There’s something quietly unsettling happening alongside the loneliness epidemic.

Loneliness is no longer just a social condition.

It’s a market.

As more people feel disconnected, a growing industry has emerged to meet them there. 

Apps for companionship, platforms for connection, services promising community, even “friendship on demand.” 

There are tools to talk to when no one else is available. 

Subscriptions for social interaction. 

Algorithms designed to keep you engaged when real relationships feel out of reach.

On one level, this makes sense.

Humans need connection. 

When it’s missing, something will step in to fill the gap.

But here’s the uncomfortable question we need toask:

What does it mean when loneliness becomes profitable?

Let's talk about it.

From Social Fabric To Service

Historically, belonging wasn’t something you subscribed to.

It was embedded.

In neighbourhoods.

In extended families.

In workplaces that lasted decades.

In rituals repeated over time.

In places where people recognised each other without introductions.

But as we dismantled (or diluted) those structures through mobility, individualism, efficiency, hyper-optimisation….

…we didn’t replace them with new forms of shared life.

We replaced them with products.

Today, instead of neighbours, we have networks.

Instead of shared spaces, we have platforms.

Instead of community, we have content.

And loneliness, once a signal that something relational was missing, is increasingly treated as a personal problem to be managed, or monetised.

I have written extensively about this before, and please know that loneliness in society is not a personal failure; it’s a systemic and societal failure.

The Comfort Problem

Here’s the tricky part.

Many of these solutions do provide relief.

A message.

A response.

A sense of being seen, even briefly.

But relief is not the same as repair.

Most commercial loneliness solutions focus on soothing the symptom, not rebuilding the system. 

They offer comfort without friction. 

Connection without obligation. 

Interaction without reciprocity.

They don’t require you to show up.

They don’t require time.

They don’t require vulnerability.

And that’s precisely why they scale.

Real, true flesh-and-blood belonging is inefficient.

It’s messy.

It requires repetition, patience, and mutual investment.

It can’t be optimised or automated without losing something essential.

What Worries Me Most

What worries me isn’t that people turn to these tools, that’s understandable.

What worries me is what happens when loneliness becomes a growth opportunity rather than a design failure.

When isolation is framed as an individual condition instead of a structural outcome.

When the solution is always something you download, rather than something we build together by stepping out of the door.

When we accept substitute connection instead of asking why real connection has become so hard to access.

This trend makes me sad.

Because the more we outsource belonging, the less pressure there is to design cities, workplaces, housing, and social systems that actually support it.

This Isn’t Anti-Tech, It’s Pro-Human

Let me be clear!

This isn’t an argument against technology.

Digital tools can be bridges.

They can reconnect old threads.

They can help people find each other.

But they cannot replace what happens when people share time, space, and nervous-system states.

Belonging is not a service.

It’s a condition created between people.

And if we forget that, we risk building a future where loneliness is efficiently managed but never truly reduced.

The Future of Belonging Is a Design Question

So what does this mean for the future?

It means belonging must stop being treated as a “soft” issue and become infrastructure.

It means asking different questions:

- How do we design places that invite people to linger rather than just pass through?

- How do we build workplaces that create social safety, not just productivity?

- How do we create housing models that allow for shared life, not sealed units?

- How do we protect time, ritual, and repetition in a culture obsessed with speed?

Because if loneliness is designed into our systems, then connection can be designed back in.

A Call to Action

This is where the work begins for all of us.

We can:

- Stop treating loneliness as a personal failure.

- Resist outsourcing belonging to platforms.

- Invest time instead of subscriptions.

- Choose presence over convenience.

- Rebuild small, local rituals of togetherness.

- Support spaces and initiatives that bring people together physically.

And on a personal level, we can do something deceptively simple.

We can show up.

Invite someone over.

Join a table.

Create a ritual.

Be the one who initiates.

Choose the slower, less efficient form of connection.

Because the future of belonging won’t be built by algorithms alone.

It will be built by people, repeatedly choosing each other.

And if we get that right, loneliness doesn’t need to be a business at all.

Lots of love,

Stina

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