It’s like adding an item to your cart, and then having an ad for it at the top of every search result.
Another thing I hate is if you watch a video from a playlist (or the “podcasts” tab on a channel), and go into your watch history to continue the video, you can’t. It just shows a link to the entire playlist
When I open YouTube I’m always distracted by the recommendations on the initial screen, and then I never get around to the Watch Later list. So it’s nice when Watch Later videos show up on the initial screen.
I wish I could tell it to consistently show me one or two Watch Later videos on the initial screen rather than doing so seemingly at random.
I would be 100% A-OK with that if it had its own section. Like there's a "News" section if I scroll down a few rows. Put "You wanted to watch these later" down there as well. Absolutely do not put them in suggestions though.
It seems to me that if you spend all your time telling YouTube its recommendations are bad, it can only respond by giving you worse recommendations. Given your expressed lack of interest in everything it has recommended thus far, have you considered that when you search for something, that might become the strongest signal of interest that the recommendation engine can work with?
What really gets my goat is when I flip back to the browser to see something I have already previously downvoted since there is a "thumbs down" highlight. Whatever algorithm is being used, it doesn't have the ability to not play something that has previously been disliked.
Why I find this amazing is because if you told me to write a "Discover Mix" algorithm, the first or last step of that is going to be the only thing I really know. Filter out the manual dislike clicks.
But music? Most people don’t listen or engage with music they dislike, and just skip to the next track. They can’t even serve additional ads that way, at least as far as I know. Unless they’re trying to inflate some made-up “total streams started” metric or something, it doesn’t make any sense to avoid filtering out disliked tracks. It’s purely a net negative for them.
My fav is Countdown at Kusini by Manu Dibango. The soundtrack to a 1976 Nigerian action film that I absolutely love. Totally from left field.
Most recommendations though are just absolutely terrible. Either stuff I would never listen to or David Bowie "Let's Dance" because I am a Bowie fan. The most trivial,useless, brain dead recommendation possible.
At this point I just assume Google is far less competent than what it it seems like they should be.
This is what I notice as well. Before the end of Play Music, I'd uploaded around 30k tracks to my library. I stream music fairly often. So it knows enough about artists I enjoy and can suggest others I don't know.
But when it picks something from an era/genre that should be at least adjacent (let's say early 90's alt rock) it skews so heavily toward the same overplayed tracks I grew sick of hearing on the radio decades ago.
Nirvana? Teen Spirit/Come as You Are
Jane's Addiction? Jane Says
Soundgarden? Black Hole Sun
Then as often as it throws out something modern or classic that I'd never really heard and enjoy discovering, it goes into weird tangents with stuff I dislike and always thumbs-down. If I always downvote an artist, the algo should be able to infer that I don't like the artist. From there, it should pick up the pattern. It never does, and I still get Kid Rock, Dave Matthews, Nickelback, and Linkin Park in there constantly.
Not interested
Tell us why!
I’ve already watched this video
Submit
But odten OVER HALF of my YouTube feed is shit that I’ve already watched from channels that I follow, and The Algorithm Almighty won’t take the fucking hint to stop showing me the same shit no matter how many times I click furiously at the incantation.
It’s almost like they really wanti to emphasize the “submit” part.
When I search something that I suspect will affect my feed in a bad way, I'll open it up in the container.
The same can be done with a private tab, this just works a bit better.
[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
I see the fact that the YT algorithm is tuned to encourage click-baiting as a symptom of the business goals at Youtube.
It is not "self-mutilating their content" if it is required to survive on the platform.
Sure that's a bit difficult to quantify. Like for example, there was a period where discovering new channels that were right up my ally was something that happened once or twice a week. YouTube would just recommend a really interesting video from a channel I have never seen before, then I'd discover a lot of content that I really enjoy.
Recently, I needed to cruise Reddit and other random sites for recommendation. Then maybe every few months I'd come across a channel that's 6 or 7 years old that's exactly the stuff I watch all the time, and some how I never saw it before despite searching for very similar terms before and finding nothing I was interested in.
For example, I just discovered a channel called asianometry. He's been making videos that are exactly the kind of stuff I wanna listen to when I'm walking the dogs, but some how I came across it by a complete accident through Reddit.
At least in my experience, that list seems to be running the old algorithm that actually pulls videos related to what you’re currently watching, and doesn’t utilize the awful “personalized” algorithm that just recommends that same three videos over and over again.
The worst part is that the existence of that feed in some versions of YouTube means that they’re totally capable of offering the classic 2014-era recommendations that people really liked across the board, they just...don’t. For some reason.
How do folks who compare YT with itself justify the explosive growth YT has experienced in that timeframe?
In the last 10 years, YouTube has expanded their partner program across the globe and reduced the requirements to become eligible to make money. They struck profit sharing deals with many traditional media companies many countries too that drove more people from those countries to the platform, which then drove views for organic users, which made being a "YouTuber" a viable career option in many new markets, which drove engagement, etc.
There is also no surprise that during the last 10 years there was an absolute explosion in the number of 1-14 year olds getting hooked on the platform. That cohort has almost infinite free time. Videos targeting 1-5 year olds literally have hundreds of millions of views. There are channels that regularly do 200M views per video just in tantalizing colors, music and shapes for that cohort alone. Then there is the 8-12 cohort, and the 13-17 cohort. YouTube only reports some of the 13+ numbers because of laws probably, but it's an everyday sight for me to see very young kids in trance staring at "YouTube Kids" videos while their parents do grocery or deal with guests, etc.
