Although I spend most of my time on Hive for social media interaction, I still find myself consuming content on YouTube, where I discover a lot of useful information. What bothers me, though, is how much it seems to know about what I’m searching for. It feels like YouTube taps into my Google search history because it keeps suggesting videos related to my searches. It’s a bit unsettling, but at the same time, I’m kind of thankful for the recommendations.
On Hive, my experience is quite different. I actively search for the content I want to read by scrolling through posts. It’s not very efficient since I follow a lot of authors, and I have to sift through the posts they reblog as well.
That’s where the Favorites Feed becomes so useful. It shows me only the posts from the authors I’ve marked as favorites. However, there’s a problem—it's not working properly right now. I don’t know what’s causing the issue, but no one seems to be fixing it, and nobody’s making noise about it either. I guess fewer people use this feed, so the developers aren’t paying much attention to it.
I’ll tell you more about Google services... You have an Android phone, right? And it’s full of various apps? One day, my spouse and I were talking about back pain and how to address this issue. We didn’t search for anything online, just had a conversation, and the smartphone was nearby. The next day, both of us started seeing ads on our phones and PCs for back therapy massages and products to relieve back pain. There had been no such ads before our conversation.
I’ve noticed this kind of thing multiple times, and there have been other examples, but that’s not the point. I’m not a paranoid person who’s always encrypting everything, nor do I look for conspiracy theories everywhere. But what the smartphone does—transmitting data to big companies—I think no one should have any doubts about it.
I’m deeply dissatisfied with this state of affairs. I’m not willing to trade my freedom and privacy for their lousy recommendations.