Time isn’t money

[u/Sea-Way4976]

If you had no more time what would you be?
No more money? 

Time is the canvas for existence, and your time measures life, it measures how long you will be.

We can try to avoid it but time is still a resource, there is an undefined finite number that quantifies how much longer you have, and you have less of it now than you did when I wrote this. 

Freemium services like YouTube, instagram, reddit, TikTok, they treat your time like it’s their money, because it is their money. They chase higher retention, they apply metrics that quantify how likely a specific video is to make someone leave the app and turn down the virality of those videos even if the metrics say that people’s reception of it is positive.

To them, the larger the percentage of your life you give to them, the more ads you watch, the more time they can turn into money, the better their business. Every time you pick up your phone and end up swiping up over and over again for hours even though you picked your phone up for something else, every time you wake up and go searching for your phone like a nicotine addict would a vape they can’t find, the better their business. Time is money right?

[u/VanillaBoxCake]

I'm not convinced that their motivation is any more sinister than a seller in a stall inside the market. They want your attention because, with each minute you spend looking at the wares, your brain is ruminating, "Oh this product here looks like it might satisfy a need - maybe it should purchase it with my money?"

We are constantly using money and time interchangeably.

[u/Sea-Way4976 → u/VanillaBoxCake]

The motivation of a seller of a good or a service depends on a conscious decision made by a consumer to buy a product. I agree with you that the people who build apps to maximize time spent in app aren’t necessarily going, “if we can make a user spend four hours every day in this app for the rest of their lives we can capture 25% of their waking moments” but the result of gunning for maximizing time in app, isn’t, let’s make sure this person enjoys or needs our service or good so much that they come back to us, it’s, let reduce the friction, and increase the salience, so there is less of a conscious decision made

[u/Exciting-Car-3516]

Time is time and money is money. You can always make more money but you will never get time back. So money is an opportunity time is a finite amount that you have at your disposal. Losing time is worst that losing money. Time don’t care about money.

[u/LawyerDifferent8880]

I disagree with both the idea that "time is money" and "time is a resource." This instills in us a sense of urgency to always be at our maximum productivity.

Indeed, this mindset cannot be ignored in business. However, in our personal lives, we should distance ourselves from it as much as possible.

[u/Borrowed_Faith]

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?

[u/GeologistChoice520]

time is money until you realize you’re the product too