It's "slot machine" psychology, sometimes it doesn't work so you have to pull it again. Being unpredictable makes the dopamine rush stronger when it works and gives you what you want. search for "slot machine social media" and you'll find a good deal of coverage.

This usually applies to what posts are in an algorithmic feed, but I guess not having the feed show up at all is a fresh innovation. Twitter and Reddit both do a lot of just giving up and saying "woops, couldn't load that link you just clicked" as if that was a real problem. Really? what, the database wasn't there when you looked? Try again yourself, why make me click refresh?

Another anecdata - search on facebook doesn't work for finding stuff in someone's timeline, so I've spent many minutes scrolling down someone's page trying to find a post. It's frustrating but I don't quit, and I'm sure metrics and impressions look great (no click through tho)

The thing is, which works against intuition, is that when an addict works a little more for the hit, they "deserve" it more.

Most of the data I have is about heroin and cocaine. And folks are very reluctant to like physically addictive things to these technologic addiction things.

But human nature is very consistent regarding these dopamine releases. We're all fienders.