Open Letter (Regain Magazine)

October 2023

The following is from an open letter we wrote for Regain Magazine in late 2023. It was translated to French for print.

Countless times the internet has been a place for us to experience the joy of shared knowledge; from niche forum nerdiness, oddly specific how-to videos, open sourced projects and for the love-of-it websites that serve as encyclopedias. Resources shared for free, no strings attached.

So many platforms today promise to connect us, for free, to the content we enjoy. They have become the gate keepers of the internet, and there are almost always strings attached.

"Surveillance Capitalism" & "The Attention Economy" are two terms that have become ubiquitous. The former describes the egregious collection and commodification of our personal data by corporations so we get served more "personalized" advertisements. The latter describes the predatory practices that come with the commodification of a user's attention to be sold to advertisers. More targeted ads, shown to us when we are most vulnerable, for as long as possible.

Have you ever felt like your smartphone was listening to your conversations? This is how well the triangulation of data collection is across many corporations to achieve such a precise "personalized" ad. Your location, demographics, who you follow, your friends, email content, search history, viewing habits, and what you are buying. Every click, scroll, or "like" is fair game. You mean you didn't read all the pages of terms and conditions?

"Stickiness" is one of the most important metrics for new software apps. How much time does a user spend with it every day? The more sticky your app is, the better chance you'll get funding. Users will accept the data collection and ads being shown. There are so many tactics that are used to achieve optimal stickiness, and a lot of them mimic the techniques casinos use with slot machines. The goal of these platforms is not to show you the most curated content that will fulfill you meaningfully, but rather the perfect combination of content that will keep you scrolling, checking and re-checking again and again. This is the basis of the attention economy. Your time is their money.

This leads to an internet experience that kind of sucks, inherently, because of this pervasive business model. Experiences that are not designed to align with our quality of life because we are not the customer. We are the product being sold as data and qualified recipients of targeted ads. As a designer I find advertising detrimental to user experience, especially when it comes to reading. It baffles me how many websites are littered with over-the-top advertising.

The medium also changes the message. The quality of the content suffers in trying to compete in this new medium of delivery. News publications resort to click bait headlines because that is what the algorithm prefers. Our feeds are less and less our friends & family, and more often "influencers" and short form branded content.

I've only really been talking about the impact on us as individuals. There are, of course, large scale social & political implications of echo chambers and such a controlled narrative that has an agenda. These platforms are shaping our perceived realities. Not to mention the environmental impact of billions of smartphones users getting a new phone every year.

What now? Well, like many problems, we must start with ourselves on an individual level by being intentional and conscious of our relationships with technology. We can change our habits. We can create or support tech companies that don't share these insidious business models, and instead charge for the value they offer - no strings attached.