You feel it. That creeping disgust as you scroll through your feed, watching a screaming match between strangers, followed immediately by an ad for a product you don’t need, followed by a video designed to make your blood boil. You hate it. You keep scrolling.
We’ve all been there. We blame the algorithms. We blame the tech billionaires and the nameless engineers optimizing our feeds for maximum extraction. But what if the algorithms aren’t broken? What if this predatory cesspit isn’t an accident, but the inevitable result of stripping away human guardrails and monetizing the wreckage?
The internet didn’t break human nature. It just stripped away the consequences of having it.
Look at the streets of any major city right now. The social contract has frayed. Now take that frayed contract, remove the threat of physical confrontation, remove the shame of looking someone in the eye, and hand everyone a megaphone. That’s the internet. The guardrails haven’t just fallen away; they’ve been paved over to make a smoother road to your attention.
Most people frame internet users as victims of predatory platforms. This is a comforting lie. Every user is also the bait and the predator in the exact same attention loop. You aren’t just being manipulated by a hidden hand; you are actively participating in the degradation. You click the rage-bait. You share the outrage. You feed the beast, and the beast feeds you back.
We built a machine that feeds on rage and arousal, and then we complained that everyone is angry and distracted.
It all comes down to how the machine is funded. Monetization ruins everything it touches. It ruins board games when you start playing for money instead of fun. It ruins the internet when the goal stops being connection and starts being the fastest possible route to your nervous system. There are only two ways to trigger a human instantly: make them furious, or make them aroused. Everything you see is optimized for one of those two buttons.
It’s a billion hungry, discorporate souls roaming a vast non-space, looking to feed their hunger by eating each other. And the platform takes a cut of every transaction.
You aren’t the customer. You aren’t even the product. You are the bait, the predator, and the digesting meal—all at once.
The real fix isn’t more moderation. You can’t moderate human nature. Slapping a warning label on a tweet doesn’t stop the machinery from rewarding the worst of us. The fix is breaking the monetization pattern that rewards triggering people. Until we stop paying for the privilege of being enraged and aroused, the trap stays sprung.
You feel disgusted. The system knows it. And it’s counting on you to keep scrolling anyway. Now close the tab.
FAQ
Q: Isn't it the tech companies' fault for building these predatory algorithms?
A: They built the casino, but you're the one pulling the slot machine lever. Blaming the algorithm is a convenient way to avoid accountability for our own bottomless appetite for outrage and stimulation.
Q: What's the practical implication of this perspective?
A: Stop expecting moderation to fix the internet. The only real solution is aggressively decoupling attention from ad revenue—whether through paid models or strict regulation—so the system stops financially rewarding the triggering of your nervous system.
Q: If we all know it's a trap, why do we keep scrolling?
A: Because self-awareness isn't a defense against a hijacked nervous system. The system knows exactly how much discomfort you can tolerate before you click away, and it keeps you right at that edge.