[p2p-research] recommender systems lead to monopoly populism

Sat Nov 7 17:57:35 CET 2009

THANK YOU sam, enlightening as always, I'll publish it on the 12th,

Michel

 « How the internet reshapes healthcare and
e-patients<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/how-the-internet-reshapes-healthcare-and-e-patients/2009/11/07>

Is the long tail being undermined by an online monoculture that is ‘worse
than mass media’? <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=5802>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]
Michel Bauwens
7th November 2009

 Whenever I make these claims someone says “Well I use Netflix and it’s
shown me all kinds of films I didn’t know about before. It’s broadened my
experience, so that’s an increase in diversity.” And someone else points to
the latest viral home video on YouTube as evidence of niche success. So this
post explains why your gut feel is wrong.

As indicated above, *Tom Slee* wants to
show<http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2009/03/online-monoculture-and-the-end-of-the-niche.html>that
the long tail hypothesis is undermined by recommender systems. Even
though individuals may feel they have more choice, in actual reality, there
is a process of maintreaming choice going on.

To argue the case, Tom refers to the following:

* *a paper by Daniel M. Fleder and Kartik Hosanagar called Blockbuster
Culture’s Next Rise or Fall: The Impact of Recommender Systems on Sales
Diversity. They simulate a number of different kinds of recommender system
and look at how these systems affect the diversity of a set of choices.
Towards the end of the paper they observe that some of their recommender
systems increase the experience of diversity for every individual in the
sample and yet decrease the overall diversity of the culture. So I wrote a
program that does basically what they do in their paper and tweaked it to
highlight this result.*

* Tom also undertakes his own simulation exercise, which confirms the above
findings.

His rather *strong conclusion*:

*“Online merchants such as Amazon, iTunes and Netflix may stock more items
than your local book, CD, or video store, but they are no friend to “niche
culture”. Internet sharing mechanisms such as YouTube and Google PageRank,
which distil the clicks of millions of people into recommendations, may also
be promoting an online monoculture. Even word of mouth recommendations such
as blogging links may exert a homogenizing pressure and lead to an online
culture that is less democratic and less equitable, than offline culture.*

*Individual diversity and cultural homogeneity coexisting in what we might
call monopoly populism.*

*But don’t think this is just about automated recommender systems, like the
ones that Amazon and Netflix use. The recommender “system” could be anything
that tends to build on its own popularity, including word of mouth. A couple
of weeks ago someone pointed me to this video of Madin, a six-year-old
soccer prodigy from Algeria, and the next day my son, who moves in very
different online circles to me, was watching the same one. I know who Jim
Cramer is even though we don’t get CNBC in Canada because everyone is
talking about him and helping his disembodied head to shoot down Jon
Stewart. More people watched Tina Fey being Sarah Palin online than on
Saturday Night Live, and Fey is now famous in countries where no one watches
the TV show. Clay Shirky writes an essay and I get five different links to
it in my Google Reader feed in one morning. Our online experiences are
heavily correlated, and we end up with monopoly populism.*

*A “niche”, remember, is a protected and hidden recess or cranny, not just
another row in a big database. Ecological niches need protection from the
surrounding harsh environment if they are to thrive. Simply putting lots of
music into a single online iTunes store is no recipe for a broad,
niche-friendly culture.”*

We asked *Sam Rose* to answer this challenge:

*“I don’t think that this article argues that the longtail is an illusion
everywhere. I think it shows that the “longest” parts of the “longtail” are
the most difficult to see. A one-person niche doesn’t spread around online
like a virus. I think the article argues that the “longtail” may be an
illusion in places that are trying to foment a monoculture to drive sales
(like Amazon). Actually, Amazon tries to tie popular monoculture to “niche”
sales, by showing “people who bought this also bought this”.*

*The article talks about how something that is a niche spreads to become
basically more than a “niche”; it becomes “popular”. The model in the
article does not account for how the system may open exponentially more
niches by way of it’s affordances. I believe that the model is useful for
understanding what happens when decision making is affected by
recommendation engine feedback loops in networks, but may not be reflective
of the greater ecology of systems like Amazon.*

*It does seem, however, to show that when the primary focus is sales of a
product, such as on a system like amazon, that tensions will try to drive
towards monoculture (because the rules of the system are pushing things in
that direction).*

*It would be interesting to adjust this model to represent a system of
making/using/sharing instead of sales, and see what emerges from that… “*

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> Michel,
>
> I don't think that this article argues that the longtail is an
> illusion everywhere. I think it shows that the "longest" parts of the
> "longtail" are the most difficult to see. A one-person niche doesn't
> spread around online like a virus.  I think the article argues that
> the "longtail" may be an illusion in places that are trying to foment
> a monoculture to drive sales (like Amazon). Actually, Amazon tries to
> tie popular monoculture to "niche" sales, by showing "people who
> bought this also bought this".
>
> The article talks about how something that is a niche spreads to
> become basically more than a "niche"; it becomes "popular".  The model
> in the article does not account for how the system may open
> exponentially more niches by way of it's affordances. I believe that
> the model is useful for understanding what happens when decision
> making is affected by recommendation engine feedback loops in
> networks, but may not be reflective of the greater ecology of systems
> like Amazon.
>
> It does seem, however, to show that when the primary focus is sales of
> a product, such as on a system like amazon, that tensions will try to
> drive towards monoculture (because the rules of the system are pushing
> things in that direction).
>
> It would be interesting to adjust this model to represent a system of
> making/using/sharing instead of sales, and see what emerges from
> that...
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:04 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Dear Paul,
> >
> > This is an important article, and I hope you can comment this for our
> blog,
> > it it basically argues that the long tail is an illusion,
> >
> > let me know if you can't do it,
> >
> > Michel
> >
> >
> >
> http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2009/03/online-monoculture-and-the-end-of-the-niche.html
> >
> > So there it is. Individual diversity and cultural homogeneity coexisting
> in
> > what we might call monopoly populism.
> >
> > But don't think this is just about automated recommender systems, like
> the
> > ones that Amazon and Netflix use. The recommender "system" could be
> anything
> > that tends to build on its own popularity, including word of mouth. A
> couple
> > of weeks ago someone pointed me to this video of Madin, a six-year-old
> > soccer prodigy from Algeria, and the next day my son, who moves in very
> > different online circles to me, was watching the same one. I know who Jim
> > Cramer is even though we don't get CNBC in Canada because everyone is
> > talking about him and helping his disembodied head to shoot down Jon
> > Stewart. More people watched Tina Fey being Sarah Palin online than on
> > Saturday Night Live, and Fey is now famous in countries where no one
> watches
> > the TV show. Clay Shirky writes an essay and I get five different links
> to
> > it in my Google Reader feed in one morning. Our online experiences are
> > heavily correlated, and we end up with monopoly populism.
> >
> > A "niche", remember, is a protected and hidden recess or cranny, not just
> > another row in a big database. Ecological niches need protection from the
> > surrounding harsh environment if they are to thrive. Simply putting lots
> of
> > music into a single online iTunes store is no recipe for a broad,
> > niche-friendly culture.
> >
> > --
> > Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
> Research:
> > http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
> > http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
> >
> > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
> >
> > Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> > http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >
> > Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> > http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > p2presearch mailing list
> > p2presearch at listcultures.org
> > http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Sam Rose
> Social Synergy
> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> skype: samuelrose
> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://socialsynergyweb.com
> http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
> http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> http://localfoodsystems.org
> http://notanemployee.net
> http://communitywiki.org
>
> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

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