Comment by idle_zealot
5 days ago
It's all about who controls the algorithm. A sensible approach would be to decouple recommendations from platforms, to treat them like plug-ins that the user must be allowed to add or disable. You want to use YouTube's recommendation algorithm on YouTube? Great, but there needs to be an off-switch and a way to change over to another provider. This is classic anti-trust stuff, breaking up a sector into interoperable pieces.
The anti-trust argument doesn't work for me. Neither Youtube nor any other single platform represent a "sector" in the way Standard Oil or Ma Bell represented a "sector", they don't "control the algorithm" in any sense beyond implementing code on their site. Certainly not in the way that a monopoly preventing other entities from competing against it by controlling access to some physical resource. Other video hosting sites besides Youtube exist, other social media platforms exist, so competition exists.
And besides, what's likely to happen is that you'll only have a few "algorithm providers" controlling access the entire web which only centralizes it even more.