It’s not just that some social networking platforms make it almost ridiculously hard to find the “delete” button on your profile. (Enough people are searching Google for how they can delete their Facebook account that it’s actually making news headlines. I want you to think about that for a second: the popularity of a search engine query is now newsworthy. Truly, we live in the future.)

It’s that they make it emotionally painful, too. Facebook throws up faces of your nearest and dearest on its confirmation screen, asking, “Are you sure you want to do that? Really? YOU WILL NEVER SEE THESE PEOPLE AGAIN.” (I’m paraphrasing. Facebook’s language is far more manipulative.)

Here’s one clue that your platform may not be delivering the value to your users that it ought to: you need to take hostages to get them to stay.