You're not wrong. Lots of companies do such optimizations. And some of them are creating virtually identical problems for parents and children.

But one way to tell they're going too far is when they explicitly call out these actions on investor calls, on official blog posts, ex-employees speaking out...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/facebook-documents...

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28051930

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-addictive-as-cigarette...