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Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

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Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#181

Post by mattanimation »

causi wrote: post #91
dageshi wrote: post #7

Their search has got pretty bad I've noticed. They've changed it to start showing random shit you might want to watch instead of the thing you actually searched for after the first 10 or so videos. They seem to repeat videos they think you ought to watch quite often in search results as well. Significant downgrade on what it used to be.

Yes. God help you if you're looking for a video not made by a popular youtuber. Saw an amazing fried chicken recipe ten years ago and think you can just scroll the results until you see it? Ha, fat chance. You've got about five results and then nothing but whatever horseshit is trendy today.

ah yes, Mz. Peaches. Best fried chicken there is.

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#182

Post by elevatortrim »

technion wrote: post #142
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #134

Machine learning probably had something to do with it. It notices videos with thumbnails of people with their mouths and eyes wide open doing some kind of shocked expression with red arrows pointing to something perform better than average. Then it starts recommending videos with thumbnails like this preferentially. YouTubers take notice and start producing thumbnails like this for every video. Go to the front page r…

When I was playing WoW, it was hard to find, for example, "guide to blackwing lair". It would be way down the page, below videos always titled "shocked reaction to Blackwing lair boss kill", "streamer reacts to BWL speedrun".

I think that’s an issue with the monetisation. People who needs a specific guide would be relatively small in numbers. Unless your video is watched by tens/hundreds of thousands, it is not worth making (unless for hobby). Content creators are feeling like they need to make the title and image appealing to a wide audience rather than people looking for something specific.

The search engine should prioritise videos matching your specific search so you can find what you are looking for from hobbyist creators but I’m not sure if that’s happening.

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#183

Post by abenga »

RL_Quine wrote: post #36
nullandvoid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only sane way to consume YouTube these days. I also just manage a curated list of channels and consume via RSS, with YT perpetually blocked, short of a few re-review days per year.

Youtube is also basically unwatchable without both adblock and sponsorblock. At this point most videos are are at least 1/3rd clipped by the latter.

Has anyone found a reliable way to block the ads on Android TV that isn't "root your TV and install and use this weird App you get from this website here"? Would a Pi-Hole work long-term?

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#184

Post by andsoitis »

antioppressor wrote: post #145

Recommendation system is long time broken. I am subscribed to 100+ channels and check 10 channels on a weekly basis, meaning I watch all the new videos these creators make. So that means I want the new stuff from the frequented ones on my front page ASAP. Yet, it's a hit and miss. From the remaining 90 channels I never get anything recommended. Why? If I subscribe to a new channel it gets recommended like hell, then…

It sounds like you find near-zero value from YouTube, so you might as well stop using it?

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#185

Post by josemando »

antioppressor wrote: post #145

Recommendation system is long time broken. I am subscribed to 100+ channels and check 10 channels on a weekly basis, meaning I watch all the new videos these creators make. So that means I want the new stuff from the frequented ones on my front page ASAP. Yet, it's a hit and miss. From the remaining 90 channels I never get anything recommended. Why? If I subscribe to a new channel it gets recommended like hell, then…

> If I clear the fingerprints and block the acquiring of these metrics

Honesty question here, but how do you do that?

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#186

Post by GLGirty »

mrweasel wrote: post #162
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #134

Machine learning probably had something to do with it. It notices videos with thumbnails of people with their mouths and eyes wide open doing some kind of shocked expression with red arrows pointing to something perform better than average. Then it starts recommending videos with thumbnails like this preferentially. YouTubers take notice and start producing thumbnails like this for every video. Go to the front page r…

There was a Linus Tech Tips video where he admits that it's stupid, but sadly it works really well. It's a bit like when Wikipedia kept using Jimmy Wales' face in banners requesting donations. People claim to not like it, yet it's was what got the highest conversion rates.

Gawd those haunting eyes... I wonder how many people donated just to make them stop.

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#187

Post by malfist »

coopierez wrote: post #51
avian wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad search that tries hard not to actually show you search results is another one of those dark trends I see everywhere. Have you seen Twitter search lately? The search tab in the app doesn't even have a text field visible by default. It's all just unrelated popular garbage. You have to swipe down to reveal the text field where you can enter your search term. Then you get more unrelated garbage in the "top" result ta…

Search on the iOS app store is awful too. You type in the exact name of the app you are looking for and have to scroll through 10-15 vaguely related results before you get to the one you actually want.

Search on windows is uniquely terrible. Oh, you wanted to launch that app? Let me open Edge with a bing search for that app. I especially love it when I'm trying to launch stellarium and it only suggests "stellarium 200%" unless I delete the "m" from stellarium and then it'll suggest "stellarium", "stellarium 200%" and "stellarium (OpenGL)". Anything else and the only result is "stellarium 200%"

It's total garbage. It's unreliable, sometimes typing out the full name of the app (which kinda defeats the purpose) is the only way to get the app to show in the search results, sometimes NOT typing the full name is the only way to get it to show. Sometimes you get an app, sometimes you get an unrelated app (type is prusa for prusa slicer and you get printers), often times you'll get a random log file with a similar name, or a bing search you certainly don't want.

Hot garbage.

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#188

Post by ChrisRR »

antioppressor wrote: post #145

Recommendation system is long time broken. I am subscribed to 100+ channels and check 10 channels on a weekly basis, meaning I watch all the new videos these creators make. So that means I want the new stuff from the frequented ones on my front page ASAP. Yet, it's a hit and miss. From the remaining 90 channels I never get anything recommended. Why? If I subscribe to a new channel it gets recommended like hell, then…

If you're not looking for recommendations and just your subscriptions, then you should be checking the subscriptions tab, not the home page. You'll always have all uploads from subscribed channels listed there

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#189

Post by andsoitis »

dageshi wrote: post #7

Their search has got pretty bad I've noticed. They've changed it to start showing random shit you might want to watch instead of the thing you actually searched for after the first 10 or so videos. They seem to repeat videos they think you ought to watch quite often in search results as well. Significant downgrade on what it used to be.

> the thing you actually searched for after the first 10 or so videos.

Isn't that a good thing? If you searched for something and the first 10 results aren't a match, why not introduce you to other things (one can experiment with finding how closely related those additional recommendations are, or based on other things you recently enjoyed, etc.)?

Re: Ask HN: Why has quality of YouTube reduced drastically?

#190

Post by ChrisRR »

gherkinnn wrote: post #19

YT on a clean slate is horrendous. Give it a few days and it becomes bearable. I’m mostly impressed. Though there is a growing number of anecdotes surrounding (niche|not palatable to SV) channels who’s subscribers don’t get notified despite the bell thing being on, new videos no longer in feeds, and even people getting unsubscribed for no apparent reason. This is a problem, as I’d sooner give up peanut butter than on…

I've been using the same google account for so many years and still every damn Youtube video I get 2-3 ads for Tiktok.

How does the algorithm not get that I have probably watched 10,000 ads for Tiktok, I am not installing that shit! Stop trying!

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