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Infinite scroll is a loot box mechanic
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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The difference is the intention.
In general, a webpage has all the information it thinks you need. A forum allows the user to choose what content they want.
You find what you're looking for, you get the laugh, rub one out, whatever, call it a day and go about your business.
Oh, no, no, no... there's so much more attention to extract from the user... with a game.
Conversely, a scroll is designed to manipulate your dopamine by restricting your ability to choose and creating artificial scarcity. They deliberately inject not only ads and propaganda but content you're not interested in so that you will have to continually chase the content. The "loot" is the content. The "loop" is their payoff.
In fact, behavioral science has identified the optimal range of hit to miss odds your brain calculates that keeps target seeking behavior at the highest level.
Ever notice the "not interested in this kind of content" buttons don't work very well? Or are temporary at best? Hmm, wonder why that is. The illusion of choice, the restriction of choice, curated randomness... it's all packaged in the infinite scroll.
Of course, cut out the creepy stuff and it still functions as a kind of interactive content experience which is why it's pervaded every site. Too bad it's a shit design that wastes your time.
I do not accept "infinite scroll" as shorthand for all that bullshit. I don't like infinite scroll much myself, for other reasons, but this is the Fediverse. There are plenty of people around here looking at pages containing nothing but things in chronological order posted by people they chose to follow, and choosing to load more by scrolling down.
I think the difference with the Fediverse is there is an end. There is old content. You catch up to where you left off. It's not truly an "infinite scroll" in the way OP is referring to.
With stuff like Reddit, they organize to where it all feels recent, it's all relevant, and it's all new. Every time you refresh, new psuedo-random (algorithmic) content takes it's place. They almost prevent you from seeing old content. The "infinite scroll" is more like "infinite content".
In this way, they put people in an endless loop. People always have something to find, and because of the infinite scroll, you'll always have a good chance of finding "rares". It's exhausting once you notice it.
At least I can tell I've opened Lemmy too many times today because all of the recent posts are marked as read.
I have no doubt they do.
Have you tried it though? I find that it's not lootbox-like in any way, although to some extent I suppose it depends on who you follow.
Tried it? You can't escape it, lol.
I've got my feed set up. It works about as well as it can. Lemmy is a particularly good place for it, low content, less users, and no ads.
As a core concept, I wouldn't have a problem with it, provided we actually had way more levers to adjust the algorithms.
In larger settings it's a complete nightmare, even on sites that aren't trying to generate ad revenue.
Even as someone who lived through the static webpage and forum era and loved it, reverting to that feels like going backwards in progress. But without finer controls over the algorithm, the general application of scrolling is ass and detrimental to good life/screen time balance. There should be some kind of middle ground or new structure.