A/B test

Filmed and edited in 2020 — amid the ructions of the covid pandemic, the Trump administration and the outrage over the murder of George Floyd — “Everything Everywhere All at Once” uncannily captured and expressed the chaos of its era, and its embrace of dislocation and contingency resonated especially poignantly with young viewers, whose lives now resemble a confounding A/B test that will result in either promising or disastrous futures.

Fast-food restaurants A/B test hamburgers, for example showing some eaters a version of a digital menu that puts Big Mac combo meals smack in the middle of the screen and others a version that promotes Quarter Pounders without the soda and fries.

That explains why a 2012 Facebook A/B test unveiled in 2014 inspired ire similar to today’s — but greater: The platform had served some users more positive posts and some more negative posts to ascertain whether the change altered their moods — which, spoiler alert, it did.

My guess is that Google is running an A / B test with this feature to see how people react.

The company will take a ‘growth hacking’ approach to marketing, optimizing with a/b test methodologies, to accelerate the number of artist users and the volume and quality of content.”