It, unsurprisingly, has a history of _lots_ of different things, you'll be shocked about how much Google knows about you. Probably things you yourself have forgotten.
- search is neutered/broken, so finding new interesting videos is a chore
- recommendations need to be manually combed regularly to remove dumb videos
- watch history also needs to be combed to remove potential false signals
That's a lot of curation to get somewhat decent recommendations. Not saying we have a choice, it's not like Vimeo will make a comeback to save us, but that's a pretty bad place we're in.
Now consistently I get adverts from Facebook for that same product from other scammers, no matter how much I block them. Presumably because that advert 'engaged' me for the longest. Eugh.
Incidentally, ASA responded that it was not a UK company ... which sounds like "we don't care about scam advertising we're just here for the paycheck". The company were advertising on UK Facebook and held a UK registered trade mark.
• I've conceded that adverts are going to show up in my feed regardless and most advertisers can't be bothered to target properly so are mostly irrelevant
• I take great pleasure in "engaging" with the obvious scams and shitty crypto/NFT ads in the hope it's eating their ad budget
• this makes the adverts I see extremely irrelevant in a reinforced feedback loop
It seems like the problem of asymmetry in recommendation platforms is more a choice from a design perspective than a challenge yet to be figured out.
I'm far from an expert tho so just a thought from a laymen
For them to sell user experience they'd need to have competition breathing down their necks first
But there was a time where it seemed like it could be what the people deserved, even if it was just teenage optimism lol