Fatbobman’s Swift Weekly #059 | “Recommended for You” or “Recommended for Traffic”
Weekly Comment
“Recommended for You” or “Recommended for Traffic”
“Why are these annoying articles or short videos always being recommended? How can I block them?” This is a question my father has been asking frequently lately. Even though I’ve taught him some technical methods (like choosing to reduce similar recommendations or blocking specific accounts), the reality is that once a user’s “profile” is formed, it often takes a considerable amount of time to see any changes in the recommended content. This highlights a brutal truth: in the world of algorithmic recommendations, the weight of user choices is far less than imagined; the platform’s pursuit of traffic is the fundamental driving force. Under this logic, even traffic generated by negative emotions is still traffic, and “haters” are also an important part of big data algorithms.
I first encountered the concept of “data mining” nearly thirty years ago. At that time, a friend of mine was working in IT management at Mars Foods, and he showed me how data mining was applied in enterprise settings. Every day, hundreds of employees manually recorded sales data of products in major supermarkets nationwide — including types, quantities, display positions, and other information. These valuable…
