Tired of Recommendation Engines ⇥ ethanmarcotte.com

Ethan Marcotte is tired of all the recommendations and suggestions in internet services. For the most part, I am, too. At the very least, I dislike how much they feel imposed or as a default, as though my use of most services should flow through the suggestions they provide.

Even calling them “suggestions” or “recommendations” feels a little bit generous for sites like YouTube — where continuous playback to an automatically selected video is on by default — or Instagram, where algorithmically selected posts can only be “snoozed” from the timeline for thirty days at a time before they are automatically re-enabled.

It should not be so difficult for me to simply look at things I want to see and, just as importantly, not see things I do not want to look at.