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Interest Still High In the Netflix Algorithm Competition
circletimessquare brings us an update to the status of the million-dollar Netflix competition to develop a better algorithm for movie recommendations. We've discussed aspects of the competition since it started two years ago, but the New York Times has a lengthy overview of where it stands now.
"The Netflix competition is still going strong, with a vibrant, competitive roster of some 30,000 programmers around the globe hard at work trying to win the prize. The Times provides a look at some of the more obsessive searchers, such as Len Bertoni, a semi-retired computer scientist near Pittsburgh who logs 20 hours a week on the problem, oftentimes with the help of his children. There's also Martin Chabbert in Montreal: 'After the kids are asleep and I've packed the lunches for school, I come down at 9 in the evening and work until 11 or 12.' The article gets into the history of the search algorithm Netflix currently uses, and explores the hot commodity called 'singular value decomposition' that serves as the basis for most of the algorithms in competition."
Why is it considered selling yourself short if you do work for free for a commercial entity... but not when you contribute to, say, FireFox, ThunderBird, Apache, the Linux kernel, and so forth and so on?
In both cases you are typically doing work for absolutely zilch as far as cash or prizes go. You may get a fuzzy warm feeling on the inside, you may simply enjoy doing the work (similar to the fuzzy warm feeling), maybe you enjoy the popularity it gives you. On rare occasions, maybe the work you do there lands you a job further down the line but that's not really something you can bank on. In both cases, you are also doing work somebody else -could- have been doing, for actual pay. I won't get into an argument of whether doing work for free means you're 'stealing jobs' - fact simply is that Netflix -is- getting a lot of work done practically for free that they would otherwise have had to hire somebody for; you would have to agree as otherwise "selling themselves short" would not apply.
So yes, you're doing work that should be landing you some cold hard cash when you...
- devise a matching algorithm for Netflix
- create a video for Radiohead
- submit photos to a Canon photo competition that they are then free to use in any and all marketing material aka ads regardless of whether your photo actually won that competition.
But isn't that pretty much the status quo that many here -want- to go to? Those making their money with proprietary programming, creating arts, etc. are dinosaurs in dying business models, no?
(only semi-flamebait)
It's not selling yourself short to work on FOSS for a very simple reason. Work on FF, or Thunderbird, or open-sourcing a script that I wrote to convert music is free at the point of delivery. That is, anyone can use it without paying. Freely given, and freely distributed.
However, in this case the user of the algorithm is paying Netflix. Netflix takes the work that I have done, and closes it off from other people. My work goes not to benefit the community, but merely to benefit one company - a company that has paid me (cheaply) for my work. Since companies by definition only care about the bottom line, their intent is not to benefit the community, but to benefit themselves. You are effectively working for them for cheap, selling yourself short.
If netflix were to give away the algo for use by anyone else too, then it would be very generous and then you may be able to make a comparison with FOSS. I( have no idea if they will do that or not. However, if I were a shareholder, I would not want them to give away a potentially killer feature for which they paid $1m.
Saying that, if you enjoy playing with this, go ahead! Just be honest with yourself about. If you still want to do it, wallow in it. But it's an extremely pernicious thing to do to link this with working on something that is done to benefit everyone. It simply is not the same thing.
exploitation is exploitation, self imposed or not; as well, contests are, by their very nature, one-sided, there must be a loser, if there is to be a winner, therefore, competition is only valuable within the framework of co-operation, otherwise, yes, it is exploitative
see? oh well probably not....
I think you don't understand the concept of "fun." Read the article and the comments and tell me that the people "working" at this competition aren't getting paid handsomely. If money is the only compensation that means anything to you, you must be an economist. Congrats, you're doing your part to keep up economics' reputation as the "dismal science."
If it's exploitative for a company to provide enjoyment and intellectual stimulation to a lot of people and benefit financially as a result, then I guess publishing companies don't deserve my support, either. And the movie studios... theater companies... restaurants... and of course any bands that get paid for gigs are just a bunch of ruthless exploiters.
I guess the only commercial entertainment that's okay is what I can enjoy completely passively, without any mental effort at all. That way I'm not being exploited, right? Because work is an awful, awful thing ;-)
Wake up; it's not the nineteenth century or even the twentieth century. Everyone has a natural appetite for work, and unlike our unfortunate ancestors, ours is not overwhelmed and sickened by the work required for mere survival. You're addressing a relatively privileged group of people; we earn enough to support ourselves on less work than we have an appetite for. As a result, we don't have to regard all work as a curse imposed on us by necessity. Work freely done and enjoyed is a blessing.
If you insist that our entire appetite for work be channeled through grim-faced contract negotiations, then that blessing is ruined. What's the point of ruining our fun? So you can save us from the misery suffered by our great-grandparents?
Obviously none of what I said applies to call center employees, game company employees, and technical support employees. They should pay careful attention to what you say ;-)