User Migration and the Exit Problem
Explains why users rarely leave harmful platforms even when alternatives exist, and what interoperability and federation could change.
Topic
design
11 articles explore this thread.
Articles in this topic
Tobacco, Seatbelts, and Food Safety: How Societies Learn to Regulate Design
Surveys public-health precedents to argue that attention-extraction platforms can be treated as design problems, not only user-responsibility problems.
The Reel Nation: Short-Form Video and the Economics of a Swipe
Examines the design mechanics and usage scale of short-form video in India, separating documented harms from hype and tracing the opportunity cost.
The Family's Garden: Attention Contracts at Home
Offers household-level strategies for managing screens: device-free meals, modeling, shared creative time, and age-appropriate boundaries.
The Design of Extraction: Variable Rewards, Notifications, and Dark Patterns
Catalogues the interaction-design patterns that keep users in feeds longer than intended, and why each one is a choice, not an inevitable feature of digital life.
Public Space and Private Screens: The Commute Is Not Empty
Uses observational and survey evidence to describe how phones and headphones reshape public space in India, and what incidental conversation, learning, and solidarity are displaced.
Product and Platform Ideas That Could Shift Attention Incentives
Surveys product and platform alternatives that could shift attention incentives from extraction to substance, evaluates build-new versus change-existing strategies, and proposes five differentiated product concepts with rationale and risks.
Open Questions the Series Leaves Unresolved
Honest uncertainty about the attention economy—causality, culture, regulation, and the choices that will shape India's next decade.
Friction, Chronological Feeds, and User-Chosen Algorithms
Surveys evidence on design interventions that reduce extraction: chronological feeds, friction before sharing, and user control over ranking algorithms.
Alternative Metrics: Time Well Spent, Sustainability, Learning, Civic Value
Surveys proposed alternatives to engagement-based metrics and their tradeoffs: time well spent, learning outcomes, civic value, and sustainability.
Age-Appropriate Design and Protecting Vulnerable Users
Argues for age-appropriate design defaults, friction, and verification to protect children, elderly users, and others who are especially vulnerable to extraction.