Comment by andrewclunn

I recall when YouTube used to refine the "best answer" to a question based on distributed popularity. Ask it, "How do I screw in a lightbulb?" and the video at the top would be one which had received numerous views and likes, crowdsourcing its usefulness in answering the question. Then the algorithm was changed to prioritize more recent videos. This gave rise to the churn of the novel and new over the time tested and approved. This was better for ads, but worse for users. One cannot expect the ad driven model NOT to have an impact on usability.