Upvotes, downvotes, trending, there's still an algorithm on HackerNews.

Meta is the one being sued currently, obviously they are the biggest one, and have tried even harder to keep users coming back in addictive ways, and likely targeted children more directly.

I'd say HackerNews also has better moderation where they actively will remove ragebait, where Meta services often encourages it.

I see your general point though, but I don't think people act like these technologies wouldn't be addictive separate from some corporate endorser. A homemade cigarette is still an addictive cigarette, but that doesn't stop you from suing and regulating tobacco companies.

The other question you might raise is, what alternative isn't addictive? I think many have said that feeds should simply be chronological, same for comments. Instead of upvote/downvote, there should be reviews (score how much you liked the video/article), and users could sort by review score as well. You shouldn't be allowed to push content that users didn't explicitly subscribed too (ads should be ads on the side, not promoted content injected into your feed for example). And so on. Is it too restrictive, maybe, I think it's an interesting debate to have though, like what do we lose/gain making it less addictive, and what is actually less addictive?