←back to thread

Bluesky is ushering in a pick-your-own algorithm era of social media

(www.newscientist.com)
190 points amichail | 6 comments | 20 Nov 24 12:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.811s | source | bottom
Show context
giancarlostoro ◴[20 Nov 24 14:51 UTC] No.42194385[source]▶
I really dont understand why we cannot just go back to chronological as a default. This is how I use X/Twitter, and anything else that lets me just go chronological.
replies(15): >>42194402 #>>42194408 #>>42194410 #>>42194418 #>>42194422 #>>42194433 #>>42194454 #>>42194457 #>>42194459 #>>42194481 #>>42194542 #>>42194599 #>>42194719 #>>42194795 #>>42194821 #
coldpie ◴[20 Nov 24 14:56 UTC] No.42194418[source]▶
It's because the majority of users are being fed more content than they can consume, whether that's through a large count of follows or global search results or a discovery tab. In that case, you need some method by which to decide what subset of that content to show to the user. Chronological ("show me the latest 50") is one option, but is it the best, for however one defines "best"? The people running these things seem to think it is not the best, for however they define "best", so we see the various discovery algorithms and all their associated pros & cons.
replies(4): >>42194516 #>>42194822 #>>42194829 #>>42198436 #
1. johannes1234321 ◴[20 Nov 24 15:06 UTC] No.42194516[source]▶
> majority of users are being fed more content than they can consume

That is a group of users.

Another group of users follows only few active others and therefore sees only little content, but the platforms wants to show them something new all the time, to keep the platform "relevant" (in order to show more ads)

This then of course ignore the fact that they probably purposely follow only few.

replies(2): >>42194639 #>>42194877 #
2. MadcapJake ◴[20 Nov 24 15:20 UTC] No.42194639[source]▶
Clearly the service is not designed for people to only engage with a few folks, it's meant to be a zeitgeist firehose. If you're only following a few people it's like using a spreadsheet for tracking household frozen pizza inventory.
replies(2): >>42195068 #>>42195685 #
3. KoftaBob ◴[20 Nov 24 15:41 UTC] No.42194877[source]▶
> That is a group of users.

It's the majority of users. Those who "follows only few active others" are a very small subset.

replies(1): >>42195513 #
4. dpkonofa ◴[20 Nov 24 15:55 UTC] No.42195068[source]▶
This is a spot-on, although incredibly weird, analogy for it. It only works if you use it. You get out what you put in.
5. pessimizer ◴[20 Nov 24 16:27 UTC] No.42195513[source]▶
This is a result of the algorithm. It also forces people who would prefer to only be following updates from an intimately curated group to have to pick what they've explicitly taken the time to select out of a pile of crap.
6. yamazakiwi ◴[20 Nov 24 16:41 UTC] No.42195685[source]▶
The tool might be more sophisticated than you need but following only a few people is totally fine and should not be overrun with algo content just to promote ad revenue to the platform owner. Maybe the people you want to follow are only on said platform so you are required to consume it that way.