The extremely profitable inner workings of digital addiction are complex, but the business model is simple: collect user data and sell it to advertisers. The more users you addict, oops I mean attract, and the more time they spend on your platform, the more money you make.

The raison d'etre of social media / search (SM/S) is to collect user data to sell to the highest bidder. To maximize profits, the SM/S platforms stimulate users to post more content and spend more time "engaging" (i.e. creating user data) on their platform.

There are three mechanisms to accomplish this goal:

1. Financial incentives. By offering users a tiny share of the third of the trillion dollars in revenue (of just the top three platforms), users are incentivized to post more content, and optimize that content o attract more views / engagement by other users.

The share earned by the few who attract an audience of millions is substantial, but the modest revenues shared with users posting content follows a power law distribution: a handful make millions, a few make $100,000 or more annually, a small circle make a middle class living ($60,000 annually), and the vast "long tail" earn a pittance at best.

Your song received hundreds of thousands of downloads? Thank you for the content and engagement. Here is your share of the revenues generated: $17. Your content attracted thousands of views, here's your share of advert revenue: $73.

The share is a pittance, but it's enough to drive a Darwinian frenzy that optimizes extremism and clickbait. This extremism can be measured, and as a result of the frenzied competition for attention, extremism is off the charts, with predictably destabilizing social consequences.