied being great products for a lot of people - all that matters to them is more people than last year, which requires an enshittification of the app eventually.