5:00PM
There’s a new app that people are talking about on Twitter called Clubhouse. I saw today a few people posting about how many hours they’ve spent on the app, almost boasting to others that they’ve spent more. Some of them showed over 36 hours on the app in just one week.
I sometimes wonder if the essence of business is just getting people addicted to something. I mean, it seems obvious to me that is a core aspect of the drug business—get people addicted to tobacco, alcohol, weed, and more, and they will keep coming back. I think it also applies to many other businesses, if not most. People talk about the importance of “repeat customers” and “demand.” I wonder if there are any successful businesses that don’t get people addicted.
Maybe addicted is not the word. Maybe it’s more about attachment. I think the difference may be slight, but I see addiction as doing something over and over again and not wanting to do it, whereas attachment as doing something over and over and wanting to do it. I also think the two can oscillate back and forth, with the attachment to addiction direction more frequent.
I think about some of the largest industries in the world—oil, automotive, air travel, social media, even porn—and almost all of them drive high repeat behavior. Perhaps the auto industry doesn’t feel addictive to some, but I wonder how many people are having car withdrawals right now, or travel withdrawals, as we’ve been in our houses for over a month now. I wonder how long people can go without accessing their phones, reading the news or seeing what their friends are doing, or even more so, looking something up on Google (the drive to know things).
I see Clubhouse as something that could drive very strong attachment and cross into addiction. I don’t know how I feel about that. I have felt a lot of fear in making people addicted to something that I’ve built. I tried to make iFeelio not addictive. I tried to make my blog not addictive. I’ve tried to even make my presence not so addictive.
And yet, in the same way, I believe I’ve also pushed away strong connection and strong attachment. We humans seem to crave attachment—to other humans, to animals, to things—really, to anything.
I wonder if business, and life really, is behaving in a way where people want to attach to us and letting them attach, but being mindful of when that falls into addiction and helping them and ourselves manage the pitfalls of over-attachment.
Is there such a thing as over-attachment? I’m not sure, but I kind of like the ring of it.
I don’t know what will become of Clubhouse.
5:10PM
