Hacker News Reader

Comment by HNLurker2 | Hacker News Reader

That's why I use 2 profiles for every social media I use (why?) Because I hate how YouTube recommendations puts you into an echo chamber (first account is stuff I find interesting and train YouTube by not recommending me 5 ways to be stoic etc).

The same goes for Reddit (stopped using it for years instead used hacker news)

View on HN

YouTube's algorithm is plain dumb... It's almost like it is deliberately trying to encourage people to use a service like Spotify for music. Who can withstand being recommended the same songs over and over again? I gave up a long time ago.

Except that's not what the algorithm does at all. It shows you things SIMILAR to what you've already watched, but not exactly the same. Of course no one wants to listen to the same songs over and over, but Spotify recommends you SIMILAR music so that you have a chance of finding something else that you like.

Sure, if your goal is to broaden your horizons and find media that's different to what you normally consume, then those algorithms probably won't allow you to do that. But for Youtube and Spotify, it means their users are constantly finding more things on their platform that they enjoy, which means more time on the platform and ultimately more ad revenue (or revenue from other premium services they offer).

It was about YouTube, not Spotify. YouTube will happily put you in an autoplay recommendation loop, cycling back and forth between the same 2 or 3 songs.

Can't confirm. They always recommend me new stuff, never stuff I've already seen. And I watch a lot of YouTube (too much...)

I wonder what the difference is between viewers - I end up in view loops as the previous poster, where I'm recommended the same stuff over and over.

That certainly has not been my experience for music on Youtube; for the most part, it's very much in line with stuff I'd want to be listening to.

I can't say the same for "Content" trash like "Bill Burr destroys feminism" and "Louis CK owns Parkland kids", because those do repeat heavily. Absurd recommendations when you consider that my view history in the comedy arena are Eddie Griffin and Dave Chappelle, two old-school comics who did not make their name off of culture-war "controversies".

Laterally, I have a few tunes I listen to exclusively through YouTube, so its reminding me of the link is handy when I'm logged in on different machines.

And yes, I listen to them over and over (and over).

Interestingly I have the same problem but reversed: Spotify seems to put me in a short loop, whereas Youtube's recommendation are quite good.

Possibly has something to do with our respective play histories on each service?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com