The more I watched, the more I hated the way it worked - the amount, the pace. However, at some point I started wondering what the next step in this dopamine rush could be.
At first I came up with a content betting concept and built a Telegram bot where you gain points by guessing the like to dislike ratio of a video. While playing with it, I realized that this betting mechanism could be reshaped into a way to express a more nuanced reaction to content than the current like or dislike.
For example, with a single point on a pad you can express both your sense of resonance with the content and your certainty about it.
After building a live demo (and posting it here about a month ago), I realized that outside of a TikTok-style feed it felt pointless. So I tried to give it more meaning by turning it into a form of mindful content consumption. You receive a small, finite set of videos each day, react to them, instantly compare your reaction with the mean point, and then explore how others reacted.