Simulated Shopping as Dopamine Entertainment

A new genre of websites reproduces the entire online‑shopping ritual — browsing, carting, checkout, tracking — without any payment or delivery, delivering the psychological reward loop of consumption while avoiding cost. Users gain aspirational gratification (status, control, novelty) even as no physical market transactions occur, creating an attention product that can be designed, moderated, or regulated. — This trend reframes consumption: experience and ritual can be productized separately from material goods, raising questions for consumer protection, mental‑health impacts, platform responsibility, and how markets monetize attention.