I really enjoyed reading this Hicham! I haven’t seen a comparable breakdown of the move to the recommendation engine and options to if not phase it out, provide a reasonable option for people to opt out. I hadn’t thought about how the move to using phone numbers to build an apps social community effected Facebook, but I can see it. Particularly now that I know so many young people are on apps like Discord. Great essay!
Thanks Michelle. Even older platforms like YouTube are a gold mine of great content that is buried under and becomes almost inexistent. I would happily pay a separate monthly subscription to have an independent recommendation engine than I can customize to show me what I want. But platforms will never open that option on their own, unless they are forced to by the government.
Very interesting. The interest graph model seems to grow more and more "superior" to the social graph when it comes to create addiction to content. Just look at TikTok. If so, the big ad based platforms will probably shift totally to interest graph based algorithms. What I think is particularly interesting is how the polarizing effects from the social graph will change with the interest graph. If the algorithms, instead of feeding you with content from your network of like minded, start to feed you according to your revealed preferences (clicks, web behavior) what will happen then? Will the balkanization increase or decrease and in what dimensions?
I really enjoyed reading this Hicham! I haven’t seen a comparable breakdown of the move to the recommendation engine and options to if not phase it out, provide a reasonable option for people to opt out. I hadn’t thought about how the move to using phone numbers to build an apps social community effected Facebook, but I can see it. Particularly now that I know so many young people are on apps like Discord. Great essay!
Thanks Michelle. Even older platforms like YouTube are a gold mine of great content that is buried under and becomes almost inexistent. I would happily pay a separate monthly subscription to have an independent recommendation engine than I can customize to show me what I want. But platforms will never open that option on their own, unless they are forced to by the government.
Very interesting. The interest graph model seems to grow more and more "superior" to the social graph when it comes to create addiction to content. Just look at TikTok. If so, the big ad based platforms will probably shift totally to interest graph based algorithms. What I think is particularly interesting is how the polarizing effects from the social graph will change with the interest graph. If the algorithms, instead of feeding you with content from your network of like minded, start to feed you according to your revealed preferences (clicks, web behavior) what will happen then? Will the balkanization increase or decrease and in what dimensions?