> When it comes to the most central tenet of individualism — free will — the tech companies have a different way. They hope to automate the choices, both large and small, we make as we float through the day. It’s their algorithms that suggest the news we read, the goods we buy, the paths we travel, the friends we invite into our circles.

I recently quit Google News for this. Despite my best efforts at customization using the limited controls that it provided, it insisted on feeding me stories for sources I'd turned off (but were obviously preferred by Google News), and not from sources that I'd prioritized. Sure, it'd put some stuff in from the prioritized sources, but there was an obvious pattern of using Google's preferred cadre of media outlets for certain major stories, even when one of my preferred sources had an article on the same story. I would liken trying to customize Google News to herding cats.