Positive comments about nicotine in the LessWrong community were a major reason why I started vaping. I found the addiction to be less serious than commonly claimed, but I also found the beneficial effects to be small. I couldn't say with confidence that it's better than caffeine, and caffeine is more socially acceptable. I don't suppose I'd be shadowbanned for telling people my experience of caffeine.

Most of what I've seen calls nicotine one of the most addictive drugs, but even if it's not that addictive it could still be causing these problems. Addictiveness describes how likely you are to develop a dependency after using some amount of times, and presumably these people are vaping many times before addicted.