This is an inversion of how human behavior works. The reality is that a context is created, either intentionally or not, and then people behave in the context.

This is an inversion of how human behavior works. The reality is that a context is created, either intentionally or not, and then people behave in the context. I commented on this phenomena 4 months ago in a different thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184653) and 7 months ago somewhere else (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28972157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28972157) Quoting one of them > So you treat users like idiots and then they start acting like idiots. It really does work that way. > Let me give an intuitive analogy for those unconvinced. We're going to use a gym, library, and bar. The same person would be exercising, studying, and drinking at those institutions, in specifically that order. > We shape the buildings (create the context); thereafter they shape us. > It's the difference between say assuming your customers are alcoholics and then building a bar and saying "it is of public benefit, profitable to our company, whatever, if our users studied so let us make a library and they will rise to the occasion". so "Recommendation systems just mirror what the users watch" is not a complete statement. It's "Recommendation systems just mirror what the users watch in the <built context of the site>" The same users on youtube, kahn academy, twitch, and xtube will follow dramatically different paths because the products are just slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. They are castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination as Fred Brooks said, true. But they do amount to a concrete form and context and it does meaningfully influence behavior. The system encourages the bad behavior. The context is what makes it "natural" - it doesn't have to be that way.