Originally posted by @James Hamling:
Originally posted by @Justin R.:
Originally posted by @James Hamling:
@Ross Bowman you mention to seeing this more and more in your social media. There is some significant social media documentaries you need to go watch, pretty sure it was on Netflix. What your experiencing is literally by design, and it's how all social media is designed.
It started with a logical premise, that to gain in users, create algorithms that adjust content shown to users to be more of what the user "wants" to see and less of what they don't. The issue is it creates a feedback loop, that is the problem for us humans and society, not for the companies and their advertising dollars.
The programs read your engagement, at a level that would make most people gasp. Than it starts adjusting the content your seeing, when your seeing it, how your seeing it. And it tests your response to these changes, constantly refining to achieve their goal of your maximal engagement on platform.
Think of it this way, your just a digital cow, that's it that's all, a digital cow that social media is striving to find how to most efficiently milk you for ever increasing minutes and hours per day, until every second of your life is devoted unto their platform engaging, because that's how they make $$$$, via your engagement.
So in the end, it cares nothing for your self as a human person, your experience, growth nothing, it's about finding the perfect sound-chamber for you that keeps you pinging non-stop. So when you start engaging in REI Gurus, yup, it's gonna feed you more and more and MORE AND MORE until you go for something else. It's just feeding the cow to keep it on the milking floor.
People who are outside of the tech industry tend to see this issue as though these companies are trying to capture eyeballs so that they can serve up more ads - more ads equals more money. Money is what they're after. Evil companies.
I would suggest that folks leave room for a different point of view, which I've grown to appreciate after 15 years in the industry in the Product Management space. We (meaning, Product people in tech) start with a premise that personalized is better - it's better because it's more helpful, and helpful software leads to a more rich and full life. When we design software, we have to choose which signals to follow for that personalization - your previous behavior, or others' previous behavior. Others' behavior could be people that are likely to have similar proclivities to you, similar geography, similar age, ethnicity, buying habits, interests ... whatever. Likely, it's some combination of these, but the point is the same: we need data signals in order to improve software.
When we're creating fuzzy algorithms that use those signals, they need to be constantly measured in order to improve, so we also have to pick which measurements to use to determine how each algorithmic variation is evaluated - does it do better, or does it do worse? Or, more specifically, does the user like it, or does the user not. That is most easily measured with click rates; your click becomes a proxy for whether you like something. And, if you like something, it's likely you'll want more of it.
My point is this: While many people assume the bottom line drives the algorithm, in my experience the PRODUCT drives the algorithm. And, the success of the product is driven by the customer. At most (not all, but I'd argue all the big ones) tech companies, you solve the product first, then worry about the bottom line afterwards. That's the core of startup culture. Identify a problem, find a solution, prove your users want it, THEN figure out how to make money.
Saying that the user is a "digital cow" misses reality entirely, IMO. The user is the one in charge. They are the boss of the product. The product is only doing what the user wants. If you don't like what the product is doing, it's your fault -- you told it one thing, but you're expecting another. That's not logical. In fact, I'd argue, social media is purposefully designed to SERVE YOU as its master. Whatever it's doing, it's doing it because it's trying to please you.
Of course, the introduction of ads and intersection with the reality of needing to make money in order to provide the product complicates things, but at its core I don't think it wise to view oneself as the victim of anything.
I like this reply, and appreciate your explain what the tech industry people think, as a tech industry person, because you did a fantastic job of explaining just how many yards the cranial mass is logged up into the anal cavity of the tech industry persons when it comes to any form of reality or criticism on their tech.
The problem with the tech world is your all wrong, dead flat wrong. And it makes sense, because you yourselves live in an echo chamber, where all you hear and see is your own self-flagellation of how great you all are and how dependent the world is on your next pointless whatever. Social media is designed as an eco-chamber, fact. Eco-chambers are BAD for societies, people, countries, kids, Grandmas, for every human being with the 1 exception of the people who profit from them.
There has been countless sociological studies done over the decades of what happens to people in such eco-chamber environments, it ain't pretty, they tend to go all Lord Of The Flies and do every more crazy S#i%. We have a country that is literally at each others throats of the other person mentions R or D persons name, and each is convinced the other should be skinned alive for having done it and is absolutely certain they are just in it. It is well known this is in majority thanks to eco-chambers.
I have 0 doubt absolutely 0 of this will make sense, because you "know" that you are the center of the universe and that tech is the single most important thing to everyone and anyone, you just know this to be true, facebook is a religion in your world, twitter the holy sacrament, only a total nut-job wacko would dare challenge how holly the temple of tech is. I get it, your cultists, lol. But seriously, cultist, and I get how hard it is to break that programing. But try for just 1 hr to come out into the rest of the world and look around and answer 1 question, which is a safe, better, healthier more prosperous America, today 2021 the tech world, or 1991 before the tech obsession? Simple A-B question, which was factual better by the #'s.
It's so rare in my tech echo chamber that anyone disagrees with me that I almost got flustered on this rare occasion you disagreed with what I wrote. </s>
I'm not sure why you think I'm defending eco chambers or why you assume I view myself as the center of the universe - I can only assume that you're projecting things you think about a certain class of people onto someone you don't know based on one characteristic (that I've worked in tech) that they all have in common ... much like social media algorithms project which content someone will enjoy based on what "similar" people have enjoyed.
I'm not saying anything about eco chambers, nothing about the attitude of people who work in tech, nothing about the monetization on the business side, nothing about elitism or whatever else. What I am doing is challenging the notion that tech is primarily driven by hoarding profit.
My point was, again, that people shouldn't assume that the pursuit of profit drives the algorithm -- rather that the PRODUCT that people demand does. It's generally user-centric instead of profit-centric. I think one could logically argue that media companies (including media platforms like Facebook and Twitter) have a responsibility to the community and shouldn't always give users what they want most (as measured by how much they use the product). You could argue that Facebook's algorithms should force people to consume content that they don't want in order to reduce the echo chamber. I think there's potential danger there and the Libertarian in me doesn't like it, but I can see that POV. It's an interesting topic.
I'm providing a POV that most people don't see because I have experience being in that process and driving that process firsthand. The question, generally, is not "how can we make more money". It's "what problems can we solve?" I will confidently argue that tech isn't the cause of the problem. Our own human proclivities are the problem -- some of the tech we have is magnifying those human failings BECAUSE we as users have directed it that way. At times, it's definitely not helpful. But, the companies and people involved, whatever failings they have, aren't the evil ones. There is certainly a problem, but we should look internally at our behavior rather than blaming the problem on the tech we use.
On a personal note, you should understand that I was born and raised in a small town, with many of my formative childhood memories coming from the areas just outside the Twin Cities. I came pretty close to attending St Olaf College outside Mankato for college. Instead of building tech, now I build homes full time because I get more satisfaction from seeing people move into homes they never thought they'd have. You and I would probably share plenty in common if we met in real life. Projecting onto internet users we don't know in real life is a bad habit we should all strive to avoid.
