Sugar Water (9/2018)

Dear Software Engineer at Major Social Media Co,

What do you want to experience when you look back on your career? Satisfaction that you used your effort, skill and a tremendous chunk of your life to build something meaningful? If satisfaction is at least part of your 80-year-old-regret-minimization framework, a la Bezos, is FB (et al.) the place to achieve that? In short: is this the best way to deploy yourself?

Unquestionably, FB (et al.) is a unique place to work. It embodies our current socio-techno paradigm better than any company yet formed. And yes, the pay sounds nice. I imagine at some point the skilled dev must wonder to herself: ‘to what end is FB (et al.) growing? Does FB (et al.) actually add value to the billions of lives it weaves through?’ From the outside we hear the meticulously crafted message FB (et al.) promotes as its mission: to connect the world. I’m sure that message is being pumped just as fervently to the rank-and-file employees to make sure there is no meaning-vacuum to be filled by doubts about the purpose of FB (et al.). But what is the utility of this “connection” that FB (et al.) provides? I’m amazed by what FB (et al.) has accomplished. The feat of scaling to billions of users and constructing this monolith is neat…but it’s now been done. The question today is: what are those connections used for, how does the world get better by using FB (et al.)?

There is the “modern yellow pages” argument that everyone can be found on FB (et al.), which is mostly true and has definite-if-moderate value to users. This marginal value seems to be the only clear cut value the service provides at present. Access to loose ties, those friend-of-friends you may need to contact, or ask on dates, or try to find a job through. For close friends/family/coworkers, does FB (et al.) add to the relationship? I’d argue that it doesn’t. It provides birthday reminders which are helpful in “hbd” posts to people you haven’t spoken to since high school.

The consensus value delivery of the ‘connection’ FB (et al.) provides appears to be reading the posts of “friends” and posting semi-private details of your life to the same audience. This functionality, I believe, is the digital equivalent of at best sugar water and at worst salt water to a thirsty man.

The third tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs centers on “acceptance” and “love” needs, which FB (et al.) appears to be satisfying. The fourth tier progresses to “esteem” and “respect” from the group and the self. This superficially also appears to be addressed by posting on one’s feed and collecting “likes” and comments from your network. It’s a natural human desire to be valued and respected by your tribe, and on first glance FB (et al.) offers the digital fulfillment of two levels of Maslow’s framework for human needs.

Trouble comes with the subtle shift that occurs as networks grow and all other users begin to have their own “esteem” needs met through this shared sharing platform. The pressure to curate highlights, to compete against one another for the discretionary “like” of a network increases. Whereas an off-hand post about the quality of your Chipotle burrito bowl may have drummed up some thumbs-ups initially, the numbers one generates after a collective maturation on the platform might not quite satisfy those “esteem” needs quite as well. Other people have upped their posting game and now you need to up yours. So collectively we employ more filters, more staging, more fine-tuning, more selective presentation of Happiness Theater. But so does everyone else in a Red Queening of what began as a simple means of satisfying a natural human need. When everyone else begins optimizing their “content” and you only get to glimpse the external world’s highlight reel while you are inevitably living in a mostly mundane but intermittently low-and-high reality that does not measure up.

So why digital sugar water at best? It does provide some psychological sustenance. If one is starving, any calories are better than none. One’s thirst can be slaked by soda quite well, but if it’s all that is ever drunk, expect a rapid onset of type II diabetes and obesity. Coca-Cola shouldn’t be banned but it should be widely understood to be long-term corrosive to health in large quantities. Kids should not have a hydrant of this nectar blasted into their bellies. A little buzz from sugar and caffeine now and then doesn’t cause a problem…a dietary staple of the stuff is certain to wreck health.

And why salt water in the extreme? Well, the more you drink, the thirstier you get. This isn’t actually providing the psyche what it needs to thrive. It may be wet and cool and feel briefly refreshing on a dry palate, but the psychological solute concentration is so high that FB (et al.) “esteem” will leach the moisture out of one’s soul. Likes are a false economy of esteem. We can craft and frame and edit but we know our representation doesn’t actually represent us…we live both the ups and downs. But we only see the “ups” in our feed. There is the inevitable creep of doubt that our lives are actually less fun and exciting than our peers and we need to perform more diligently in Happiness Theater or risk losing our footing at the 4th level of Maslow’s Hierarchy.

Unfortunately, FB (et al.) won’t ever let users past the 4th layer (and constantly threatens relegation to the depths). It’s a perfect business model for attention capture and monetization through ads. First, meet a deep human need (self/group esteem), then slowly erode that need’s satisfaction. This leads to withdrawing users scrambling to inject more content into the network’s hungry veins. FB (et al.) captures so much value because it keeps users teetering on the edge of the needs pyramid, desperately clinging to that initially experienced easy source of esteem. What a tremendous audience to sell ads to! One can never reach the higher levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy if using FB (et al.). FB (et al.) (unintentionally) perpetually threatens one’s security at the lower levels. Helping people escape this trap is antithetical to its business model.

Jobs famously asked Sculley: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” And while I’m no Jobs, I have the same offer to you, dear Facebooker. I can’t compete monetarily. I can’t offer the perks or facilities or prestige of a techno-kingdom. My offer is materialistically garbage. But I can offer a chance to use your skills and time to change the world for the better.

There are higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy that technology can help people attain, and it can be done without exploiting psychological vulnerabilities to sell ads. We can build tools that fulfill the potential of “connection” that FB (et al.) enables but fritters away. The latent capacity of networks is poetically to help fulfill the latent capacity of users themselves. Together we can create a means of accessing previously unavailable information about ourselves necessary to grow past our current place. The fifth level of Maslow’s hierarchy is self-actualization. It’s making “actual” all the potential we possess but need help activating.

So this is my invitation to you. It’s odd and impractical and almost certainly implying a monumental act of wealth destruction on your part. But if you want to look back on your career, how you spent your work life, and know that you did something explicitly to leave the world a little healthier than when you were born, this is your chance. You can keep selling digital sugar (or salt) water or you can come with me and build Hiark.