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I wouldn't necessarily call it that. IMO, it's mostly about juicing discovery. There's more content than any one person could ever consume, and a limited attent

I wouldn't necessarily call it that. IMO, it's mostly about juicing discovery. There's more content than any one person could ever consume, and a limited attention economy. Basically, they find what they believe is good content, and bring it to the foreground. If there's no audience for it, it won't build a following and just fall on it's face. If it takes off, they have to capitalize on the momentum and produce content to stay in the spotlight.

haltist 3y ago
Most digital content converges onto optimized spam because that's what grabs the most attention on any given platform. Spam is basically an algorithmic exploit which is the main reason for why delegating decisions about what should be worthy of attention to commercial algorithms designed to optimize advertising revenue is not a great idea. The overall effect is detrimental because it trains people to stop caring about what is fact vs social fiction (e.g. conspiracy theories). Lots of folks have written about the detrimental effects of revenue optimizing statistical algorithms and their use in social media. For anyone who wants to learn about this I recommend Jaron Lanier's book. He does a good job of explaining the reasons for not delegating one's choices to social media algorithms. Edit: the above comment is AI approved. Pasting the response from claude.ai for posterity. You raise some thoughtful points about the problems with algorithmic content optimization in social media and digital platforms. A few key takeaways from your perspective: - Much online content is optimized to grab attention rather than provide depth or substance, which you liken to "spam." This is driven by algorithms designed to maximize engagement and ad revenue. - Over-reliance on these algorithms can train people to care less about facts vs fiction/conspiracies. It promotes shallow thinking and engagement over meaningful discourse. - Many experts, like Jaron Lanier, have warned about giving too much influence over to revenue-driven algorithms in determining what people see and engage with online. - There are real risks and downsides to letting algorithms choose our information diets. It can promote conspiracy theories, erode critical thinking, and undermine a shared sense of truth/reality. - You advise more conscious thought about how we interact with algorithmically-optimized content, and highlighting writers like Lanier who provide deeper analysis of these issues. I think you summarize the challenges very well. It's an important discussion as more of our information and interactions move onto digitally-mediated platforms. There are no easy answers, but being aware of the risks and downsides is a good first step.
- cookie_monsta 3y ago
  > the above comment is AI approved I hope I live to see the day when this actually means something
  - haltist 3y ago
    The simplest examples are social media algorithms. The content shown to users is vetted and approved by the ML models to optimize engagement and advertising revenue.
    - cookie_monsta 3y ago
      Great, but using it to fact check your own comments on HN? When will that become viable?
      - haltist 3y ago
        Every AI service has an API so it would be easy to write a driver for a headless comment bot that checks comments with AI and then replies or updates a comment based on the API results. I think bots are against the rules on HN but the implementation would be very easy if the bot didn't get banned.
- DistractionRect 3y ago
  I find this less under spam, and more under product placement. Like how people often drink water in a movie, why not it be a real brand? Do they drive cars, why not a Prius? If gym tiktoks are going to have an intro/background music, what's so bad about it being Toxic? It's supplementing content and supports other creators (paid for the product placement). It only works if people care enough to look up the product that was placed. Personally, I find product placement//sponsored by spots the most benign and acceptable form of advertising.
akira2501 3y ago
That's why I highlighted that quote. I see it as a suggestion that he can take someone with negative presence currently and with no drive for it into social media fame by merely applying this formula, and that part of this formula would be repeating the same step for new recruits. Perhaps it's just the way his marketing bluster read into the article, but it suggests he's not concerned with the market forces you're invoking, and so I immediately saw a large pyramidal structure when I read that particular line.
- gtvwill 3y ago
  By formula you mean bot farm...
- simonw 3y ago
  That feels to me more like a network effect than a pyramid scheme: help your talent out by having them collaborate with each other.
- escapedmoose 3y ago
  That seemed resolved by the end of the article, by the admission that this guy sometimes has 9 bad ideas in a row and the 10th is a winner. The highlighted example was one of the bad ideas, but it illustrates generally how the promotion process works
- kbenson 3y ago
  Using a network or community of people to promote each other is not a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme would be if he took profits from those new people to somehow pay the old people. This is actually the opposite of that, where he's getting time and effort from established people to boost new people. It's functionally no different than having a friend in an industry that gives you a shout out when you start a new venture, except you're opting into a group of people all doing this to help each other. It's nothing new, and nothing problematic IMO, and it's been going on for hundreds of years at least, and possibly thousands.
adolph 3y ago
> a limited attention economy It would be ironic if the content they generate is shortening attention spans, thus making the overall economy smaller.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Except it's all effectively a self-referential loop of fake, empty content that pretends to be of high quality, but exists and is invested in only to promote other such fake, empty content. They pump energy into the loop to grow it - which incidentally displaces all topically adjacent but authentic and useful works - and grow it until it becomes self-sustaining. The only reason this is done, the only way this actually benefits the people involved in this scheme, the only reason they do this, is because companies pay for getting themselves attached to the content in the loop. It's all just a more concealed form of advertising. Any value the content in question has is entirely incidental, and quickly optimized away.

