By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026Computer scientists have long understood that focusing on exploitation to the exclusion of exploration is a trap that locks you into "the first decent option" so you can never discover the best one. 72/ 1544
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026Which means that this algorithmic homogeneity has a well-understood corrective: "forcing exploration back in." The problem is that markets *hate* this kind of exploration. 73/ 1503
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026A company that lives and dies by how many clicks it gets is never going to sacrifice 20% of its traffic by showing its users weird, untested options that score worse than the median because these weird things have never had a chance to prove that they are desirable. 74/ 2471
