Thing is, this model doesn't explain "everything". All it explains is how the successful consumer-facing software companies of the last 1.5-ish decades became so successful:
They unlocked the attention economy.
We consumers pay for facebook with our eyeballs, not our wallets (facebook then is really good at selling specific eyeballs to specific wallets on the backend).
In the limited scope of the attention economy, then sure, social signaling could be the key metric of engagement. Facebook monetizes it by matching your signaling with specific advertisers, and Fortnite monetizes it by letting you customize the means of your signaling.
However, in the broader scope of the human experience, signaling explains very little...
Sure, you have a nice coffee table book, but you read Dickens to get lost in the story. Or you read a physics textbook to understand the universe.
You might go to church to show your neighbors you're a good god-fearing churchgoer, but you also do it to get closer to god or however you understand the universe.
You might go on a vacation to a far-off land to get a selfie, but you also do it to ponder how this park bench is older than your country and contemplate the lives and cultures of the people who have sat there since.
Yoga pants signal you do yoga, but you also do yoga to quiet your brain or meditate.
So sure, signaling theory is useful to explain all the cynical, vapid, and narcissistic tendencies we have (as well as the software companies that have become successful by industrializing the exploitation of those tendencies -- not saying they're not real!), but it certainly doesn't prove "too much". Rather, all the things it doesn't explain are the parts of the human experience that are not tied to the attention economy.
> Thing is, this model doesn't explain "everything".
To use an example: If I go to work wearing a nice shirt that is cleaned and ironed, signalling theory would say I'm showing I can afford nice clothes, and to keep them looking nice. But if I go to work wearing a worn out tee-shirt I got for free from a vendor, signalling theory would say I'm signalling tech worker group membership, and that I have a modern trendy employer, or even that I'm so confident in my skills that trivial matters like clothes are inconsequential.
Likewise, I travel to work by nice car? Signalling wealth. By economical car? Signalling good financial sense. By running or bicycle? Signalling fitness and free time. By public transport? Signalling virtue and environmentalism.
If no matter the input, signalling theory would say "aha, exactly as expected" then can signalling theory ever be disproven?
The only thing I object to your otherwise excellent comment is the characterization of the attention economy as being driven primarily by "cynical, vapid, and narcissistic tendencies". Seeking status is also a part of the human experience, although perhaps one that many find distasteful.
Well, he is not wrong. The words he chose were morally charged, but at least the "narcisstic tendencies" I think you can just take it as it is.
And it's not bad to sometimes just think about yourself. It's just when it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy "I need status/affirmation in order to feel fulfilled" that it's shifts towards being obnoxious.
They unlocked the attention economy.
We consumers pay for facebook with our eyeballs, not our wallets (facebook then is really good at selling specific eyeballs to specific wallets on the backend).
In the limited scope of the attention economy, then sure, social signaling could be the key metric of engagement. Facebook monetizes it by matching your signaling with specific advertisers, and Fortnite monetizes it by letting you customize the means of your signaling.
However, in the broader scope of the human experience, signaling explains very little...
Sure, you have a nice coffee table book, but you read Dickens to get lost in the story. Or you read a physics textbook to understand the universe.
You might go to church to show your neighbors you're a good god-fearing churchgoer, but you also do it to get closer to god or however you understand the universe.
You might go on a vacation to a far-off land to get a selfie, but you also do it to ponder how this park bench is older than your country and contemplate the lives and cultures of the people who have sat there since.
Yoga pants signal you do yoga, but you also do yoga to quiet your brain or meditate.
So sure, signaling theory is useful to explain all the cynical, vapid, and narcissistic tendencies we have (as well as the software companies that have become successful by industrializing the exploitation of those tendencies -- not saying they're not real!), but it certainly doesn't prove "too much". Rather, all the things it doesn't explain are the parts of the human experience that are not tied to the attention economy.