When arcade machines needed to cycle players to keep the the quarters flowing, it created a aesthetic in game design that took a decade or more to shake when we

When arcade machines needed to cycle players to keep the the quarters flowing, it created a aesthetic in game design that took a decade or more to shake when we switched to an economic model that rewarded keeping players on the site; in that earlier era, even things that didn't benefit from kicking users off did so, because...well, that's just the way you did things. Now that the dominant economic model is driven by attention and engagement, even systems that don't benefit from it in the slightest are nonetheless infected by that aesthetic. I keep expecting to see a toaster that asks me to "like and subscribe" or a toilet that has pop-up notifications.