It's such an interesting discussion to me because it's kind of an open question: is the problem really with exploiting human psychology per se? Or is it with exploiting human psychology to achieve non-constructive ends?

The time investment that Facebook exacts from its users far outweighs the benefits it provides — e.g. social cohesion. So we feel much less comfortable with the platform's effective psychological hooks. But take an app like stickK[1], which cleverly recruits social and financial pressure to incentivize user-defined good behavior, and the effectiveness of the hooks don't make us so uneasy. Nir Eyal recently discussed this distinction on the Indie Hackers podcast[2].

I suppose a part of this is due to consent; stickK users consciously sign up to be manipulated. But consent can't be the entire equation, or else we'd let modern-day cigarette companies off the hook. It's 2017 — smokers know what they're signing up for, and yet they sign up.

[1] http://www.stickk.com/

[2] https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/023-nir-eyal-of-hooked#...