Can the algorithm really understand you? Or can you make the algorithm understand you ? The question arose after watching a pod. I am not sure whether both are feasible or solvable problems.
For the first one, it is more about the system. What it is capable of seeing. One of the easiest pattern to study/understand/know the algorithm is that it gives more of what you react to.
For the second, it is more of question about oneself. What you can push through. There are things you want and there are things you react to. The algorithm doesn’t have access to the things you want unless you search for them or liked them on the internet. Unstated desires are not captured by it. The former part is what the algorithm is optimized for.
Each reaction (like, scroll, pause, watching the whole reel, staying on that post) is an input/preference to the algorithm and the feed get optimized accordingly. The algo assumingly concludes that’s who you are and what your preferences are. Now, can we manipulate the algo? Is it easy to fight against n number of techy people who are constantly working to keep you hooked into this ?
Not impossible but it is the hardest thing to do. Controlling/regulation your own triggers in the moment. To put this in simple terms, become Zen. The easier move is to like what you want to focus on. For example, liking the content about what you want to learn. It’s searching more and pruning harder. Deliberately not as a reflex. Or opt for things that have no feedback loop like books or conversation with people in person. Nothing gets optimized when there is no feedback.
So, it is possible to make the algorithm understand you but only by translating a want into a like (a language it reads), which is the trigger it understands.
On the flip side, the same asymmetry follows. As a creator, it is really hard to predict what might trigger consumers to get the content moving. One might stop the scroll and another might not. The only strategy that survives this unpredictability is the volume (as Gary Vee or Alex Hormozi says) inside a niche. Sometimes you can get fooled by a randomness (in a good way).
As a consumer, you can force a signal but as a creator, you just have to create until something sticks, rather than trying to make an algorithm understand you.
The system is such that triggers are cheap to measure and the wants are not. Friction is a metric for whether you are inside the optimized system or not.
Cheers
Check out the previous post: On the Way Out!
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