the youtube homepage shows you recommendations by using an algorithm to figure out what you might want to see.

it is effective, i will say. you just somehow get sucked in as you scroll through the recommendations feed, clicking on whatever thumbnail catches your eye.

it's worse with, say tiktok or yt shorts. you scroll, and a video immediately plays. you don't get to choose, you just keep watching the endless feed of short videos until your fingers or eyes get tired and you fall asleep. and i've seen this myself, it's horrible.

as with social media platforms such as reddit, where the default view (or the only view) consists of a that places content that takes up the entire screen.

these are made to pull you in, and the more time you spend looking at stuff on these big platforms, the more money they get, and the more time you waste.

which is why having your own feed of content (with rss or the like), not controlled by an algorithm, and just laid out in a compact list (like bear's discovery feed or old reddit's feed) is much better, honestly. you choose what you want to see, and when there's nothing new left to see, you close out of it and get on with your life. less time looking at random junk, more time to do better things!