> Companies make profits because people spend their money on what those companies have to offer.
And then you proceeded to list examples of cases where that is not true. No one is spending money to get dopamine hits from Facebook or TikTok. If that cost money, they would have a fraction of the users. Other companies spend money on those platforms so they can manipulate you where your attention is.
Even if a user not directly paying, they are indirectly paying by clicking on ads and buying from the advertiser. In which case the cost of advertising is baked in.
Meta made $130B in revenue. Thats a ton of ad payers and ad clicks.
And then you proceeded to list examples of cases where that is not true. No one is spending money to get dopamine hits from Facebook or TikTok. If that cost money, they would have a fraction of the users. Other companies spend money on those platforms so they can manipulate you where your attention is.