The Real Reason Your Tech Makes You Unhappy

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🖖 Hey! I'm Enrico and on this channel I go behind the scenes of the design, psychology and stories behind tech and making stuff on the internet. I'm a tech Product Manager, builder of things made of pixels.

A dive into how digital products are mare and how did we come to a world where engagement is the only thing is seems we can aspire to. Well, there a reason for it. And in the end, you'll find out that not all apps and tech products are evil, and there is something we can do about it. This is a very complex topic and this video is a simplification and there's so much more that goes on behind product strategy, measuring success, objectives and ethics. This is not a product strategy course, but I made this to help people understand what is actually going on when teams and companies are building products through my experience as a Product Manager.

[enricotartarotti]

Learn how I ACTUALLY made my most successful videos with hands-on, practical behind the scenes breakdowns:

[zivzulander]

This is the best video I've seen on the subject of engagement and monetization of apps/services. The issue often (ironically) gets sensationalized for the purpose of gaining attention and views, and rarely does anyone propose a viable solution like you have.

Most dangers and evils are subtle and arise even in the midst of good intentions. Thank you for explaining this in an understandable but also accurate way.

[globalwojtek]

the ending of the video is like calling a slave out for criticizing their oppressor while being kept alive by them...

[peterm.]

I'm torn in between thanking you for this brilliant analysis (means: do exactly what YouTube wants me to do) and putting aside my phone and enjoy a beautiful afternoon in my garden 🙃

[rGunti]

This is the part where I apprechiate a lot of the open source apps I use. Or actually, which I don't use. Because they are not addictive, because they don't have "an evil algorithm" to boost engagement and keep you online for forever. They just want to provide a service to you, a tool for your everyday life or even just for an occasion. And they usually keep tracking to the absolute minimum, because they don't need to and because they don't want to, which makes for a good app as well (by not wasting CPU cycles on figuring out if you keep a screen open for 1000 hours or if your mouse hovers over this particular button)
I know that this is not a business model that will ever work. But one can dream.

[smartideas-pedro]

This was the most engaging video against engagement that I've ever watched.

[breadman]

What if someone tackled the issue from the other side? If "engagement" and time viewing ads is the metric, what if someone made that metric worthless? I think the rise of bots that are indistinguishable from actual humans will break all metrics related to views, watch time, ect.
They'll become meaningless because a million bots being shown a million hours of ads will then generate 0 dollars. I'm looking forward to that day.

[JensenPalmer]

And I think the purpose of the video and technology in general is that it's not inherently a bad thing to use the products put out or to find value in them or use them like the tools they were original designed to be, but the whole addiction part. Back when the internet was new to the public space, people used it like any tool, got the value they came to it for, and then set it down and did something else. It is like if you are working on a project and you need a hammer. You get the hammer, you use the hammer, you put the hammer away, and then go do something else. Later that day, you use the hammer again because you used it for its intended purpose, finished and went on to the next thing. The problem lies in that many people use the hammer and many companies are now designing the hammer to be held simply to be held and smacked around even when you don't even really need the hammer. You just carry the hammer around, staring at it, hitting random objects for the sake of hitting an object (engagement) instead of hitting the nail and putting the hammer away again to be used again when it is needed.

[alessTheDev]

You should research also about the game industry problem, everyone expects amazing graphics, game companies failing, dlcs that are like 70 dollars, multiplayer games with battlepasses, rushing the game to meet the deadline, it's interesting to see the difference between the company prespective and the gamers prespective. And how the game industry is somehoew "failing" because games take time and money to make and if they fail the company may also fail with them

[Scribbles]

This is a good idea, but I doubt it will ever happen under our current economic model. As a former Product Manager, it's a very rare company that says, yes, let's build for happiness over profits. It's not happening, not in a world with pressure from shareholders. It's the optimization for greed that leads to the "more engagement" model and other things that drain our precious life force and ruin society. If we want real change, we're going to have to change the system. No way around it that I can see.

[dylswerb]

I am always either 80085 happy or 42069 happy

[DanteVelasquez]

We need more people like you with intelligence and vision.

[mrunphotography]

It's hillarious that in some of your videos I'm learning to quit social media addiction, but also, I'm getting addicted to your videos😂😂

[IlDogeIslamico]

"... and in the meantime, here's another video you might enjoy."




MORE ENGAGEMENT!_!

[davidcummins]

Very true. I despair for my son sometimes, it is so hard finding games for him to play which just work out of the box, which aren't ads every 30 seconds or trying to sell microtransactions. So many apps I'd happily pay $5 to rip all that evil out of, but they just don't make it an option.

[carylittleford]

I have a rabbit r1 and after all the updates its easily one of the most delightful devices I've used. I work with disabled folks and the elderly and it brings more smiles and delight that I could have imagined.

[lukevincent]

We often measure what we can instead of what we should. Value is much harder to measure than engagement.Its the eternal problem of tendency to focus on short term and tangible.

[yumeyuki]

my guess: it won't sell, not stimulating enough, that's not what we subconsciously want

[zit]

Lengthening engagement while destroying attention span is both cruel and unsustainable.

It’s a bubble that will burst in the future.

[HelloAlvi]

bro you are a real underrated person and your videos are awesome