> 1. The Reels algorithm is simplistic as fuck. I was scrolling through Instagram recently and a three reel “ad” came up. I accidentally tapped on the center one and it turned out to be a pimple popping video. Now every reel I see is that. No exceptions. I am sure if I actually watched more Reels I would get better content but that’s work.
OMG this... a million times this :/. YouTube has similar issues--where you watch one video from some sitcom or cartoon not because it was from that particular show but because it happened to be about something interesting and suddenly YouTube is SURE you LOVE that show and want EVERYTHING IT HAS about that show--but it isn't quite so bad as Instagram, where I've heard a ton of stories about ending up pigeonholed by its algorithm into something they have a phobia for or past trauma related to, and now they are afraid to use the app, because it really does feel like you click on one pimple popping video (which has come up as the SPECIFIC issue for MULTIPLE people I've talked to, INCLUDING MYSELF a while ago) and BAM the app is now nothing but pimples being popped, 24/7.
It's the dreaded "more of the same shit" algorithm that people confuse with deep learning and AI. The sad reality is that recommendation teams in these companies maintain some ugly gobbled together if .. else logic rather than a proper recommendation engine. Proper recommendation engines are hard. That's why recommendations change dramatically if you just use a vpn or travel. The IP address based geo location trumps everything else they might know about you. That's because there's a big if else around whatever other logic they have.
Add promoted content/ads to the mix that they are paid to promote and you end up with a mix of content that is primarily based on where you are, what they want to pimp in that region, and more of the same shit you were clicking on anyway; more or less in that order. The exact same shit quite often actually. Even filtering that out seems hard.
They are incentivized by ad clicks, not by your amusement. That's the business mistake that allows Tiktok to prosper because they are still trying to grow at the expense of their competition which means that they are in fact incentivized by your amusement as observed through your addictive behavior in the form of content clicks.
Instagram was like that once. And then Facebook bought them and started messing it up. Facebook was once like that until Facebook became an advertising company. The mistake that gets made over and over again in this space is that at some point they think they've won and start milking their network for revenue. The process of doing that destroys and erodes that network and something else pops up that is more interesting for users.
Tik Tok is doomed to go there too. Just a matter of time. It's irresistible for shareholders and advertisers. They'll get dollar signs in their eyes and they'll mess it up.
>It's the dreaded "more of the same shit" algorithm
This problem of not-enough-novelty in YouTube's recommendations is exactly why I am working on a team to develop alternative YouTube recommendations. Search a channel name to get a list of similar channels.
As an example: our recommendations for Tesla's channel includes James Locke, a small channel (~10k subscribers) with a researcher working on Full Self Driving for Tesla vehicles. There are also dozens of Tesla driving, electrification, and investing channels along with channels for some of Musk's other companies like The Boring Company on the list:
Recommendations are hard in general, if at all possible in a meaningful way.
Idk why everyone is so focused on feeding a user from a spoon when they are adult and can explore by themselves. Just give them the option to explore North-West instead of a stupid slit facing 312° which they accidentally picked as an initial direction.
I’ve always wondered why they are so bad at learning such an obvious lesson from their supposed biggest threat. TikTok seems to always mix it up; even if you do actually want to watch pimple popping 24/7, they seem to throw in some totally unrelated thing once in a while. Turns out people easily find things they didn’t even know they would enjoy this way, and when they have many interests, their feeds are way more engaging.
What’s so hard about randomizing 10-20% of the time?
TikTok seems the only one who actually put thought about it, because that's exactly the beef I have with Spotify as well. You play a "song radio" and find a new song so you move to that other song radio but only to get exactly the same list maybe shuffled a bit. Somehow they create bubbles of content and that's it, no way out. At least on Spotify you can change bubbles, while on YouTube good luck.
> you watch one video from some sitcom or cartoon not because it was from that particular show but because it happened to be about something interesting and suddenly YouTube is SURE you LOVE that show and want EVERYTHING IT HAS about that show
Extremely relevant Ryan George Youtube skit about this[1]. Once you click it, Youtube will probably want to show you nothing but Ryan George videos, but that's not a bad thing.
I actually used this accidentally to my advantage on Insta. I accidentally clicked on a fashion ad and now EVERY ad is fashion-something, which is the last thing I would ever care about.
Now I can easily spot any ad instantly because Insta is too stupid to realize NOTHING else I interact with has to do with fashion but because of that one time a year ago, they keep trying and I can quickly skip it.
I had one of those crop up in the reels carousel and freaked out because I very nearly tapped it by accident because there's no way to undo algorithm views on IG*
I'm as disgusted with the managers who think it's ok to push that content to people as I am with the content itself.
* FYI on YouTube I've had decent success correcting the algorithm if you go in and remove the video that started it from your watch history.
The reason I haven't deleted Instagram yet is because the algorithm is so bad it's as if there isn't one at all. It makes it much easier to break the dopamine cycle and not feel addicted. I spend half my time on there telling it that I don't like what it's showing me and I still get the same crap in my feed over and over.
OMG this... a million times this :/. YouTube has similar issues--where you watch one video from some sitcom or cartoon not because it was from that particular show but because it happened to be about something interesting and suddenly YouTube is SURE you LOVE that show and want EVERYTHING IT HAS about that show--but it isn't quite so bad as Instagram, where I've heard a ton of stories about ending up pigeonholed by its algorithm into something they have a phobia for or past trauma related to, and now they are afraid to use the app, because it really does feel like you click on one pimple popping video (which has come up as the SPECIFIC issue for MULTIPLE people I've talked to, INCLUDING MYSELF a while ago) and BAM the app is now nothing but pimples being popped, 24/7.