Comfort Zone

‘The risk you run with recommendation engines is that they'll keep you in a rut. They do that because ruts are comfy places — though often they're deeper than they look. "By definition, we keep you in the same musical neighborhood you start in," says Westergren of the Music Genome Project, "so you could say that's limiting. But even within a neighborhood, there is a ton of room for discovery. Forty-five percent of the people who use Pandora buy more music after they start, and only 1% buy less." And not being based solely on data from its audience, Pandora isn't as vulnerable to peer pressure as most recommendation engines are. It doesn't follow the crowd.‘

“How Computers Know What We Want — Before We Do” By LEV GROSSMAN

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