It’s only what they “want” after the various social media companies to deliberate steps to addict their users to feeds that maximize engagement.

Does an addict really want to be an addict? The Light Phone, screen time features, and various other things exist for a reason. People don’t want this, but feel helpless to break free from their addiction, which entered their life like a trojan horse.

People want slop, they always wanted slop and there is no magical mind controlling powers in a Facebook feed. It was the case in the age of TV, magazines and when nobody had any idea how to even measure what people want.

If Mark Zuckerberg forcibly injected educational material and long form journalism into everyone's feed the average user would uninstall the app. People have been consuming crap since they were able to draw boobs on cave walls with chalk. Do you know why every belief system that claims people are ensnared by some false consciousness fails? Because they aren't, there's no such thing. Mark Zuckerberg is exactly right about one thing, he gave the people what they wanted, and if he's going to lose to a platform like TikTok it's because they're even better at it