I don't think it's necessarily just the algorithmic feeds that are addictive. Even in a social media that was completely straight forward 'friend to friend' networking, you'd still have FOMO, the curiousity about what that latest ding/notification says, and much more. And I think these things are inherently addictive.

BBS' are probably a good example of this for those who around during that era. They were basic dial-up services with some basic social features, and they were extremely addictive even though it was limited to nothing but a handful of people in your geographic region, and long before 'the algorithm' was even a thought.

While there are still the small sites, they really are lost in the noise. The bigger players would probably prefer it that way, it prevent competition from getting a foot hold.

It is like trying to take on Coke/Pepsi with a new cola drink, good luck! They will do anything that can get away with so long as it keeps them on top.

> So it's difficult to find these smaller forums and get involved with them.

Because the effort put in searching is so high that I am tired before involment.

As you say, amount of noise is too large.

I've been thinking about this for a while. I'm a new contributor, long time reader on hn. I also have an old reddit account. I have always thought hn as higher quality than reddit, but lately I'm becoming a victim of my own irritation. I can't help but click and read comments that grate me and I'm finding more an more here.

I don't want to make this into the very thing I'm trying to avoid, so my direct question is, if my interest is in building quality software with AI (in the current form, that is LLMs), where should I go to interact with like minded, friendly people? I've literally avoided reddit like the plague for the last couple of years, but perhaps I should return to certain subs there?

I'd just like to avoid a certain style of comment, remove the noise so to speak, and just trade helpful advice and opinions from people with similar goals. I can't do that here on hn, because it isn't that sort of forum. 99.9% of ask hn posts are going to get no traction.

> is not the addictive algorithmic feeds.

The Internet has been addictive since forever. Algorithmic feeds take the blame recently because simple explanation makes brain feel good, but they are at most a catalyst. We used to hog the phone lines until someone yelled that they needed to talk to someone "IRL", we installed additional phone lines, we endured 64k (32 was before my time) just so we could get one more hit of "you got mail" or post on that forum, or moderate that community, or chat with that person. It's world-wide, "free" and instantaneous communication with anyone and from anywhere. Of course it's addictive!

Addiction is really boring and makes you really boring. That’s part of why it’s so terrible.

When William Burroughs was on heroin he would spend 6 hours or so a day just staring at his shoe.

Exactly the example I was going to use. People do not get addicted to things because those things are too enjoyable. Watching people who are addicted to slots is just depressing, they just sit there gloomily depositing every single penny they have - until they have nothing. They just have a compulsion to engage with the slots. Engage, engagement, the exact thing big tech has been trying to optimize for since day 1. It's always just been a euphemism for addiction, and they succeeded.

People report spending obscene amounts of time on social media while also saying that social media makes them feel worse. So captain obvious says why not just quit? Well that's because they're addicted to it. This is probably also why you see overwhelming support for age restrictions of social media, even amongst demographics that would otherwise be quite reluctant to give the government yet more power - people don't want their children to end up being another one of these stats.

If you’re not a math major I can translate:

“if A is a subset of X and p is in X, that does not imply that p is in A”