Yeah, this, User configurability. Moreover, Youtube became increasingly resistant to user configuration. And the discussion doesn't touch on user configuration

Yeah, this, User configurability. Moreover, Youtube became increasingly resistant to user configuration. And the discussion doesn't touch on user configuration. I'd say the reason is that there's been uniform switch across multiple platform to auto-recommender model. Why? Part may be bureaucracies assuming they need control, part is a "the average user is a total moron who can't configure and will just accept defaults anyway" consensus (not entirely false but not entirely true), part of it is the rise of machine learning makes having supposedly strong recommendation engine be equated with having value. And the situation with a completely unconfigurable recommendation is that they can't show people what they want. They can only show people "what people can be conditioned to like, what grabs some average more." Which is going to be polarizing content.