this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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All fair criticisms that I also hold.
Search and YouTube's ranking algorithm (and all the dimensions and weights/coefficients) are trade secrets and 99% of the company will never see for pretty good reasons. I never had access to them. I have discussed with multiple YouTube people that know the algorithm skewed towards bubbles for exactly the reasons you said: it is literally more engaging. My understandimg is it was the kind of unintentionally, institutional bias-type when you don't properly control for human psychology. The top line metrics get adjusted to try and compensate for these things in ways I am not too familiar with (for example changing the metric from "watched minutes" to "positive engagement" because Google does not want angry viewers). IMO they were too slow to respond and are definitely culpable in misinformation and radicalization in our culture. I was never in YouTube so I can't speak to it in any more specific terms.
Android I wholeheartedly agree, but to play the devil's advocate, I provide a lot of support for non-tech folks. They are constantly losing their email credentials, getting spyware/adware/malware, etc. There's a lot of cases of scams guiding people to allow third party apps and allowing permissions they should never be allowing. People are far too gullible and can't see warnings right in front of their eyes. I don't know that Android is improving it by locking down AOSP. I personally moved to GrapheneOS after leaving Google and I know it's not for everyone, but it's got some nice improvement. Google gets paid by phone companies to have play store and a bunch of services installed, and then Google pays back the companies to have their search as a default. The first part never really gets brought up, but phone companies could go without Google services. They just don't want to make the competitive investment. It's disappointing.
100%. Google could easily disallow specific uses of their systems. ANTIFA and anti-police state could be terms, but they don't. And Google is so freaking profitable, theres zero reason to cater to those business segments AT ALL. It would be a boon to their company image to actively NOT participate. So disappointing.