I was recently inspired on this front by an interview[1] with a recommender system engineer that explored the idea of a "good" recommender algorithm:

> It feels like smartphones have saturated the available time. It's like the famous quote from the Netflix CEO: "Our main competitor is sleep." There aren't many more biological hours in the day to capture. At this point, it's mostly a war between recommender systems for your attention, as they've already consumed roughly all the available time.

...

> For me, the big issue with recommender systems isn't that they will destroy our minds, though that is a possible risk. It's the incredible waste of potential. Billions of hours of human time will be allocated today, guided mostly by clickbait incentives. The goal is to entertain people, not in a joyful way, but to help them dissociate.

> You have such an opportunity. There's probably a video on YouTube right now that, if I watched it, would inspire me to call my dad, talk to a stranger, or start a new relationship. Google could probably introduce me to a good friend, a co-founder, or my future life partner.

> They have the data, but they aren't using it that way. Instead, they're optimizing for a few more cents of advertising revenue, which is a colossal, civilizational-level failure.

...

> That is the crux of the incentives problem we've been discussing. One thing that gives me hope is we're no longer in the era of free software. Paradoxically, now that intelligence is cheap enough, people are willing to pay for software. It's more reasonable to charge for a subscription now because you can provide measurable value to someone's life. Paying $10 or $20 a month for a social media service that actually helps you live according to your goals is a much less crazy proposition than it was 10 years ago.

[1] https://blog.sentinel-team.org/p/forecasting-the-future-of-r...