Exploitation

A quote in an article by Oliver Burkeman caught my eye a while back:

Eyal urges businesses to think ethically. (Creating addictive products you wouldn’t use yourself, he says, “is called exploitation”.)

I tracked down the original quote to Nir Eyal’s 2012 post, The Morality of Manipulation:

Creating a product that the designer does not believe improves the user’s life and which the maker would not use is exploitation.

Obvious, but easy to forget, and a handy lodestar.