The richest man started taking advantage of loopholes after joining Alibaba.

Beijing Subway Line 10.

Evening rush hour.

The carriage was crammed in like a sardine can.

Lin Che squeezed into a corner at the junction of the carriages.

He wasn't driving.

Today, he wanted to see for himself what flowed in the "blood vessels" of this city.

"drop--"

The alarm sounded as the doors closed, and the train started moving.

Based on past experience, the carriage should be noisy at this time.

Some people are on the phone complaining about customers, some are arguing with their partners, and some are watching low-brow TV dramas on speakerphone.

Or, it is a deathly stillness.

But today, things are a little different.

Lin Che looked around.

Within my line of sight, I can make out about ten people.

There were balding middle-aged men in suits, students carrying backpacks, and saleswomen with heavy makeup.

At this moment, they are doing the same thing.

Bow down.

Holding the phone in the right hand.

Place your thumb at the bottom third of the screen.

Slide up.

The movements were short and powerful.

No one was reading, no one was daydreaming, and even the old man who usually begged in the subway was now huddled in a corner, staring at his phone screen and chuckling to himself.

An eerie silence filled the carriage.

This silence is not because it is quiet, but because everyone's soul has "gone offline".

zizi——

A static noise leaked out of the headphones.

Although the specific content was unclear, the captivating melodies could be vaguely discerned.

"Gucci Gucci Prada Prada..."

"Meow meow meow..."

Lin Che looked at the programmer closest to him.

The programmer wore thick glasses and had greasy, matted hair.

On his phone screen was a picture of a beautiful woman in tight yoga pants doing squats.

The programmer's eyes remained fixed, glued to the screen.

A trace of drool unconsciously clung to the corner of his mouth.

Two seconds.

The video ends.

His thumb snapped out of his skin as if by reflex.

Slide up.

Next video.

It's a husky that's destroying the house.

The programmer's expression instantly changed from lewd to a silly grin.

"hey-hey."

He laughed out loud.

In the crowded, sweltering, and suffocating subway during rush hour, this smile seemed particularly abrupt and empty.

Lin Che felt a chill.

It's not because of the cold.

It was because he realized that the "time furnace" he had created had already begun to operate.

In the past, people would read books, watch long videos, or play games on the subway; that was active entertainment.

You need to think, you need to invest time, and you need patience.

But now, Weiguang Video has taken all of that away.

It cuts happiness into pieces, chews them up, and feeds them to you.

You don't need to chew, you just need to swallow.

Swallow.

Slide up.

Swallow again.

Swipe up again.

This is not entertainment at all.

This is feeding.

Lin Che looked at the people in the carriage.

Bathed in that eerie blue light, their faces were deathly pale, their eyes vacant, and their fingers twitched mechanically.

This is not a living person.

This is clearly a truckload of zombies receiving dopamine injections.

……

"Next stop: Guomao Station."

A mechanical female voice came from the radio.

The programmer is still swiping.

His body swayed with the train, but his hand holding the phone remained as steady as a mountain.

"Next stop: Shuangjing Station."

Some people got off the bus, and some people got on.

The crowd bumped into his shoulders, but he didn't react.

On the screen was a funny magic show, which he watched with great interest.

"Next stop, Jinsong Station."

It wasn't until the train started moving again that the intense push-back sensation finally brought him back to his senses.

He subconsciously looked up at the route map.

The next second, his expression cracked.

Holy crap!

A scream.

"I missed my stop! Three stops!"

He hurriedly stuffed his phone back into his pocket and tried to squeeze through the crowd to the door, but the doors were already locked.

He grabbed his hair in frustration, muttering curses under his breath.

"Damn, how did it go so fast... I only watched for a little while..."

But he didn't dwell on it for long.

Five seconds passed.

Since we've already missed our stop, the next stop is in two minutes.

I'm just idling around anyway.

He took out his phone again.

Unlock.

Click on the black icon.

Slide up.

The anxiety, regret, and impatience I felt just moments ago vanished the instant the screen lit up.

He turned back into that happy zombie.

Lin Che witnessed the whole process.

He glanced down at the background of his phone.

Data panel:

Average daily usage time per person: 62 minutes.

Opening frequency: 18 times/day.

This is a terrifying number.

It's worth noting that even for a hardcore game like Honor of Kings, the average playtime is only about 40 minutes.

Weiguang, with just a 15-second short video, managed to steal an hour from users.

And that's not even the worst part.

What's most frightening is the speed at which algorithms evolve.

Lin Che opened the "User Profile" system in the background.

The ID of that programmer from earlier was prominently listed.

The system has already assigned him as many as 200 tags:

[High-frequency words: yoga, husky, digital product review, crosstalk]

[Potential Needs: Stress Relief, Late-Night Entertainment, Hair Loss Anxiety]

[Contents I Dislike: Beauty, Cooking, Product Sales]

The algorithm knows him better than his mother does.

He lingered on that yoga video for an extra 0.5 seconds, and in that instant, the system adjusted the recommendation queue for the next 100 videos.

In subsequent posts, the weighting of sports-related content featuring beautiful women increased by 15%.

This is what "a thousand people, a thousand faces" means.

Promote street dances and anti-Japanese war dramas to the elderly.

I recommended beauty products and horoscopes to my younger sister.

They push international affairs and conspiracy theories onto angry young people.

Recommend parenting tips and mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflicts to new mothers.

Everyone was locked in a custom-made "happiness cage".

The cage is very comfortable, and it has your favorite food inside. You'll never want to come out.

……

At the same time.

Beijing, Sina Building.

Weibo Data Monitoring Center.

The red warning lights are flashing.

"What happened? Traffic has plummeted?!"

The operations director of Weibo slammed his fist on the table and roared, "Aren't there any celebrity cheating scandals tonight? Aren't there any trending topics?"

The traffic curve on the screen shows a precipitous drop.

The evening rush hour is usually prime time for browsing Weibo.

But today, daily active users dropped by 15%.

Even more critically, the time spent on Weibo has decreased from an average of 20 minutes to 8 minutes.

"The cause cannot be found..."

The data analyst was sweating profusely. "The server is working, the CDN is working, and the app isn't crashing. But users just aren't coming back."

Where did they go?

It's not just Weibo.

The back-end systems of iQiyi, Youku, and even Toutiao.

The same thing is happening everywhere.

The internet's traffic pool is constant.

This is a zero-sum game.

If someone eats an extra bite, someone else will go hungry.

At this very moment, all the giants are staring at the mysteriously vanished "black hole".

They felt an unprecedented sense of panic.

They didn't know who their opponent was.

All they know is that their users are being stolen in large numbers by an unseen force.

Lin Che stood by the roadside, looking at the office building lights not far away.

He knew that the people in those buildings wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

"Welcome to the dopamine era."

He spoke softly to the air.

My phone vibrated.

It was a message from Shen Nan:

"Boss, Zhang Yiming has made a move. I heard he cracked the table."

Lin Che smiled and replied with a single word:

"wait."