I think another angle to this is that some people just can't ignore a number that might be interpreted as a score. They want followers not because they have a message that they want to get out there, but rather because more is better.

These people are unwittingly working for the platforms to drive engagement, often to the exclusion of any goal they might've had before the addictive aspects of social media kicked in.

I think we get less of this kind of behavior here on HN because each username is not bedazzled with metrics. You can see up vote counts for your own comments, but you can only infer those counts for others. The scoreboard is hidden, so it isn't triggering as much bad behavior from people who can't handle such things.

I think we could get even better behavior out of people if we never showed them raw counts of updoots, but instead only showed them metrics relating to their explicitly stated social graph, plus maybe one hop out:

> Alice and two of her friends like this

> Charlie likes this

It gives a sort of directionality to the feedback. Instead of seeking the high score as granted, likely, by a bot army, you learn something about Alice's corner of the social network. Maybe you should get to know Alice's friends better.

Because that loud 3% that are being harnessed by the platforms to drive engagement via content we all hate... Their primary sin is just that they fell for it. They're like alcoholics, if we want to help them into a mode where they're less problematic, we should hang out someplace besides the bar.