This is referred to as a “social trap”, “social dilemma”, or “multipolar trap”, wherein everyone in a group can have an openly-rewarded incentive to act in a way that’s against the group’s common good.
From the inside, a social trap feels like:
“I know what I’m doing isn’t great. But I do it because everyone else does too, and I don’t want to lose out. Really, we all know the thing we’re doing is kinda crappy, but whoever stops first just loses. After all, it’s not like everyone’s gonna quit at once.”
Psychiatrist-blogger Scott Alexander has compared social traps to the ancient god Moloch, to whom everyone in a civilization sacrifices an infant in the name of social stability.
Reddit is a bit different because (despite Reddit’s best efforts) it was never about your personal account it was a place to read and discuss interesting things. People arent on Reddit (or Lemmy for that matter) to follow /u/someRandomInfluencer. That significantly lowers the barrier to leaving. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram are all more person centric and so leaving them means leaving behind individuals that you want to be following and so makes it significantly harder.
This is referred to as a “social trap”, “social dilemma”, or “multipolar trap”, wherein everyone in a group can have an openly-rewarded incentive to act in a way that’s against the group’s common good.
From the inside, a social trap feels like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_trap
Psychiatrist-blogger Scott Alexander has compared social traps to the ancient god Moloch, to whom everyone in a civilization sacrifices an infant in the name of social stability.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Resolving social traps is a primary problem of social organization — including (e.g.) labor organization, consumer organization (boycotts), and so on.
It’s fucking wild reading this from a lemmy instance full of reddit refugees
Reddit is a bit different because (despite Reddit’s best efforts) it was never about your personal account it was a place to read and discuss interesting things. People arent on Reddit (or Lemmy for that matter) to follow /u/someRandomInfluencer. That significantly lowers the barrier to leaving. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram are all more person centric and so leaving them means leaving behind individuals that you want to be following and so makes it significantly harder.
Oh, you wanna read something wild? I got you.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/