Snap, fourth platform in three months, settles addiction suit; running admission count stays zero.

…(cont) Two months later the company was back in a Los Angeles courtroom. The week of October 28, Meta and Snap returned for the next trial in the same line of litigation, which alleged their platforms were built to hook young users.

That trial did not finish either. On October 30, Meta settled with a second plaintiff — an 18-year-old from Mississippi identified in court papers as K.D.B. — whose suit alleged that using Instagram and Snapchat as a child worsened her mental health and contributed to an eating disorder. The settlement landed while jury selection for the next bellwether case was already underway.

Monday, Snap supplied the fourth repetition. The company joins Alphabet, Meta and TikTok in resolving allegations of addictive design, bringing the running count of these platforms that have let a jury reach a verdict on the question to zero.

Reconcile the column against the dates and the gap is not in what any side has said. It is in what none of them has had to say. Four settlements, four companies, each one closes a case before it reaches twelve people in a box — and not one of the four required a sentence admitting the app worked exactly as the lawsuits alleged. The money moves on schedule. The design review doesn't.

Call it what the ledger calls it: the cost of doing business, paid before the one audience positioned to ask how the product was built gets to ask it. Four times since August, that audience got sent home before the question was answered. If the pattern holds, the fifth settlement is already being drafted somewhere, due the next time jury selection finishes.