Most people, most of the time, want to click and watch the number go up. They do not want to be told the number is fake. They will pay— in time, in attention, in actual money— to keep the number going up.
Farmville is a tool shaped object.
Tool Shaped Objects are not new. Entire product categories exist in this space. The productivity app that you configure for three weeks and then never use. The Notion workspace with fourteen linked databases tracking a life that does not require tracking. People got their bodies tattooed with Roam Research symbols in 2018, people forget this now.
These are all kanna. These are tool shaped objects. The setup is the practice. But unlike the Japanese woodworker, the user of these objects typically believes he is doing the thing the tool is shaped like, and not the thing the tool actually does.