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Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#41

Post by doctorpangloss »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #35
Leftium wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Why is Amazon trying to sell me an X? I just bought an X. Idiots!” Amazon is not an idiot: > You need two insights here: > 1) Conditional probability is a mathematical technology that does exist. > 2) Buying X is not entirely random across the population. > The ways X is not random vary based on the good [math]. Consider refrigerators. > You probably buy one every ten years. If I don't know where you are in your ref…

That's kind of a dismissive way to say "maybe it's optimized for buyer's remorse or returns?" Maybe it is, but I'm not totally convinced. For one it doesn't explain why Amazon would recommend literally the same SKU so often. Also, does Amazon really want to incentivize returning large items like fridges? And the poker thing from the original post > People who are compensated strictly based on their ability to predict…

The reason is much simpler, Amazon is correctly optimizing for the person who buys like 10 scooters. This doesn’t sound rational but it’s the same principles as video game IAP. God rolls a 100 sided dice and if it’s a 1 or a 2, you’re born someone who just buys an absolutely ridiculous amount of stuff. These people are rare but the system is not wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#42

Post by morkalork »

alamortsubite wrote: post #31
JohnMakin wrote: post #9

Because the recommendations aren't for you - they are what generates the most amount of ad revenue for them, which roughly correlates to the amount of money advertisers are willing to spend to reach people like you. That is in no way a guarantee that the recommendations will be good for you, because the incentives are not aligned.

It's a tricky balance. The weaker the quality of recommendations, the more likely a user is to switch to another platform.

This falls apart when you look at platforms like Netflix. They recommend their original content because they don't pay royalties. The platforms aren't interchangeable though. If you want Disney movies, you aren't getting them anywhere else but Disney plus.

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#43

Post by bflesch »

Leftium wrote: post #22
behnamoh wrote: post #7

You buy a $1000 scooter from Amazon and then it keeps recommending to you other good scooters for months, even after the return window for the first one is closed. Yeah, you'd expect more from ML at this point. I wonder how much of ML research actually gets utilized in industry.

“Why is Amazon trying to sell me an X? I just bought an X. Idiots!” Amazon is not an idiot: > You need two insights here: > 1) Conditional probability is a mathematical technology that does exist. > 2) Buying X is not entirely random across the population. > The ways X is not random vary based on the good [math]. Consider refrigerators. > You probably buy one every ten years. If I don't know where you are in your ref…

I find this endless quoting of patio11 a bit exhausting, people just repost his ideas like it's some sort of religious artifact and eternal truth. He's a clever guy but I get a bit sceptical when a clever guy spends too much time writing clever thoughts instead of building nice things...

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#45

Post by lostruinsofraku »

I have found YouTube to be good, but it gives you exactly what you ask for. Its like a yes-man for better or worse (this seems to be extended to people who are making videos now, too). But, once you are aware of that, it is not so bad, you just have to search for and like the right stuff. I like new, low view count videos like people doing $hobby with no commentary. That is mostly what I get now mixed in with some other things that I like.

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#46

Post by bflesch »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #41
ants_everywhere wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of a dismissive way to say "maybe it's optimized for buyer's remorse or returns?" Maybe it is, but I'm not totally convinced. For one it doesn't explain why Amazon would recommend literally the same SKU so often. Also, does Amazon really want to incentivize returning large items like fridges? And the poker thing from the original post > People who are compensated strictly based on their ability to predict…

The reason is much simpler, Amazon is correctly optimizing for the person who buys like 10 scooters. This doesn’t sound rational but it’s the same principles as video game IAP. God rolls a 100 sided dice and if it’s a 1 or a 2, you’re born someone who just buys an absolutely ridiculous amount of stuff. These people are rare but the system is not wrong.

Sounds like the argument that social media is basically abusing mental illnesses and people with impulsive spending behaviors. Many of the "whales" in online gaming, gambling, shopping, etc. are people who YOLO their future away due to underlying illnesses, and the MINT people abuse it while telling themselves it's creating value for the customer.

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#47

Post by selcuka »

MivLives wrote: post #21

I think that the issue is that it's always assumed that similar things are a better recommendation. The issue is at least for myself and other people I've talked to about that a lot of times we're looking for something different from the last thing. For example if I spend a week listening to vintage surf rock the recommendations that could be given might be 60s pop, or more surf rock. But what actually I wanted was t…

> But what actually I wanted was to listen to experimental jazz with a retro funk twist on it. How could they anticipate that?

Supposedly ML should be able to figure that out, by monitoring millions of other people's listening habits. We are not as unique as we think we are. Apparently the models they use are not very good.

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#48

Post by bflesch »

gessha wrote: post #28
Leftium wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Why is Amazon trying to sell me an X? I just bought an X. Idiots!” Amazon is not an idiot: > You need two insights here: > 1) Conditional probability is a mathematical technology that does exist. > 2) Buying X is not entirely random across the population. > The ways X is not random vary based on the good [math]. Consider refrigerators. > You probably buy one every ten years. If I don't know where you are in your ref…

Amazon ARE idiots. So many people complain about this behavior of recommender systems and here comes Patrick dropping some math and saying: “Well, actually there’s this and this probability for this to happen”. Don’t piss on me and tell me that it’s raining. Before I make a purchase, especially online, I do my research and make a choice, that’s it. I’ve never returned anything online and I’ve never needed to buy a se…

I fully agree with you. It feels like a local maximum that at the same time repulses a lot of people from further shopping (like us) and then the engineers point at the data and say: "look at these probabilities, nobody else is buying anything" - yes, because we're upset with the unempathetic UX of your website and we closed the tab.

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#49

Post by atum47 »

Agenda. They want you to consume what they want. Have you tried using search on YouTube? First three results somewhat related to what you want, followed by a section of shorts and the rest is complete bullshit.

...and I'll never stop saying this: they have some sort of monetized recommendation system in place. Can't prove it but I can see it working almost every week. A video of a big company, "celebrity" or TV channel that I'd never watch, find it's way in my feed.

Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?

#50

Post by bflesch »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #23

It's weird but tiktok is the only one that seems to do a good job. Seriously. The tiktok recommendation algorithm is so good. And then for ads, instagram seems to be the only one that does a good job. I regularly get ads for things I actually want from instagram, never from any other platform.

You might reconsider your thoughts when you recognize the fact that TikTok's first priority is not to make money but to deliver pro-russian and pro-chinese propaganda messages into your brain.
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