The House Always Wins

Around 8:00 pm PST on January 18th, 2025 TikTok's functionality came to a halt, with a message for anyone who opened the app reading "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now." U.S. consumers faced the reality they had feared for months leading up to the ban, which was set to take place officially on January 19th. Of course, it was an obvious stunt. The app returned within 12 hours and made sure to specifically thank President-elect Donald Trump for working with them to reinstate the app. This experience gave me some time to reflect on the odd state of social media platforms, their latest role in society, and how artificial intelligence has put consumers at a major disadvantage (and it's only the beginning).

Don't lose the plot

Throughout the TikTok vs. United States clash, TikTok's public image has flourished as a "pro-constitution" platform that advocates for the free speech of Americans. Consumers have gone as far as contrasting TikTok against Facebook and Instagram, stating that TikTok is far better for American Consumers than the others. But folks got lost along the way while arguing against the reasoning for TikTok's bans, with many suggesting that TikTok collects the same data as Facebook or Instagram, which justifies keeping the platform unbanned. In all directions, we've settled on two extremely mediocre options: keep the app or ban it.

This false dichotomy has caused us to lose the plot. Despite their efforts to win the people over, we should realize that ByteDance is a corporation like any other and is doing this whole act to ensure they remain in business and provide value to their shareholders. This is their obligation. It's easy for consumers to fall into the trap of likening TikTok (and similar apps) to "friends" due to what the app provides. Apps are always on their phone whenever needed, have high availability, and consumers can reliably turn to them for positive interactions. However, this relationship is entirely parasocial and manipulative because the app is not actually what is providing the positive interactions, it's the content creators posting to the platform.

Platform vs. Creators

Platforms of the 2010s contained longer-form content, which had a high barrier to entry on the creator side due to time commitments, and was also a bigger commitment for the consumer to watch. Therefore, consumer behavior was oriented toward "subscribing" to specific creators to curate what they watched. In the 2020s, entertainment platforms have rapidly pivoted to short-form content that is delivered to consumers via an algorithm that adapts to the behavior of the consumer and recommends content that aligns with their preferences. This moves away from the "subscriber" model and forces consumers into a stronger relationship with the platform itself, rather than the content creators. Creators do not have to invest in long-form content anymore which saves some time, but it also results in a lower barrier to entry for being a "creator," thus making it more difficult to get the attention of the masses and keep it. Additionally, the pivot away from the safety net of subscribers makes this a continuous battle for relevancy.

The platform makes money through the content created by creators and has essentially created a marketplace of perfect competition to pay the lowest possible prices for that content. On the flip side, the platform has also made consumers dependent on the platform for content curation, instead of consumers subscribing to a selection of creators that they can find elsewhere.

In essence, creators and consumers are both deeply dependent on the platform, the former as a source of income, and the latter as a source of entertainment and information (and, to an extent, a sense of community).

The middleman's trip to Vegas

An article published in The Guardian back in 2018 evaluated the mechanics of apps like Facebook and Candy Crush, likening them to slot machines.

“Social media sites are chock-a-block with unpredictable rewards. They are trying to grab users’ attentions ... to make social media users create a routine and habitually check their screens.”

Like gambling, which physically alters the brain’s structure and makes people more susceptible to depression and anxiety, social media use has been linked to depression and its potential to have an adverse psychological impact on users cannot be overlooked or underestimated.

But that's not the only thing companies are learning from their trip to Vegas, and it's not just social media platforms getting involved. When you walk into the casino, there's one rule everyone knows: the house always wins. The odds of every game favor the house, and corporations are interested in playing by the same rules.

In 2024, large grocery chain Kroger started toying with the idea of dynamic grocery pricing. They even went as far as expressing interest in giving personalized pricing and deals by leveraging facial recognition:

The EDGE Shelf helps Kroger gather and exploit sensitive consumer data. Through a partnership with Microsoft, Kroger plans to place cameras at its digital displays, which will use facial recognition tools to determine the gender and age of a customer captured on camera and present them with personalized offers and advertisements on the EDGE Shelf. EDGE will allow Kroger to use customer data to build personalized profiles of each customer... quickly updating and displaying the customer’s maximum willingness to pay on the digital price tag—a corporate profiteering capability that would be impossible using a mere paper price tag.

