Comment by macNchz
7 days ago
The most fundamental difference 20 years ago was that online activity was diffused across many different sites, and there was no algorithmic content feed recommending an endless stream of new things. Finding a rabbithole or dark corner required some degree of chance or intentionality, whereas now they are formed around you automatically as one toe in the waters of a given topic prompts the machine to deliver it more frequently and more intensely to keep your attention and draw you deeper in. This is, I think, absolutely foundational to so many sociocultural issues of the present.
I think an even bigger difference is that there was no concept of users monetizing their own usage via advertising or a personal brand. People were in it purely for the love of the game, and maybe some imaginary internet points.
If you wanted to make money you might try hosting a community and monetizing it somehow, but the concept of building a digital following and using it to market products/services (and not be seen as spam or a sellout) simply did not exist.
I recently capitulated and started using real-name HN/reddit accounts because personal branding is not just common now, it's one of the main ways of reaching users.
It's easy to watch it happen. Just watch one youtube video that's outside your usual viewing subjects, and watch how your recommendations instantly change to try to suck you down a path on that new topic.
I have the opposite problem. Not sure which genius of youtube thought of it - but no matter how many times I reload it is always the same videos on the home page. Not taking any chances. yes there is a new for you, but if I haven't watched some videos for the last X hours, maybe the algorithm should take a chance with something random.
Just reloading won't help, you need to actively train the algorithm by telling it what videos you don't like and why. It also lets you stop showing recommendations from a given channel altogether. On Facebook I've trained the algorithm to never show me any ads because I keep marking every ad that pops up as irrelevant and then 'hide all ads from this advertiser', and by also not following any celebrity, corporate or brand pages.
I agree, if it's shown you something a few times, and you haven't watched it, replace that suggestion with something else.
Every few weeks I end up with a new video card with button that takes the place of the video and it asks if i want to see something other than what it usually recommends. It's not quite as out there as I'd like, but it did shake things up a bit.