Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

by Nir Eyal

Experiences with finite variability become less engaging because they eventually become predictable. Businesses with finite variability are not inferior per se; they just operate under different constraints. They must constantly churn out new content and experiences to cater to their consumers’ insatiable desire for novelty. It is no coincidence that both Hollywood and the video gaming industry operate under what is called the studio model, whereby a deep-pocketed company provides backing and distribution to a portfolio of movies or games, uncertain which one will become the next megahit. This is in contrast with companies making products exhibiting infinite variability—experiences that maintain user interest by sustaining variability with use. For example, games played to completion offer finite variability, while those played with other people have higher degrees of infinite variability because the players themselves alter the gameplay throughout. World of Warcraft, the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, still captures the attention of more than 10 million active users eight years after its release.31 FarmVille is played mostly in solitude, but World of Warcraft is frequently played with teams; it is the hard-to-predict behavior of other people that keeps the game interesting. While content consumption, like watching a TV show, is an example of finite variability, content creation is infinitely variable. Sites like Dribbble, a platform f...