How else would a recommendation algorithm work? I don’t see why it’s concerning that a company knows that I like to follow musicians, etc.

What’s the alternative? Never finding new things because I refuse to divulge what niches or hobbies I like?

Yeah. It should be obvious that recommendations to work somehow you need to track what you like. Or other alternative is to just recommend the most popular mainstream thing at the moment... Which then get also attacked for various reasons.

Yes, it is kind of weird to say "social media exists = 1984" but I think they were meaning that it's worrying how many people use it without realizing they're basically doing the NSA's job for them.