It's not about monetization - that can be done just fine with this third-party client as it calls the same APIs as the official mobile app (thus if the mobile app requires a paid account for a certain action, so will this).
This is about "engagement". There are a lot of oxygen wasters out there whose careers and paychecks depend on "engagement" metrics aka how much time has been collectively wasted wading through the cesspool that their software is. The annoyance and wasted time is the point, and an alternative client (or other way of automating it) goes against that.
People often talk about "bullshit jobs" around here, but what everyone overlooks (or refuses to acknowledge as it's uncomfortable) are all the bullshit jobs in the tech/software industry who derive their careers out of end-user annoyance and misery.
> but what everyone overlooks (or refuses to acknowledge as it's uncomfortable) are all the bullshit jobs in the tech/software industry who derive their careers out of end-user annoyance and misery.
I think this is because Graeber had little familiarity with this industry so it doesn't appear in the source text.
This is about "engagement". There are a lot of oxygen wasters out there whose careers and paychecks depend on "engagement" metrics aka how much time has been collectively wasted wading through the cesspool that their software is. The annoyance and wasted time is the point, and an alternative client (or other way of automating it) goes against that.
People often talk about "bullshit jobs" around here, but what everyone overlooks (or refuses to acknowledge as it's uncomfortable) are all the bullshit jobs in the tech/software industry who derive their careers out of end-user annoyance and misery.