3 ms·
Your point about the distribution costs is true, but platforms have a huge role in shaping those costs. If they encouraged curation/filtering, the distribution
by ssivark 7y ago
Your point about the distribution costs is true, but platforms have a huge role in shaping those costs. If they encouraged curation/filtering, the distribution costs of unwelcome content would increase. But platforms want to flood people with content for two reasons:
1. Induce people to linger longer, thereby increasing “engagement”.
2. Insert promoted content (ads) into the deluge such that they become hard to filter out.
So sharing/dissemination platforms deserve as much of the blame as any other factor.
- svara 7y agoTrue, but you're expecting the platforms to behave honorably and not in the way that maximizes their profits. My point is the platforms' business model is a consequence of the economics of online information distribution. Or to put it differently: anyone is free to create a competing platform that only hosts "high quality" content, but it seems no one has found out how to make that work on a large scale so far.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThat's a good reason to regulate some of these practices out of existence. As you say, what happens today is a natural low point in the landscape of online information distribution; the only way to raise it is to reconfigure the landscape.