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‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

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Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#291

Post by lopmotr »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #174
galuggus wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe trending is hand curated by youtube

I looked at trending once. Never again. There is great content on YouTube, but what I consider great is completely different from the next person, which is why trending makes no sense...

I expect it's like how stamp collecting used to be the world's most popular hobby. It might not have been anybody's favorite activity, but it was commonly accessible to everyone. They call these things "lowest common denominator". If you have to pick something for everybody, that's probably a better choice than any niche group's favorite thing.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#292

Post by pavel_lishin »

edm0nd wrote: post #285
qwerty1234599 wrote: post #157

If you want a glimpse of the average person's youtube experience, open the site in incognito and go to the "trending" tab. It's a completely different site depending on what you initially search for when you start using it. The problem is, 80% of youtube userbase never really typed a search query for anything in the first place, and as a result the stuff they get recommended and watch is pure shit.

The Trending videos always disappoint me. It seems like it's always some fame chasing YouTubers/people who dont deserve being on the Trending list instead of actual cool videos and content. People are gaming the algo hardcore to make tens of millions for themselves. The James Charles & Charli D'amelio entire crew of like 10 people who are always in the trending list, Soundcloud rappers, etc. Then, on the flipside, yo…

> Charli D'amelio

I have no idea who this is, but can confirm that they take up something like 50% of the screen real estate. The other half is a BBQ channel.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#293

Post by oarabbus_ »

edm0nd wrote: post #285
qwerty1234599 wrote: post #157

If you want a glimpse of the average person's youtube experience, open the site in incognito and go to the "trending" tab. It's a completely different site depending on what you initially search for when you start using it. The problem is, 80% of youtube userbase never really typed a search query for anything in the first place, and as a result the stuff they get recommended and watch is pure shit.

The Trending videos always disappoint me. It seems like it's always some fame chasing YouTubers/people who dont deserve being on the Trending list instead of actual cool videos and content. People are gaming the algo hardcore to make tens of millions for themselves. The James Charles & Charli D'amelio entire crew of like 10 people who are always in the trending list, Soundcloud rappers, etc. Then, on the flipside, yo…

>It seems like it's always some fame chasing YouTubers/people who dont deserve being on the Trending list instead of actual cool videos and content.

What else should they be showing? How does the algorithm determine what are "cool videos and content" to someone who hasn't entered searches? It makes the most sense to put the top Youtube channels/stars on the front page, after all they are the most viewed.

>Are you producing original and awesome content? No one will ever find your video.

This is why TikTok has blown up; an absolute nobody can get a million views on their video overnight.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#295

Post by MiddleEndian »

gfxgirl wrote: post #44

I know I'm old but dang for some reason I really dislike recommendations from almost any company. For media I grew up in the 70s and had the TV Guide. I'd look through to see what I wanted to watch, circle some things and then watch. No spying what-so-ever. So, I like for example HN where AFAIK I'm not tracked so much and I choose what I want from the top of the list. Conversely I mostly hate Amazon, Netflix, Amazon…

>Netflix

Back when Netflix was a DVD delivery service, its personal recommendation system was fantastic. Rate things by stars, it would estimate how you'd rank movies based on users with similar tastes to you, so rather than trying to give the same ratings to all movies and push the same things to everyone, it gave me a ton of very useful recommendations. I had a 500 movie long queue on it for awhile, so each movie I got was like a surprise from my past self.

Then one day they failed to deliver a DVD to my place because my mailbox was full or something, and they closed my account and my queue was gone. I never bothered trying to open another one after that.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#296

Post by raydev »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #60

For me YouTube recommendations are not toxic, they are so amazing I some times wonder how comes the world around is not heaven when everybody has free access to this. That's because I always watch high-quality educational content and some beautiful comforting and inspiring music. So for me YouTube is a fountain of knowledge, visual and musical aesthetics etc. Every day I get inspiration, healthy kind of fun and learn…

> So for me YouTube is a fountain of knowledge, visual and musical aesthetics etc. Every day I get inspiration, healthy kind of fun and learn something cool, useful and healthy.

You must never be curious about things outside of your passions.

I play Fortnite with my kids casually. I looked up a howto a few weeks ago, and my recommendations are still 25% Fortnite related content, even though I only watched one video one time.

It's been happening for years. I looked up one old Norm Macdonald standup bit, and my recos changed immediately to Joe Rogan and adjacent talking heads. I watch one MKBHD video, and I'm overwhelmed with recos for unboxing and tech reviews.

The stuff I genuinely care about, music theory, is impossible to keep in my home page because YouTube doesn't value that engagement.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#298

Post by jarjoura »

jw1224 wrote: post #231
troebr wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't that bad. Some influencer videos, music, prank videos, sports, a couple niche youtubers, some video games. I saw a couple educational videos in there too. Sure the influencer stuff is pretty stupid, but whatever, it's not harmful.

Influencers are very often harmful. 1. Their aspirational lifestyles perpetuate feelings of inadequacy amongst their viewers, especially when their target market is often predominantly young people. Their audiences grow up with self doubt and anxiety by comparing their lives to that of the influencers they follow. 2. They are in the pockets of their advertisers and sponsors. Any recommendations they make are inherent…

Influencers are just people that have a sizable fan base, that they earned fair and square. Now, what they choose to do with that fan base, is another story. Just like a startup can lose its soul when bringing in VC money, an influencer can lose their soul when they try to scale their brand with marketing deals.

Mark Rober is a good example of an influencer who has stayed true to his core values while scaling his brand. He’s the Gen-Z version of Mythbusters.

Potato Jet is the opposite, his brand has become overrun with every cinematography company using him to peddle their wares. It’s hard to take anything he says as an honest review of the product.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#299

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

floatrock wrote: post #262
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem that hard to get out of a pit, even with the account. It just takes a couple of days of browsing of the new type of content, along with maybe clicking "don't recommend this channel"/"not interested" 3-4 times, and the algorithm switches to the new things... The algorithm doesn't care, it just recommends.

> The algorithm doesn't care, it just recommends. And isn't that terrifying, in the Parable of the Paperclip Maximizer kinda way? We can make the well-its-your-individual-responsibility bootstraps argument, but that kinda works only if you believe in the supremacy of an individual's autonomy and that the mind can't be hacked or hijacked. Everything from addictive products to the marketing industry shows that isn't th…

It is only terrifying if you assume people are mindless spiritless bots.

In which case (if you truly believe that), we are all fucked anyway. Then who cares? Is youtube really your biggest problem?

> is maximizing for your mind's engagement.

So has media been doing for a long time, also all writers and poets, etc. Mind's engagement is not the only meaning of life, and most people act out this deep knowledge. I don't see a problem.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#300

Post by triangleman »

nobleach wrote: post #115

At the end of 2016, I was bored and decided to watch a flat earth video. I spent a few evenings going down that conspiracy rabbit-hole as it was completely fascinating. (I couldn't tell if these folks were expertly trolling, or if they were serious). Once I was back to reality (2017) I was done wanting to see anything conspiracy related. It took a year for that stuff to disappear from my right-hand column. I just kep…

Youtube changed their recommendation algorithm sometime in 2017 and stopped recommending the more egregious conspiracy videos. Their recs are now rather bland and mainstream.
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