I used to believe this. I even created a recommendation algorithm / company that got acquired some years ago. I'm less sure today. Just as I do not think that high frequency trading firms are really providing value to society, I neither think that squeezing out a little bit more of a recommendation provides all that much more value either. We watch enough TV, and the best music wasn't brought to me via algorithm. I never would have discovered Emancipator via algorithm, I was too stuck in my own music bubble. Human interaction and human recommendation is nicer. I still listen to the recommended lists, but they rarely compete with simply hanging out with cool friends and seeing what they're listening to.
Agreed, which makes better curation all the more important - if there was enough time to watch more than a tiny fraction of what's out there then recommendation would matter less.
> I still listen to the recommended lists, but they rarely compete with simply hanging out with cool friends and seeing what they're listening to.
Doesn't that very fact prove that there's plenty of room for improvement in recommended lists?
> Doesn't that very fact prove that there's plenty of room for improvement in recommended lists?
No, this does not automatically follow, there could be other situations that provide the same given but don't lead to that conclusion. For example, the value of lists provided by friends could be a purely emotional one: The items on the list seem better because your friends love them, and you like them more because you can discuss them later.
Yeah. And it's also a bit like trying to read signal out of noise. Someone into a certain genre may grow into a different one for all sorts of reasons. I've been increasingly thinking that a true recommender system would require some sort of consciousness. Plus a recommendation from a friend usually comes with some sort of explanation of why its good and can be useful to push past reasons to dismiss it. For example, I hate most cop shows but I love The Wire. It took someone trusted saying "it's more of a social commentary on the dynamics of a crumbling American city" for me to really give it a shot.
> I do not think that high frequency trading firms are really providing value to society
Define "value to society"
I will start by saying that HFT firms employ people, gives them jobs, purpose, and most importantly, a pay check. This in turn generates tax revenue for any government and society. Your turn.
> HFT firms employ people, gives them jobs, purpose, and most importantly, a pay check. This in turn generates tax revenue for any government and society.
That's putting the cart before the horse. People get a sense of purpose and a paycheck from a job because jobs are generally providing value to society - the money ultimately comes from people who get value from what they do paying it. If the money is coming from a government regulation rather than because people actually want to buy what they're selling, it's a make-work scheme, not a business.
The sub-penny rule is, essentially, a tax on investors that is then handed to the winners of a mostly-meaningless competition. You could equally take the same tax on investors and hand the money to whoever dug the longest ditch (or whatever) and that would "employ people, gives them jobs, purpose, and most importantly, a pay check", but that wouldn't be contributing anything valuable to society either.
I don't have any particular antipathy towards HFT, so I will just note that organized crime does all of the above (though it notoriously under-reports its economic activity, and consequently underpays taxes on it.)
