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The lack of nuance is killing all these sites for me, not just Netflix, which I gave up on managing. It's when sites carefully note what I look at, and start ma

The lack of nuance is killing all these sites for me, not just Netflix, which I gave up on managing. It's when sites carefully note what I look at, and start making drastic changes based on that. It's like if I go for a walk, metaphorically, and I see a giant pile of shit, and that's a genuinely interesting thing to see, because Jesus Christ that is huge. Then the algorithm notices I stopped to look at that, and the next time I go for a walk everything is filled with shit. That's what my Instagram feed is right now, metaphorically speaking. A never-ending field of shit.

Gooblebrai 17d ago
This made me think of how dystopic would be a virtual reality with an algorithm that behaves like this to give the user more of what they pay attention to
compiler-guy 17d ago
It doesn't even have to be a pile of shit; it could be something that was interesting by itself, but that doesn't mean I want a deep dive. This happened to me with youtube and feral hog trapping. A two-minute video of that showed up in my feed, and yeah, it was interesting to see how and why it was done. But my feed was full of that for a long time, and even now, years later, one will pop up just desperately trying to get me to re-engage. It was interesting as a one off, not as a way of life.
pessimizer 17d ago
I'm astonished that the tactics are still so dumb. I buy a dining room table and forever after the site is recommending dining room tables.
- chmod775 17d ago
  My amazon front page is all about electric shavers, lamps, and various usb cables right now. I just bought all of that, why would I want more?
- jjulius 17d ago
  This is what most ads that seem to be "targeted ads" are for me. I buy a thing, and then two weeks later all of the targeted ads are for the thing I bought weeks ago and no longer need.
BuyMyBitcoins 17d ago
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I use a custom filter in uBlock Origin to hide the recommended sidebar in YouTube (all except the video of what’s next). Even so, there will occasionally be a video in search results with a topic that might be interesting from a channel I don’t normally watch. I’ve learned to right click and open the link in a private browsing window so that my search results (and that one remaining sidebar thumbnail) do not become poisoned by that one channel/topic. It’s insane that clicking on one video makes YouTube think that I’m now obsessed with that channel. And, it’s going to fixate on that for the next few weeks.
- lifefeed 17d ago
  That's another thing I'm tired of: manually managing the algorithm. Using private windows, on top of downvoting and hiding stuff I only wanted to see once. I like the "idea" of the algorithm, something that finds cool stuff for me. In practice it's just one more thing I have to keep a mental model of.
szidev 17d ago
In this same vein, the other day I pulled up a Crowded House station and Spotify's assumption was that I wanted to hear only Australian musicians, not that I wanted to listen to 80's and 90's rock.

Gooblebrai 17d ago

This made me think of how dystopic would be a virtual reality with an algorithm that behaves like this to give the user more of what they pay attention to

compiler-guy 17d ago

It doesn't even have to be a pile of shit; it could be something that was interesting by itself, but that doesn't mean I want a deep dive. This happened to me with youtube and feral hog trapping. A two-minute video of that showed up in my feed, and yeah, it was interesting to see how and why it was done. But my feed was full of that for a long time, and even now, years later, one will pop up just desperately trying to get me to re-engage. It was interesting as a one off, not as a way of life.

pessimizer 17d ago

I'm astonished that the tactics are still so dumb. I buy a dining room table and forever after the site is recommending dining room tables.

chmod775 17d ago
My amazon front page is all about electric shavers, lamps, and various usb cables right now. I just bought all of that, why would I want more?
jjulius 17d ago
This is what most ads that seem to be "targeted ads" are for me. I buy a thing, and then two weeks later all of the targeted ads are for the thing I bought weeks ago and no longer need.

BuyMyBitcoins 17d ago

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I use a custom filter in uBlock Origin to hide the recommended sidebar in YouTube (all except the video of what’s next). Even so, there will occasionally be a video in search results with a topic that might be interesting from a channel I don’t normally watch. I’ve learned to right click and open the link in a private browsing window so that my search results (and that one remaining sidebar thumbnail) do not become poisoned by that one channel/topic. It’s insane that clicking on one video makes YouTube think that I’m now obsessed with that channel. And, it’s going to fixate on that for the next few weeks.

lifefeed 17d ago
That's another thing I'm tired of: manually managing the algorithm. Using private windows, on top of downvoting and hiding stuff I only wanted to see once. I like the "idea" of the algorithm, something that finds cool stuff for me. In practice it's just one more thing I have to keep a mental model of.

szidev 17d ago

In this same vein, the other day I pulled up a Crowded House station and Spotify's assumption was that I wanted to hear only Australian musicians, not that I wanted to listen to 80's and 90's rock.