[cratermoon]

A friend of mine who frequents recipe sites pointed out to me once how often the comments are some variation of "I made this except I didn't have any X, Y, or Z so I used M, N, and O", which is great for them but it doesn't really tell you if the recipe, as written, is any good.

[phlakaton]

But is great for exploring the “solution space” of what variants people have tried and preferred.

[cratermoon]

I suspect the recipe sites care about comments and other user-generate stuff because that's how they track "engagement" and collect data to feed into their SEO/ad targeting/sales pipeline.

[cratermoon]

Yes, unless the recipe called for sugar and the "chef" who tried it was clueless and subbed something dumb like sweet curry powder and then complained the recipe sucked.