The Joy of Discovery Before Algorithms

August 7
4 mins

Episode Description

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What if the best discoveries were the ones you never planned to make?

Before recommendation engines, personalized playlists, and "Because you watched..." suggestions, discovery looked very different.

You wandered through record shops, browsed library shelves, explored video rental stores, and followed one link after another across the early internet, never quite knowing where you'd end up.

In this episode of Artifacts, Danny Brown reflects on the joy of browsing without a destination, the happy accidents that introduced us to favourite bands, films, books, and websites, and why some of the most meaningful discoveries happened when we weren't searching at all.

Because sometimes the objects fade.

But the feeling doesn't.

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