> There's no notion of "nuance" in these systems and it just makes me think that they were only ever evaluated internally. The models might perform well when they're tested on all 1 billion YouTube users, but on an individual level they're really awful.
Well, that is all that really matters to them in the end, isn't it? A more accurate recommendation system might be better for many individuals but not drive engagement, whereas what they are going after may be lousy for the individual but drive more engagement overall. It's the classic playing to the lowest common denominator. Getting enough people to keep viewing ads is all that matters.
There has been an explosion of Fanta flavors and canned pasta sauce because they realized that optimizing for the median consumer is a lot worse than optimizing for a small handfull of cluster centroid users.
Recommender systems don't optimize for the median consumer though. They optimize for clusters, much as pasta sauces now do. That's why my recommendations probably include a lot more super smash Bros content than yours do.
Well, that is all that really matters to them in the end, isn't it? A more accurate recommendation system might be better for many individuals but not drive engagement, whereas what they are going after may be lousy for the individual but drive more engagement overall. It's the classic playing to the lowest common denominator. Getting enough people to keep viewing ads is all that matters.