> You have to stop after "as much as possible". Adding a "while still" makes it optimization, your value judgment doesn't get to determine what does and does no

> You have to stop after "as much as possible". Adding a "while still" makes it optimization, your value judgment doesn't get to determine what does and does not fit inside the "while still" of minimize. I'll try to simplify it. Imagine a function with dependent and independent variables. Choosing an independent variable so that the dependent variable is the minimum is minimizing. Imagine the plotting of the equation, we are still trying to be on the curve. That's what "as much as possible" means. You are saying minimizing has to be when that dependent variable is zero. That is only possible if the equation crosses the x axis. For our case, it doesn't because diminishing returns make that impossible. Hence my calling strawman. > You're splitting extremely fine hairs there The thing I've been trying to separate is not optimization and minimization because minimization is a particular type of optimization. I'm trying to distinguish what particular variable is given valence while solving the whole system of equations. Because in a case where two of those variables are correlated (user frustration & revenue), picking one over the other chooses different optima for both (optimizing for user frustration vs optimizing for revenue yields different optimum values for their correlated counter-parts; for revenue and user frustration respectively). I want to emphasize, these variables are not independent with respect to each other. So there is no simple "revenue is max and frustration is min" solution for which we could say "youtube should just optimize the whole thing". There is picking to be made and max revenue is picked over min frustration, always. Picking up on me using words "optimize" vs "minimize" for two different variables appears to me as further strawmanning. I don't ascribe malintent, but what we have been discussing has been irrelevant to the conclusion of the original post from the beginning.