Betting on People’s Worst Instincts Has Kind of Always Been Mark Zuckerberg’s Thing

According to Gizmodo, writer A.J. Dellinger argues that Mark Zuckerberg's business philosophy has always rested on one simple conviction: people will trade their data and attention if you make it easy enough. Dellinger traces this back to Zuckerberg's infamous early dismissal of Facebook users as naive for trusting the platform with their information. The piece suggests that rather than a youthful mistake, that attitude became Meta's consistent operating principle—visible in algorithmic amplification of outrage, harvesting of personal data, and a pattern of choosing growth over privacy. In Dellinger's view, Zuckerberg didn't change his mind. He just got better at acting on his original contempt.

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