Client-side scripting is a hack. HTML didn’t have all the tags people wanted or needed, so instead of carefully updating it to include new features, they demanded that browsers just execute arbitrary code on the user’s computer, and with that comes security vulnerabilities, excessive bandwidth use and a barrier-to-entry that makes it difficult to develop new browsers, giving one company a near-monopoly.
Quite the opposite in fact. Microtransactions offer the promise of fun, but never deliver, because in order to incentivise users to purchase them, the player must feel like the game is 90% of the way to being fun and that tiny additional purchase will get it there.
It’s like the cartoon image of the donkey rider holding a carrot on the end of a rod. The donkey keeps moving to try to get the carrot, but never quite reaches it.
Besides the trackers and malware, ads can be categorised as a flaw in technology. A kind of software parasite that uses a computer’s resources without providing any additional functionality to the user.
The term “social media” is already toxic. When I started using the Internet, socialising and media were two separate things. Conflating the two implies that every time we say something, we are publishing an article and should care about how many views and likes we get, instead of making a genuine attempt at connection. And it suggests that every reply should be some kind of review of the post it replies to.
In the days of forums, people would just post what came into mind. They were more honest because there was no number next to your comment rating how good it was.