And finally, there is no YouTube competition. Facebook tried for a while, but they didn't make a dent. Twitch is for streaming, not video content. TikTok is the only competition YouTube sort of has, and it's still a different format/appeal. YouTube killed short content format a long time ago because they thought people leave YouTube too quickly if they load a page to play 20 second video. TikTok showed them that there is at least 1 billion people who are into that if the UX is right. But other than that, there is no YouTube alternative/competition because it's almost impossible to operate such thing profitably. In the last 10 years more and more people have come online. Video is a very important format, and YouTube has an absolute monopoly on it. Google can turn profit on YouTube now, while also controlling the entire online video market. No one else finds the ROI equation worth it because there is a very little chance they would dethrone YouTube, and it's very expensive and not at all profitable being a very distant #2.
Taylor Red is a country and western band consisting of identical redhead triplets, who haven't played a concert in years. They apparently run a content farm and a bizarre one at that. Every single one of their videos is a Short with the same title, "wait for it... :scared emoji: #shorts" and they do crazy nonverbal stunts on every one.
As near as this investigator guy could figure, this content farm is designed to have an international reach (therefore, no dialogue in English) and also to appeal to children (even the youngest nonverbal ones) with bright colors and amazing optical illusions.
Yet Taylor Red continues to hold themselves out as a country band. Who knows how this works? Gaming the algorithm FTW!
> why would YT even care to stay relevant for the niche needs of some individuals, when it has a massive incentive to provide the world with a better way to watch videos?
Why would YouTube has massive incentive to provide the world with a better way to watch videos? YouTube’s incentive is to increase ad watch time. That’s all. Whatever shape that takes. If it means pushing videos targeted at getting kids to click on them, they’ll do that. If it meant improving relevancy for niche needs of some individuals, they’ll do that too. When you’re only chasing metrics like that, things usually go in cycles.
The numbers tell you longer videos == more watch time == more ads == more ad watch time. Your goal becomes clear, push more longer video content. Force people to record 10 minute video to show you how to remove a laptop screws, 9 minute talking about the laptop and what screws are, and 1 minute showing what stickers or labels you need to remove to get the screws out.
Have TikTok come and eat a significant market share of “video watch time” on the internet, which causes advertisements dollars to now split their budget between the 2 of you, so you correct by introducing or pushing short format again.
Assume that fun, simple, entertaining videos have a bigger market == more views == more ad watch time, so push those more and push more in-depth “niche needs of some individuals” aside. Few years down the line, discover that some content is “ever green” and some isn’t, and “ever green” content has a significant market so autocorrect to push that.
YouTube, and most companies, have given up on trying to have consistent logic or statement or vision or mission or plan or any of that nonsense stuff. Just have a model for things, we want to maximize X, what do we need to do to Y. With X being profit only constrained by legal requirements.
YouTube will come around again. It has before, and it will again. It’s just at the moment it’s focusing on short term viral entertainment videos, and trying to figure out the right recommendation algorithm for that.
I'd argue Youtube got bad when they transitioned from a reverse chronological subscription feed to a primarily algorithm driven front page, which is at least a decade ago.
Even if it didn't immediately turn bad at that point, that's when they committed to the enshittification (though I'm sure one could make a case for an even earlier point).
So my experience is not ad related whatsoever.
Also I'm not reading most of what you're writing here, a Gish gallop is probably not your wisest move on HN.
Maybe if the user didn’t need to create a brand new account to make their point, I’d be more receptive.
Your one or two sentence insinuations instead of statements which can be argued against lay ground for long responses because you, sir or ma'am, are using a dishonest tactic (two actually, add ad-hominem for the new account jab) and I feel that your 'others in HN' would agree with me.
Continually asking easy, loaded questions then disregarding the responses and attacking anyway is a low form of rhetoric.
Nor did I, "disregard the responses." I pointed out missed concepts, which to me were gaping and exposed a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem (how do you not know about YT Shorts when talking about TikTok eating YT's lunch?).
Finally, for what I wrote to be an ad hominem, I would have needed to claim the author's argument was, specifically, wrong as a result of who they were. I never actually said anyone was "wrong" per se; my disagreements with the arguments have been on substance (I mention YT Premium as a counterpoint, for example). I also made observations related to things other than the user's argument, but I never claimed they were wrong as a result of those observations, only that their credibility was injured.
Sorry but if I call a fish a cigarette it is not a disagreement over belief. In this case 'gish gallop' has a definition:
The Gish gallop /ˈɡɪʃ ˈɡæləp/ is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm their opponent by providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. Gish galloping prioritizes the quantity of the galloper's arguments at the expense of their quality. -wikipedia
Please tell me how this applies to the response you admit to not reading.
> Nor did I, "disregard the responses."
You specifically said you didn't read at least one of them.
> Finally, for what I wrote to be an ad hominem, I would have needed to claim the author's argument was, specifically, wrong as a result of who they were.
You wrote that you would take them seriously if they weren't a new account. If that isn't 'wrong as a result of who they were' then what would you call it?
You have quoted the fact, which is the definition of the Gish gallop. Your opinion is that it does not apply here, and I disagree. You do not hold authority over how to interpret English, so you cannot therefore declare factually that I am wrong, only that you disagree.
As for taking something seriously or not, that’s got nothing to do with right or wrong; you need credibility to be considered, and without credibility the “rightness” of your argument never makes it to evaluation. Happens all the time in the legal world [1], and certainly not at all related to the innate properties of the person who makes the argument.
Admit your mistake and correct your behavior going forward like a decent human.
Wipe your search (and watch) history - assuming you meant YouTube Search (which is getting worse by the day but I digress); Google Search at least for me doesn’t affect my YouTube recommendations at all.
not really these days if you ask me. yt has been terrible at suggestions for years. it came to a point where i went on yt almost anxious in anticipation of all those thumbnails featuring open mouthed morons staring at me.
But yeah for a random "guilty pleasure" garbage video I use incognito too, it's just faster.
I installed a channel blocker[1] extension to block channels from ever showing up.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-clean...