# The Anti-Feed - Apps Without the Scroll **The idea:** An app that suppresses "discovery feeds" and infinite-scroll surfaces on your phone, while leaving the useful parts of each app intact. It's like Brick, but with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. Brick blocks the whole app; this blocks the *feed*. You keep Instagram for DMs, not for doomscrolling. Reels never load. The Explore page is a wall. **The insight:** The unit of addiction isn't the app, it's the surface. Most "problem apps" bundle a utility (messaging, marketplace, event invites) with a slot machine (the feed). Every existing screen-time tool operates at app granularity, which forces an all-or-nothing choice people won't sustain. Unbundle the utility from the slot machine and the willpower cost drops to near zero. **Prior art / adjacent:** - Brick, one sec, Opal - app-level blocking or friction - Browser extensions (News Feed Eradicator) prove the surface-level approach works, but only on desktop - ScreenZen - friction per open, still app-granular **Open questions:** - Mechanism on mobile: accessibility services on Android could detect and overlay feed surfaces; iOS is far more locked down (Screen Time API is app/category level) - Cat-and-mouse: apps redesign constantly; selectors rot. Is there an AI angle - a model that recognizes "this is a feed" visually instead of by brittle selectors? - Does Meta et al. tolerate it, or fight it like ad blockers? - Business model: one-time purchase like Brick's hardware anchor, or subscription? **Why I care:** Same thread as [[02.10.26 - RingConn and the Case for Dumb Hardware|the dumb hardware thesis]] - technology that does its job and then gets out of your life. This is the software version: keep the tool, remove the trap.