So I think two things:

1. It's ok to want certain outcomes as a society. Like maybe this is a little conservative or whatever, but we can't just like stand by and be like, well everyone's dumb, no one's having sex, people are dying, healthcare costs are spiking, there goes our economy. Like I wish we would legalize smoking again, but I understand why we don't.

2. I think one could make an argument that over-optimization is immoral. This Paula Deen video really made me sort of understand the excess that leads to the obesity epidemic. She takes what used to be a desert, wraps it in like three other deserts, fries it and then that's now one desert with twice the calories:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYbpWcw6MfA

But like, companies are trying to architect food to fit more fat and sugar in. Instagram doesn't go to people and ask them what they want, they study behavioral psychology to get people to use their products more. At some point, letting giant multinational corporations do whatever they want to hack people's brains is a kind of nihilism and absence of free choice that you're trying to avoid.

Monopolies are bad. Overoptimization is bad. It should be ok for us as a culture to reject micro-transactions. It's ok for us to have a shared morality. even if that means Epic games makes a little less money on Fortnight.

I think one measure should be. How much do people wish they did a thing less.

https://fortune.com/well/article/nearly-half-of-gen-zers-wis...

I used to watch like 6 hours of TV a day. Loved every minute of it. Same thing with video games. Same thing with my favorite restaurant, don't feel the same way about smoking or like the M&Ms I buy in the checkout aisle of the grocery store.