Right now, it’s all a hype on LinkedIn: you tease people with something you’ve made, the good old freebie, but in a modern jacket. This one takes it a step further. You’re asked to drop a comment under a post with a specific keyword and then poof, a valuable piece of information appears in your inbox. Completely free! *Oh and by the way, don’t forget to send me a connection request – otherwise I can’t DM you.* What’s striking is that this whole process hasn’t (yet) been automated on LinkedIn (at least, I haven’t seen it happen). On Instagram, though, it’s already common. With a tool like ManyChat, you can fully automate the whole thing: you choose a trigger word, and when someone comments with that word, an automated message is sent back. You can even randomize the reply. Hardly any human involved. And in exchange for that info, you pay. Not with money, but with attention. And not once, like with the old-fashioned freebie, but three times: 1. Your comment boosts the engagement, which helps push the post into your connections’ feeds. 2. Your connection request gives the poster more reach. 3. And the biggest anticlimax? You don’t even get the info directly in your inbox. Instead, you get a link to a form where you have to enter your email address to receive it. That’s the third time you’re paying. And still, we do it. We comment. Not because we’re moved or want to have a conversation – but because we want to receive something. In exchange for a single word under a post, we get something back: a link, an e-book, or a PDF with tips. It’s a transaction. You don’t comment to connect, you comment to receive. It feels efficient. No hassle. Just type a word and voilà – it appears. You’re not having an interaction; you’re triggering a process in an automated system. Like dropping a coin into a vending machine to get a Snickers. And the person posting? They’re not looking for connection either. They post with the algorithm in mind. Not for you, but for reach. For visibility. Every comment isn’t a sign of engagement – it’s a lever. Every datapoint increases momentum. You’re not a person to the algorithm – you’re a unit of measurement. So really, we’re not talking to each other. We’re just performing rituals in a system. One person feeds the algorithm, the other uses it. The maker wants your visibility, you want their reward. We think we’re communicating, but what we’re really doing is operating systems. We’re both playing our parts in an optimized scenario. A cold transaction. We’re not just talking to a machine – we become the machine. I couldn’t help myself the other day. I left a comment too. I’m only human. I got the link in my DM and politely replied: “Thanks!” The reply I got: “Thanks for saying thank you. Few people do and I appreciate it.” So… Most people don’t even bother to say thanks. Can you blame them? Maybe not. After all, they’ve had to pay three times for a bit of information. And as we’ve just established – they’re not responding to a person, they’re responding to a machine. And that’s how we slowly ruin social media. In our attempt to hack the algorithm. I replied to the “thanks for your thanks” with: “Interesting! I think that’s because this process of ‘drop something in the comments and you get the link’ doesn’t feel very human. We do it to please the algorithm. So maybe because of that, people don’t respond in a human way either?” So what can you do? I usually (okay, not always – let’s be honest: less often than I’d like) choose to fight fire with kindness. That wouldn’t help much in real life, but here I hope it creates a tiny moment of awareness. A pause. A thought: Is this really how I want to interact? From a marketing perspective, it’s probably brilliant – otherwise people wouldn’t use it so much. But I try to do it my way. Sometimes I’ll DM someone directly: “I’d rather not comment publicly, but I’d love to read your info – is it okay if I ask like this?” That often opens up an actual conversation – not just another soulless exchange under a post. By expressing gratitude, I at least received a moment of genuine human response. And that opened the door for something better: a question, a reflection, a tiny bit of awareness. Humble, curious, learning together. That’s how I try to stay true to my own values in how I engage with technology.