Turn the crank of social media / search (SM/S) and you get highly profitable Digital Addiction and social destabilization leading to disorder and breakdown. The extremely profitable inner workings of digital addiction are complex, but the business model is simple: collect user data and sell it to advertisers. The more users you addict, oops I mean attract, and the more time they spend on your platform, the more money you make. The raison d’etre of social media / search (SM/S) is to collect user data to sell to the highest bidder. To maximize profits, the SM/S platforms stimulate users to post more content and spend more time “engaging” (i.e. creating user data) on their platform. There are three mechanisms to accomplish this goal: The share earned by the few who attract an audience of millions is substantial, but the modest revenues shared with users posting content follows a power law distribution: a handful make millions, a few make $100,000 or more annually, a small circle make a middle class living ($60,000 annually), and the vast “long tail” earn a pittance at best. Your song received hundreds of thousands of downloads? Thank you for the content and engagement. Here is your […]