Curious if this is another example of group think... If it's looking at what my friends do and what I typically do then it'll reinforce that behaviour and I won't learn anything new or have a chance to thin outside of my own sphere of influence. So that's what I question about these types of things - even though I like them (because I'm designed to)
The UX is just a joy to use. I've been using this for a week now, and it's gotten me back into reading the news every day. My news consumption went from 0 to checking 2-5x/day.
As I'm already hitting the reading limit for my favorite sources in 1 week, I can see myself actually paying for NYT.
A few features that I adore:
• Headlines shows you the top current headlines
• You can swipe between different sources and see quotes from them
• A US-based news app that let's you view World news easily?! 👏🏼
• For You shows you stories that the algorithm thinks you'll like
• Supports the publisher's reading cap rules (ex. NYT's 5 free articles)
It's probably too early to tell, will check in later ;)
The new Google News experience is nice and tailored to my interests. Unfortunately, it won't change the fact that many of the news sources nowadays are clickbait and of dubious quality. The "full picture" feature only helps to expose how much one source copied from others.