This matches my impression that kids’ birthdays have become less of a "party at someone's house" thing and more of a small event-industry category

Yep, and I hate it. For our kids we’ve started just inviting a bunch of the kid’s friends and extending the invitation to each friend’s whole family and just having a chill house party. We also invite a friend’s family for the kid not having a birthday so they have at least one of their friends to play with too. Kids running around outside, inside, doing whatever they want while the parents all get to hang out and talk. We order some pizzas and other food, set out a few coolers of drinks and some adult beverages too, and it’s always a great time. It helps that the birthdays are in the fall in it’s usually really nice out still.

We also very clearly specify “no gifts”. We don’t have room for more stuff and they’ll get more gifts than they need from grandparents.

I’d say a majority of the parties we get invited to also are asking people to not bring gifts.

That's probably the trap: competing with Walmart or Target on "I need a LEGO set for a birthday party in 20 minutes" is almost impossible.

I don't think every old retail format deserved to survive unchanged, but towns without places where children can physically explore feel a little poorer (in a way)

Shorts are basically the same product

I think the smoking comparison works best when applied to the engagement mechanics rather than "social media" as a whole

Why? Smoking was always pitched as a social activity.

Ycombinator is obviously social media and not designed to be addictive as mastodon.

Tik tok and Facebook are designed to be addictive

The problem is when the product becomes an optimization machine for attention

I'm usually skeptical of -protect the children- regulation, but addictive design feels like a real and concrete target

The hard part is that the training looks like nothing from the outside, so it's easy to dismiss (in a way)

This is great. Puts Rick Rubin's appearance into perspective.

A lot of "doing nothing" advice gets framed as clearing the mind, yet sometimes the valuable part is finally letting the mind choose its own direction

Maybe the useful framing is: just don't optimize the break