haltist 3y ago

Most digital content converges onto optimized spam because that's what grabs the most attention on any given platform. Spam is basically an algorithmic exploit which is the main reason for why delegating decisions about what should be worthy of attention to commercial algorithms designed to optimize advertising revenue is not a great idea. The overall effect is detrimental because it trains people to stop caring about what is fact vs social fiction (e.g. conspiracy theories). Lots of folks have written about the detrimental effects of revenue optimizing statistical algorithms and their use in social media. For anyone who wants to learn about this I recommend Jaron Lanier's book. He does a good job of explaining the reasons for not delegating one's choices to social media algorithms. Edit: the above comment is AI approved. Pasting the response from claude.ai for posterity. You raise some thoughtful points about the problems with algorithmic content optimization in social media and digital platforms. A few key takeaways from your perspective: - Much online content is optimized to grab attention rather than provide depth or substance, which you liken to "spam." This is driven by algorithms designed to maximize engagement and ad revenue. - Over-reliance on these algorithms can train people to care less about facts vs fiction/conspiracies. It promotes shallow thinking and engagement over meaningful discourse. - Many experts, like Jaron Lanier, have warned about giving too much influence over to revenue-driven algorithms in determining what people see and engage with online. - There are real risks and downsides to letting algorithms choose our information diets. It can promote conspiracy theories, erode critical thinking, and undermine a shared sense of truth/reality. - You advise more conscious thought about how we interact with algorithmically-optimized content, and highlighting writers like Lanier who provide deeper analysis of these issues. I think you summarize the challenges very well. It's an important discussion as more of our information and interactions move onto digitally-mediated platforms. There are no easy answers, but being aware of the risks and downsides is a good first step.

cookie_monsta 3y ago
> the above comment is AI approved I hope I live to see the day when this actually means something
- haltist 3y ago
  The simplest examples are social media algorithms. The content shown to users is vetted and approved by the ML models to optimize engagement and advertising revenue.
  - cookie_monsta 3y ago
    Great, but using it to fact check your own comments on HN? When will that become viable?
    - haltist 3y ago
      Every AI service has an API so it would be easy to write a driver for a headless comment bot that checks comments with AI and then replies or updates a comment based on the API results. I think bots are against the rules on HN but the implementation would be very easy if the bot didn't get banned.
DistractionRect 3y ago
I find this less under spam, and more under product placement. Like how people often drink water in a movie, why not it be a real brand? Do they drive cars, why not a Prius? If gym tiktoks are going to have an intro/background music, what's so bad about it being Toxic? It's supplementing content and supports other creators (paid for the product placement). It only works if people care enough to look up the product that was placed. Personally, I find product placement//sponsored by spots the most benign and acceptable form of advertising.

akira2501 3y ago

That's why I highlighted that quote. I see it as a suggestion that he can take someone with negative presence currently and with no drive for it into social media fame by merely applying this formula, and that part of this formula would be repeating the same step for new recruits. Perhaps it's just the way his marketing bluster read into the article, but it suggests he's not concerned with the market forces you're invoking, and so I immediately saw a large pyramidal structure when I read that particular line.

gtvwill 3y ago
By formula you mean bot farm...
simonw 3y ago
That feels to me more like a network effect than a pyramid scheme: help your talent out by having them collaborate with each other.
escapedmoose 3y ago
That seemed resolved by the end of the article, by the admission that this guy sometimes has 9 bad ideas in a row and the 10th is a winner. The highlighted example was one of the bad ideas, but it illustrates generally how the promotion process works
kbenson 3y ago
Using a network or community of people to promote each other is not a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme would be if he took profits from those new people to somehow pay the old people. This is actually the opposite of that, where he's getting time and effort from established people to boost new people. It's functionally no different than having a friend in an industry that gives you a shout out when you start a new venture, except you're opting into a group of people all doing this to help each other. It's nothing new, and nothing problematic IMO, and it's been going on for hundreds of years at least, and possibly thousands.

adolph 3y ago

> a limited attention economy It would be ironic if the content they generate is shortening attention spans, thus making the overall economy smaller.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Except it's all effectively a self-referential loop of fake, empty content that pretends to be of high quality, but exists and is invested in only to promote other such fake, empty content. They pump energy into the loop to grow it - which incidentally displaces all topically adjacent but authentic and useful works - and grow it until it becomes self-sustaining. The only reason this is done, the only way this actually benefits the people involved in this scheme, the only reason they do this, is because companies pay for getting themselves attached to the content in the loop. It's all just a more concealed form of advertising. Any value the content in question has is entirely incidental, and quickly optimized away.