I tried last.fm years ago and had to give up. I was on my phone and read about a Swedish prog rock band, thought about how I could get to hear them and signed up for last.fm there and then. The service used that seed to give me a really fun scandanavian hippy rock experience exploring related bands from Finland, Norway and Denmark. It was great for a while, but then I was trapped. No matter what I did to push the service towards a more balanced assessment of my musical tastes, it kept casting me back into nordic psychdedelia hell.

> Every time I'm about to click on a youtube link / watch an embedded video I ask myself if it's worth influencing my future recommendations

I do this all the time. Often, I click on "smart" videos, which I have no intention of watching just in the hope I get better quality content in my "feed". But it's hard to find high quality content, yet it's easy to find mindless dribble.

> it's hard to find high quality content, yet it's easy to find mindless dribble.

+1 to this. I watched a few Super Smash Bros Ultimate compilations at around the time it was released, and got some recommendations. I don't own a Switch so I don't know the game, plus its a novelty, so they caught my curiosity.

I went down a such rabbit-hole of mindless dribble --endless videos of videogame characters punching each other-- I actually tired myself and am no longer considering buying the game/console. It's such mindless consumption.

> Often, I click on "smart" videos, which I have no intention of watching just in the hope I get better quality content in my "feed".

I need to try this.

I once watched a video on how to replace a specific part on my car.

Now Youtube thinks my biggest interest is how to replace and repair every other thing on that same model of car, other models by the same make, etc.