They are the asbestos of the internet.
this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Getting a dumbphone was one of the best decisions I took in my life. It helps me focus better and read books. I don't actually need the internet with me 24/7. If you really need me, you can call.
Try it. Some people will call you crazy. Just ignore them.
ok but like if I don't have music and noise cancelling earbuds I will explode
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Wait till you find out we still have tobacco companies, and they’ve been getting into the vape and weed game this whole time
I've been telling this to family and friends, apparently they didn't want to agree. At least there is article now. I do think current social media will be looked at in future like tobacco/smoking is currently looked at.
Wow. I don't know why I've never made the parallel before, but yes, this is a good way to explain to people the woes of these companies that can be overlooked in the moment but are painfully clear in hindsight.
Y'all, one of the far-reaching Broligarchy ideas they're hoping emerges from the ashes of the United States is the DAO, decentralized autonomous organization.
Every action in the block chain. They facilitate, and are predicated on, the idea of treating every aspect of life as a social network. Everything you do is recorded. So daily life ends up incentived toward constant, persistent, corralled engagement. The Network State is the term.
The difference is that you can't build a society on the mechanics of the tobacco industry. But you can on a human reaction industry.
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Even though I knew about most of this, I never realized how striking the parallels are.
My problem with theses giants is they don't provide/publish stats of the current situation of their platform. I can't think of a stat top of mind, but Metadata about posts, users and many more
Except, you know, tobacco companies are modern day tobacco companies. They were never defeated.
Muted in the English world. I argue junk food commercials draw a lot of parallels with cigarette commercials of the past. For some reason obesity isn't worth prevention so the advertisements are pretty gross.
Soft drinks. Coca Cola especially really loves to tie emotions and sports/holidays to sugar water.
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They were never defeated.
When you say "defeated", what exactly do you mean? You mean that they should cease to exist to be considered as such? If that's the case then I would say it's an unrealistic expectation.
I would say that they've been largely contained. If I remember correctly, back in the '50s almost half of the American population used to smoke. The percentage of people smoking has been consistently decreasing over the years thanks to regulation and increased taxation. Tobacco companies are definetly not as influential as they once were.
How many vape, which is more harmful, more addictive?
How is it more harmful?
You made me notice that a lot of companies learned from tobacco companies not just those XD
it's an analogy; the author is drawing parallels between them. Obviously Tobacco companies were not "defeated" but they were regulated to hell, and I'm sure the author would say that's what we need to do with social media too.
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They won't stop mega corping like they used to, they got supplemented by cars then oil then banks and now tech/pharma
No company will stop attempting to achieve mega corp status in a capitalist environment. Gotta make that line go up and to the right!