Clerks beat algorithms

The distinction the whole site turns on. A clerk who notices what you rented has one motive - you coming back. An algorithm optimising for watch time has yours, but it does not know what you rented. The second is not better at caring. It is better at correlating, and the human experience of the difference is the entire subject.

Application. One-sided attachment put to work on purpose. Creator economies, community, fandom as infrastructure, and the things that genuinely help people. Not automatically good - a tool with an obvious use is a tool that will also get a bad one.

Consideration. The part where somebody stops and thinks. The research, the diagnosis, the ethics, the lawsuits, the regulators. Roughly fifty years of arguing with itself about whether this is a relationship.