> It's just to replicate the ritual of ordering food and give you the dopamine that the real process gives you.
I’m confused. How does the food-ordering process give you dopamine? It generally just gives me anxiety due to the uncertainties involved, until the food arrives in good condition, which here it won’t.
The link is to the BingeEatingDisorder subreddit. From the link,
> I know that at least for me, the actual process of ordering food delivery is part of the addiction
I'm seeing a business opportunity for a gambling site where it is extremely cheap to play, but the payout is always 0 dollars.
You've just invented the mobile games industry.
I once had the strange experience of playing such a game. It was an "instant game" on Facebook Messenger, that simulated a slot machine casino. It didn't have a cash-out, so it was really just a game.
It had an auto-play, so I watched the dials spin and lights flash until my money ran out, and it prompted me to buy more.
The game played entirely by itself, until it inevitably lost. It ran with no meaningful player action other than selecting which slot machine and buying coins.
And it had a leaderboard, with Facebook profile photos and names of big winners that I can only assume spent real money to be there.
Progress Quest lives on in strange ways.
Hm, or even a gambling site that uses real money but where you always get your money back, eventually.
There were fintechs that did this, I think yotta and one other that was acquired by a big bank. I think it was (is?) popular but if I remember correctly they lost customer funds because of Synapses failure and the way the customer funds were organized they weren’t insured.
That would be interesting. Probably works best as a non-profit with donations or grants. Be a normal gambling setup, but with the expected value of all the games zero instead of negative. Advertise to existing gambling addicts. You might also be able to invert some of the dark patterns to encourage less addictive behaviour.
I expect the main threat would be that it might be possible to extract money with the system with clever statistical tricks.
Well the context is that it was posted to a subreddit for people who struggle with binge eating. So I guess you can think of it as the equivalent of sucking on a lollipop when you're craving a cigarette.
There’s a thing with dopamine where it’s not actually about receiving the reward, it’s about doing the things that lead to the reward.
As weird as it sounds, going through the ordering process is all you need.
think window shopping
which upon writing I realized may not even be something folks born after 2010 have even heard of...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_shopping
Do you get anxious when you order at a restaurant? There is the same exact uncertainty there compared to ordering ahead by 10 minutes while you are on the way there.
There is a very different uncertainty with a far shorter loop to remedy any problems. I have never sat in a restaurant thinking that [any food delivery-specific failure mode] will arise.
>with a far shorter loop to remedy any problems.
It is the same length. The difference is whether you are waiting at the restaurant or "waiting" in your car driving over.