I vaguely remember the author is a Nobel Price in Economics so he is supposed to be a intellectual, very wise man paid to warn us of incoming problems and opportunities.
Beyond the clickbait title I am not gonna judge is analysis (he is probably right) but ask the question:
Where were those people 20 years ago? before Meta became a 1.68 trillion business and others became some of the largest companies by marketcap?
Because any room temperature IQ person already figured out a long time ago social media were addictive. No need for a Nobel price. Ironically this is why people get their information from anybody on social media, precisely because they figured out they are not getting any real insight from Paul Krugeman.
There were indeed early warning signs that Facebook was shady.
I remember being delighted with FB initially. It was a wonderful way to keep in touch with extended family and wayward friends.
But then I discovered how difficult it was to control my 'timeline/newsfeed' or whatever they called it. There was a small menu attached that allowed you to Sort By Latest or some such... but it wasn't sticky, and so you always had to select it, and it eventually disappeared completely and... you saw what they wanted you to see.
Originally FB would send you an email whenever someone sent you a message on Messenger, and the email contained the contents of the message, so you didn't even need to login to FB, and I enjoyed having that... But that too didn't last long. When they turned that feature off I realized they were all about themselves and their goal of user engagement, and the value-added (for me) dropped to zero.
Sometime after '15 I disengaged. I left the account alive but haven't been on but thrice in 10 years.
I campaigned for a while, within my family and circle of friends, trying to get them to rally around an alternative (I started by offering Slack, feebly) but I was unconvincing and unsuccessful.
I remember the horror of Thanksgiving 2016, as I stood in the living room of my niece's apartment, and pondered the array of five family members before me. Easy chair, couch x 3, easy chair... each of them engrossed by their phones. Nobody was talking, everybody was comfortable, there but also somewhere else.
The same people have been saying for ages that this stuff needs to be regulated. But all governments are wary of interfering too much in the market. Legislation takes time, due not in small part to the efforts of private businesses lobbying against regulation. Look how long it took for governments to start labelling cigarettes as being harmful to ones health, restricting advertising etc.
As always, it takes bold leadership to bring about change, and it is not always available.
My understanding is Meta didn't weaponize algos until they started going after acquisitions and saw what other companies were doing. Then just like they were paranoid if they didn't buy new companies they would loses relevance, they became paranoid if they didn't incorporate much more excessive manipulation they would lose relevance?
I got the impression they were pretty freaked out by some of the stuff they saw going on initially. I can't believe they got on board with it to the extent they did.
Beyond the clickbait title I am not gonna judge is analysis (he is probably right) but ask the question:
Where were those people 20 years ago? before Meta became a 1.68 trillion business and others became some of the largest companies by marketcap?
Because any room temperature IQ person already figured out a long time ago social media were addictive. No need for a Nobel price. Ironically this is why people get their information from anybody on social media, precisely because they figured out they are not getting any real insight from Paul Krugeman.