[marginalia_nu]

Serendipity is sadly an endangered experience with today's popularity algorithms. If every suggestion you see is based on what you and people with similar behavior as you are most likely to click, then what you get is a rut. The things you discover may be things you haven't seen before, but they can hardly be called new.

The beautiful thing about flipping through a magazine, or browsing a library, is that everyone gets the same options regardless of who they are. It allows me, someone who isn't into a particular thing, to discover that thing. To accidentally read something I wouldn't have thought I agreed with, and discover that they actually made a decent point.

I think these types of popularity algorithms are deeply problematic.