You're correct in that it is focused on making the user's brain feel good. I think a more accurate comparison, however, would be casino gambling. The slot machines ding at you and flash lights and make your brain release the dopamine. Facebook has the users on a similar bent via notification graphics and sounds, feeds, and various other things. It's the same idea though, and it is legitimately addictive (I've seen many family members get taken in by it to the point where they get anxiety if they can't constantly check their notifications or whatever).

I have been putting thought into a social platform that would truly be for users and not just a gamification of attention.

- First it would have a cost, either in money to pay someone to develop/run the platform or in time/knowledge to tinker with some open-source solution. That shouldn't be a problem as the target market is the group of people who are making a conscious choice to dodge the ad platform. BUT it does severely reduce the network effect, possibly down to the point of becoming an ultra-specialized niche club.

- Then, there's the point you bring up: you'll essentially be trying to sell steamed broccoli inside of a candy store.

I've also been thinking about something like this modeled something like a mutual fund. I actually don't think people have an issue with the ads as much as they have an issue with the lack of transparency & control over the information that's "leaked" by interacting with the ads. The approach I've been tinkering with is:

- User data is held in a trust with independent trustees (like a mutual fund complex) who oversee and set limits on how the platform company uses the data for advertising.

- Users can "withdrawal" their data at any time.

- Instead of micro-targeting individual users advertisements would be sold to groups (like a mutual fund) based on anonymized data from the users who choose to join that group.

- Users could "invest" in a particular group by joining groups that reflect their interests and creating content/posts in those groups. Daily up votes would represent the creators "share" of the advertising proceeds to that group (like dividends) so good content is rewarded.

- Development/maintenance would be paid by a flat % of advertising revenue taken off the top before the "profits" are distributed to "shareholders."

> That shouldn't be a problem as the target market is the group of people who are making a conscious choice to dodge the ad platform.

Personally, Facebook and such has pretty much poisoned the whole idea of "social media" entirely. My default position these days is that if it's "social media", then I can't trust it.

I don't know how many people share my attitude. It might not be enough to matter.