One issue with this is that it feels like recommendation algorithms made us stuck in local minima and don’t let us evolve further
The state of the Internet in a nutshell: For 2.5 years, whenever I published a video on YouTube, I'd come up with a bespoke title / thumbnail that accurately described what the conversation was about.
Then, during the summer, my view count fell. Nothing worked until I found a formula: "How to Write ________ Well."
Always the same text. Throw an adverb in the middle, then share a quote from the interview in the thumbnail. People are 0.5% - 1% more likely to click on that title format, so the channel has exploded in growth.
This title format is worse for my viewers and soul-deadening for me, but it's leading to so many more views that I'd be crazy not to follow it — and people are significantly more likely to click on videos with the formulaic title.
This isn't just a story about YouTube. So much of the Internet works like this now.