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tripleee | on: Amazon’s “digital pacifier” for toddlers
Demand for products comes from the consumer, not the producer. This trend happened a long time ago, with parents giving their kids a tablet to avoid actually parenting.

Maybe it's making the best of bad parents

ArcHound | parent | next
Not always. AI is being pushed on plenty of people. Let's just say that not all products serve consumers and there's room for regulation.

Even if I want to buy uranium, I shouldn't. And if I want to buy a chair, I shouldn't be seeing only uranium chairs.

tripleee | root | parent | next
I mean uranium can be a hazard to people around you, so I don't think that's an equivalent scenario.

Drugs could be a good analogy as it (mostly) affects yourself. A safe route for people to buy those would fix the #1 leading cause of death of young adults in the US today (fentanyl)

ctoth | root | parent
Amusingly, I totally bought Uranium off of Amazon ~7 years ago when I wanted to test my Geiger counter. Doesn't seem to be available anymore though? Sad!
1shooner | parent | next
This is also a great argument for low-tar cigarettes for children.
tripleee | root | parent
Do you have a strong argument against them?

The group of parents who let their kids smoke might get those instead, improving their health

The parents who don't allow it would never consider them

I suppose it depends how many of group 2 could be converted to 1 if they were "low tar!".. my intuition is close to zero

1shooner | root | parent
You're asking if I have a strong argument against targeting children with tobacco products?
tripleee | root | parent
The existence of them, yeah. I don't think it's so clear cut that it'd be a net increase in harm. Advertising I'm not so sure about, but as for the mere existence of them:

Group A is going to smoke regardless, having a healthier product reduces harm

Group B is never going to smoke no matter what's on offer

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layer8 | parent
I thought that people don't know what they want until you show it to them? They thought they wanted faster horsies but Amazon gave them noxious cars?
tripleee | root | parent
The demand was for transportation, not any specific product.

Amazon's target market here, wants to parent their kids without parenting their kids. Whether that's a TV with cartoons 20 years ago, a tablet 5 years ago, or a "digital pacifier" today nothing has changed. It's just being fulfilled differently.

My point is that the responsibility is on parents, not companies who will inevitably get the blame and nothing will change. See the other commenter here who said their kids don't even own a tablet.