If you’ve used the Internet basically at all over the past decade, then you’ve been a part of someone else’s explore/exploit problem. Companies want to discover the things that make them the most money while simultaneously making as much of it as they can—explore, exploit. Big tech firms such as Amazon and Google began carrying out live A/B tests on their users starting in about 2000, and over the following years the Internet has become the world’s largest controlled experiment. What are these companies exploring and exploiting? In a word, you: whatever it is that makes you move your mouse and
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