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SevenVices
MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | Categories- Sequoia’s Roelof Botha said he only invests in companies that let consumers indulge in one of the seven deadly sins. He rattled them off with alarming familiarity. “You don’t want to be the site that people should use,” Roelof said. “You want to be the site they can’t stop using.”
-- Kelman, Glenn. (CEO, Redfin) [Good Question! The Eight Best Questions We Got While Raising Venture Capital] Techcrunch. November 18, 2009.
- the 7 deadly sins - as keys!
-- https://twitter.com/roelofbotha/status/123961347489796098
The Seven Deadly Sins, also known as the SevenVices are commonly known as:
- Lust
- Gluttony
- Greed
- Sloth
- Wrath
- Envy
- Pride
While not in the Bible, they come from the tradition of Christian theology. While it's not likely Botha was literally focused on the Christian vices specifically, the point is that so much of SocialMedia? preys on the vices that drive human behaviour, because vices are much more powerful than the SevenVirtues?.
A more anodyne version of this sentiment is that companies have to sell PainkillersNotVitamins?; that is no one buys what they should do, but they will buy what they need to buy to take their "pain" away. Pain is business is usually something closely rational, like a kind of risk that generates anxiety and stress, such as revenue, compliance, security. However, personal matters can also drive business owners especially pride and ego and face because reputations are on the line.
But for truly personal matters, pain is about the HumanLifeCycle?. Our unmet needs for belonging, food, health, sex, love, family, admiration, power, and security and to avoid loss, effort, and chaos are very strong.
Therefore, tapping into these needs creates engagement with SocialMedia?. Life is suffering, certainly. People spend so much of their lives in their pain, anything that relieves that pain, even for a little bit, becomes extremely popular. If you can create joy and happiness and contentment and meaning, even better.
But the truly effective strategy of TheAlgorithm is to never fulfil the needs, but always promise fulfilment nearly in the future. And thus we become addicted to our screens always hoping but rarely obtaining what we as simple human beings, animals with big brains, need.
For instance, our need to belong, be admired, and for power leads many to want to become OnlineInfluencer?s, posting content to court engagement such as likes, shares, followers, comments in the AttentionEconomy?. Getting notified of engagement is a powerful reward that your efforts are working and a promise that you will become successful at obtaining your goals. But it's pretty hard to build a sustainable powerbase just by posting online. You need to build something as well. Otherwise, you're always on a treadmill to keep posting and a victim of changes in TheAlgorithm to focus attention elsewhere.