Kind of comes down to one of Neil Postman's questions
"Whose problem is it that it solves?"
It's possible to get some benefit from an algorithm/process, just as a
side effect, that was never designed to work in your interest and is
an opaque cloud service. Maybe the service is solving the network
owner's problem of selling you to advertisers. If you want to maximise
for "interest and relevance to my life goals" there's nothing to stop
you running your own "algorithm" of course, except any obstacles put
in your way by the data network owner. For that reason it's more
important to pay attention to the freedom of the network (open API,
federated, maximally distributed etc) than the algorithms that run on
it. If you control the former you control the latter. HN (the network)
seems to allow a lot from the plethora of viewers I've seen.
This seems like the perfect place to once again recommend "Amusing Ourselves To Death" :-)
I also read "Technopoly" recently, and while it didn't have quite the same impact on me, I can't deny that it accurately describes the techno-political moment we're currently living in. Well worth the time.
"Whose problem is it that it solves?"
It's possible to get some benefit from an algorithm/process, just as a side effect, that was never designed to work in your interest and is an opaque cloud service. Maybe the service is solving the network owner's problem of selling you to advertisers. If you want to maximise for "interest and relevance to my life goals" there's nothing to stop you running your own "algorithm" of course, except any obstacles put in your way by the data network owner. For that reason it's more important to pay attention to the freedom of the network (open API, federated, maximally distributed etc) than the algorithms that run on it. If you control the former you control the latter. HN (the network) seems to allow a lot from the plethora of viewers I've seen.