✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same | | The Guardian

theguardian.com · 4,437 words · saved by 1 readers

From the generic hipster cafe to the ‘Instagram wall’, the internet has pushed us towards a kind of global ubiquity – and this phenomenon is only going to intensify F or most of the 2010s, I was a religious user of Yelp, an app for finding and reviewing restaurants and other local businesses. The red-and-white interface became a trusted source of recommendations when at home in New York or abroad. In Berlin, Kyoto and Reykjavík, I searched for coffee shops, and quickly scrolled through Yelp’s list, which was sorted by the cafes’ star rating – a reflection of how much the app’s other users had liked each spot. I often typed “hipster coffee shop” into the search bar as a shorthand because Yelp’s search algorithm always knew exactly what I meant by the phrase. It was the kind of cafe that someone like me – a western, twentysomething (at the time), internet-brained millennial acutely conscious of their own taste – would want to go to. Inevitably, I could quickly identify a cafe among the

A cafe in Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Loren Elliott/Reuters From the generic hipster cafe to the ‘Instagram wall’, the internet has pushed us towards a kind of global ubiquity – and this phenomenon is only going to intensify By Kyle Chayka Tue 16 Jan 2024 00.00 EST Last modified on Wed 20 Mar 2024 07.35 EDT Share Prefer the Guardian on Google F or most of the 2010s, I was a religious user of Yelp, an app for finding and reviewing restaurants and other local businesses. The red-and-white interface became a trusted source of recommendations when at home in New York or abroad. In Berlin, Kyoto

Explore this link on the map →

related reading