But it doesn't stop there. Fast food chains are also planning to start scanning your license plate when you enter the drive-thru, and dynamically change the menu as you pull up to get you to buy more food:

Fast-food chains are looking to deploy cameras that recognize license plates in order to identify customers, personalize digital menus and speed up sales. Starbucks began trying such a system in South Korea last year with customers who preregistered their cars. Restaurants in the United States are now looking to follow suit.

The house always wins

It's become increasingly obvious that the era of big data and AI has put consumers at a massive disadvantage. Large corporations can use the power of algorithms developed by hundreds of engineers to psychologically overwhelm your brain. Every time you open an app, pull into a drive-thru, go grocery shopping, or even go to the movies, a team of experts has found a way to manipulate you into spending more time or money than you otherwise would, oftentimes to an unhealthy or unsustainable degree. According to Yellow Bus ABA, Gen Z spends an average of 9 hours per day in front of a screen, making it the first generation to spend over half of their waking hours per day staring at a screen. It is too soon to determine what the effects of dynamic grocery pricing and fast food drive-thru menus will be given they are newer developments, but I'm willing to bet we will see profit margins increase for fast food and grocery chains and a negative impact on U.S. health statistics over time. This decade, we're seeing the consumer get blown out by corporations in the battle for time, money, and attention.

The solution: don't play the house

Over the past few years, I have spent time working on changing my habits concerning my phone usage, nutrition, and hobbies. I used to be a hermit, spending probably 12-14 hours a day staring at a screen. I'd work at a screen for 8 hours, then spend 4 to 6 more playing video games, watching TV shows, and scrolling through social media. I'd eat junk from fast food restaurants all the time.

In 2023, I chose to change my life around and break these habits down one by one. I started with nutrition, opting for a program called Noom, which used principles of cognitive behavioral therapy to change eating habits. This helped me shed the extra weight I'd gained during the pandemic and also taught me pretty much everything I needed to know about the fundamentals of food, how much my body needed, and what types of food to eat to feel full without overeating. In 2024, I put down the video games and picked up calisthenics. I learned more about macros and the nutrients I should focus on to continue the weight loss journey I was on. I lost another 20 pounds, and in the process was gaining muscle.

This year, I'm continuing the nutrition and fitness goals, avoiding fast food and opting for home-cooked meal prep that uses fresh ingredients. I downgraded my phone to a smaller model to make the screen a bit less enticing, and I pivoted to listening to audio content instead of watching video content so I could learn while going on walks or cooking food. I'm also considering shopping at local farmers' markets for fresh produce instead of going to the grocery store. My screen time is down and my fitness and body composition are about to be at their best since I was in high school.

Parasocial media

My next goal for this year is to get more involved with the community around me and build deep relationships. This "house's edge" of the internet has highlighted for me that these platforms are rooted in profiting from parasocial relationships. At first, these relationships referred to the relationships between celebrities and their fans. However, I think parasocial relationships have now extended to platforms and their users.

Tiktok going down for 12 hours saw people saying farewell and being severely distraught over the departure of a platform as if it were a dear friend. And for reasons stated before, the platform's behavior of high availability and entertainment curation makes it feel like it's playing the role of a friend. But friends don't extract your personal data and purchasing habits, and diminish your attention span for personal profit. Social media platforms are not just promoters of parasocial relationships... they are the embodiment of parasocial relationships.

So instead of embracing the parasocial, I think I'll opt for more social ones.

Advocate for change

The United States, on a federal level, is behind on comprehensive data privacy laws. But that is only one piece of the puzzle. Consumers are not being protected from the imbalance that big data and artificial intelligence have introduced to the landscape. The government is opting for a lighter hand in regulating artificial intelligence, which paints a bleak picture for at least the next 2-4 years. This comes after a brutal 4 years for consumers facing record-high inflation mixed with unprecedented layoffs.

The best thing we can do is articulate the problem and vote for policies to gain protection. California has taken a step in the right direction, preventing insurance companies from using AI to deny insurance claims. In the meantime, I predict there will be demand for consumer products that leverage AI to combat corporation's use of AI, hopefully leveling the playing field once again.

Reject modernity, embrace tradition

Lifestyle changes are hard, but baby steps can detach you from many of the troubles I described in this article. I spent years to get where I am today, and I still have years to go before I think I'll be fully in control. But comparing where I am today to where I was in 2022, I am very happy with the changes I've made. Many of them are simply about rejecting the latest trends, apps, fast food crazes, etc., and focusing on going back to the basics: traditional communication, basic exercise, and core nutrition.

The first half of this decade was a dumpster fire. Make the second half amazing.