I think many platforms optimise for interactions, with no regard for whether they are positive or negative.
As a result, I often find myself closing youtube tab because there is not only nothing to watch, but nothing to scroll through even. On a platform with billions of videos, at least thousands of which I might like to watch if given a chance. I find this incredibly stupid.
Same for google search, really. It turned from “I’ll find you that if it exists” into “Look, if you change your query to ‘cool products if at all barely relevant to …’, I have literally billions of results for that”.
This made internet completely unusable for discovery. A big shiny window into another tiny room. Absolute BS.
Recently I discussed it here on HN and was advised to like, dislike, subscribe and so on on youtube (things I rarely have done on my old account) to break out of this bubble. Well, it doesn’t work. It just suggests the content I immediately dislike or ban entire channels and it all settles to the same echo chamber as before.