Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

Reddit-style Communities and Echo Chambers

• Many see Reddit as worse than algorithmic feeds: opaque moderation, easy vote manipulation, and strong echo chambers where dissenting views are downvoted or removed.
• Others argue at least you “choose your bubble” instead of a hidden algorithm choosing it. Still, subreddits skew heavily based on who sticks around (e.g., chronic illness, niche hobbies), so they don’t represent broader reality.
• Some note any real community, online or offline, is exclusionary to some degree; perfectly fair, fully inclusive communities are seen as unrealistic.

Addiction, Attention, and Psychological Effects

• Several comments compare feeds to drug or gambling addiction, distinguishing physical from psychological dependence: social feeds fulfill needs for belonging, identity, and validation.
• There’s debate on whether “just telling people to stop” works; some are pessimistic, others think awareness and conversation (therapy-like) can help.
• People note that constant phone use precludes deep thinking; even long-form reading displaces time alone with one’s own thoughts.

Algorithms: Harms, Benefits, and Nuance

• Strong support for the article’s core point that algorithmic feeds optimize for engagement, rage, and short-term dopamine, undermining reasoning and deep attention.
• Others emphasize that recommendation systems can be extremely useful for discovery (e.g., technical YouTube, DIY, educational content) if carefully curated with “not interested,” blocking channels, and disabling history.
• There’s concern about “enshittification” over time and about opaque incentives: feeds serve advertisers and platform growth, not users. Some liken them to casinos engineered to maximize time spent.

Alternatives, Tools, and Personal Strategies

• Many report success with: RSS readers (FreshRSS, Feedly, custom tools), chronological multi-source clients (e.g., Tapestry), text-first sites, and write-only or heavily filtered use of social networks.
• Popular tactics: disable YouTube history, use extensions (Unhook, DF Tube, News Feed Eradicator, uBlock filters), block Shorts and sidebars, hide “More” buttons, use DNS-based blockers or scheduled blocking, and treat YouTube as search-only.
• Some have quit major platforms entirely and report better focus, mood, and relationships; others keep them but impose strict time windows and only intentional use.

Discovery Without Algorithmic Feeds

• A recurring worry: without feeds, how to find new creators? Suggestions include linkblogs, trusted friends, niche communities, manual search with saved queries, and “random indie blog” or StumbleUpon-like services.
• Several people say they’d like “random but filtered” recommendations (no ads, clickbait, AI slop) where they control the definition of “garbage.”

User Control, Custom Feeds, and Regulation

• Strong interest in user-controlled or custom algorithms: Bluesky-style feeds, client-side recommenders, or local AI agents that re-rank content to the user’s values.
• Some propose regulation (especially in the EU) to force platforms to: allow custom feed plugins, offer non-ML/chronological views, or even mandate “socially safe” default models. Others worry this would crush startups or be abused politically.

Books, Long-Form Media, and “The Medium Is the Message”

• Many advocate replacing feeds with books (fiction and non-fiction) and long-form content to rebuild attention span and reasoning; fiction is praised for empathy and perspective.
• Others push back that books and older media can also be propaganda; the key issue is incentives and depth, not just form factor.
• McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” is invoked to argue that short-form, infinite scroll inherently shapes thought differently than long-form text.

Meta: HN and Feeds Themselves

• Multiple commenters note the irony: this essay and the referenced video spread via algorithmic or ranked feeds (HN, YouTube).
• Some argue HN is “better” because it’s community-curated and de-emphasizes visible votes; others respond that it’s still a feed reflecting the priorities of its operator and users, so not exempt from the criticism.