67 Mode is the greatest callback to 90's prank calls (I assume that was the intent - and if so chef's kiss with how it ties into the current status of 67)
Great article, I'm a cofounder of Clearspace and think about this a lot.
> I'm an adult, I know how to circumvent these limits, and I will if motivation is low.
It's impossible to build systems that perfectly prevent you from doing this, but it is possible to build systems that can perfectly deter you from doing it. You could set up one - for example - that texts your spouse if you delete it. Or charges your bank account. Or whatever other doomsday device you want to rig up.
> Time limits don't affect the underlying addiction. You don't quit smoking by only smoking certain hours of the day.
Yeah but if you could encode cigarettes to ween you off of them by force, that'd be a big help. Also cigarettes don't have any real utility, so cold turkey is a reasonable strategy. Unfortunately the social media platforms have real utility, so a guardrail strategy makes more sense.
> The companies that build these apps have tens of thousands of really smart people (and billions of dollars) trying to get me hooked and keep me engaged. The only way to win this game isn't by trying to beat them (I certainly can't), but by not playing.
When it's all said and done, someone is going to build the right set of digital environment modification tooling that does beat them. It has to be possible, the internet is intrinsically customizable
You can't take the same approach on iOS but to Apple's credit, they do a great job with user privacy with their Screen Time permission. Apps with that permission get the ability to restrict other apps on the phone without ever knowing what they are. They can even report data back to the user without ever knowing that data.
It's up to you. In your Apple devices under Screen time there's a "Share across devices" setting. If that's on, it'll aggregate. If not, it'll just report the screen time from a single entity
The alternative is forcing users to create yet another account/password during signup. This always infuriates me as a user - especially in the days before iOS 18 when there was no password manager support on iOS.
It doesn't really feel like "forcing users into adtech surveillance platforms" if they're using Android - they already have a Google account it's literally built into the operating system.
The goal was and is to minimize friction and maximize security. For all the flaws of consumer subscription as a business model, it's beauty is that we don't have perverse incentives. Users pay us to protect their attention so we make money by being good at that. We don't have to or want to sell their data.
For retrieving Mac OS screen time programatically? Not that I'm aware of.
In any Apple device, In settings -> Screen Time there's an option for "share across devices". If that is turned on, all devices will report your cumulative totals. So if you're interested in retrieving your screen time from all your devices, you can turn that on and then your iPhone will report everything, which you could retrieve with this API. But you wouldn't be able to differentiate where the screen time came from.