| For anecdote's sake, I: - frequently click through on Facebook ads because they're often SaaS products I'd be interested in (and have found a bunch of cool tools I use now) - think my Spotify suggestions are spot-on. I used to use Google Music which had comparable suggestion qualities at the time, but I feel like Spotify has gotten significantly better at suggestions over the past year-ish. - think YouTube is the shining example of controllable recommendation systems. Looking at my front page right now, I'm interested in all 8 of the videos above the fold, and almost every video below it -- probably a direct result from actively guiding/curating what videos get recommended to me. My "to watch" queue is hundreds of videos long since I almost always add more and more videos until I get the time to sit down and watch a chunk, which usually turns into a positive feedback loop of more good videos getting recommended. All three of the above recommendation systems make me enjoy the related product more than I would without them, and probably also directly lead to more revenue for the company (sales on FB, keeping my Spotify sub, and seeing more YT ads). On the other end of the spectrum, posts on FB and Quora are two examples where recommendation systems seem to make products significantly worse, so I guess it's hit or miss depending on whether what you want out of each product aligns with how the recommendation systems are set up. |
Youtube is the worst. I have all the time to open videos (and think about it!) in private tab so that my recommendations don't get messed up. And then of course on phone you don't have that luxury so you have to go clean history manually. And now they added two interstitials before you can actually view video in private.
Shining example indeed