The Quiet Tyranny of Metrics
When a platform optimizes for engagement rather than experience, it inevitably erodes the very value that attracted users in the first place. Every interface decision becomes a negotiation between what serves the user and what serves the system.
This is not merely about aesthetics or convenience—it's about control. Each removed feature, each enlarged element, each reset preference is a small power transferred from user to platform. The system gradually replaces choice with compulsion, transforming tools into traps.
What begins as optimization for growth inevitably becomes optimization for extraction. Metrics improve while satisfaction declines. Revenue rises as utility falls. The platform celebrates success by its own measurements while users experience mounting frustration.
The most troubling aspect is how invisible this process remains to those who implement it. Engineers and designers, guided by data that measures what is easy to measure rather than what truly matters, convince themselves they are improving the system while systematically dismantling its core value.
In this environment, we are not customers being served, but resources being mined—our attention harvested, our agency diminished, our experience subordinated to the algorithm's hunger for engagement.
The most profound loss is not the space on our screens, but the space in our lives we once controlled.