My point wasn't to denigrate people for having poor taste or whatever. I don't care what people watch. And I'm not one to talk - I sometimes think of buying one of those McMansions from McMansion Hell.

But my point was that the systems are working as intended, and that there is no real failure here - people are seeing a reflection of their peers. It was hard for me to understand it until I saw how my Zoomer cousin watched Youtube like it was a TV station. Youtubers aren't "gaming" any sort of system, just like SEO isn't really "gaming" Google (for the most part) - they're both gaming people. SEO tricks work because it gets clicks. Clickbait titles have worked for 10+ years now because it STILL gets clicks.

>>> 99% of people have horrible taste in just about everything

> My point wasn't to denigrate people for having poor taste

These are directly contradictory. "horrible taste" is a denigrating term.

Perhaps he means "I don't denigrate people for having poor taste - because in my view, there's no such thing"