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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?

#211

Post by antioppressor »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #200
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 know what you want to watch why rely on Google recommending it to you? I only visit my subscriptions page: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions I don't have notifications on and when I visit YouTube I'll check to see what videos I want to watch since I last visited. I usually check the up next to see if anything similar/interesting is recommended and very rarely go to the home page to get recommendations…

Because I want new and fresh content from the topics I frequently watch. I want to be entertained, stimulated in various, unexpected ways. YT is sitting atop a goldmine and they offer only morsels.

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

#212

Post by ravenstine »

dereg wrote: post #204
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…

The best part of YouTube recommendations - side bar recommendations - have been broken for at least 7-9 years. I remember going on deep YouTube rabbit holes in another era, because their recommendations always pointed to new, highly related content. Then, at some point in time, YouTube switched their recommendations algorithm to direct me to a mixture of 1) videos (mostly on unrelated topics) that I've already viewed…

> There are other things that drive me nuts about YouTube's recommendations, like the fact that they will never recommend me the next part of a n-part video. If I'm watching part 2/3 of something, please show 3/3 in the side bar, YouTube!

It used to do that, though! They should at least allow it up to a limit or something rather than making it just that stupid.

My other biggest complaint really is the recommendation system in general. It's so bad that I can guarantee you that I can fall asleep to something innocuous like Spongebob Squarepants and in the morning I'll wake up and it's playing Jordan Peterson. EVERY. STINKING. TIME. It was like that before with Lex Fridman, and I totally had to unsubscribe and unlike a lot of Lex content before it would stop autoplaying it. I can't keep playing that game, but at least I can tolerate Peterson's voice more than Lex's.

Funny thing is I was never crazy about either one. They clearly profiled me as being the kind of person who watches that stuff. No, surely the fact I watch a lot of videos about theme park rides can't mean I want to see similar content. Obviously, I want to watch Jordan Peterson!!! :D /s

Without the market dominance, YouTube would be marginally better than its competitors.

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

#213

Post by photochemsyn »

Advertisers want the lowest common denominator: means no monetization or recommendation for anything that might upset any part of their possible consumer base. A lot of interesting content about topics that 'trigger' different groups or that contain inflammatory opinions is thus only accessible to those who already know about it, and it's not monetized or recommended.

Imagine a restaurant that starts removing anything from the menu that a customer complains about. You eventually end up with nothing but bland glop.

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

#214

Post by lifeisstillgood »

unsignednoop wrote: post #173
popcorncowboy wrote: post #94

This is almost boringly textbook late-stage "monopoly in practice" playing out. Start with an "edge". Get big because edge. Use "big" to sharpen edge further. Use big (and/or edge) to consolidate market. Once sufficiently consolidated and/or controlled, raise costs. This is what costs getting raised looks like in a monopoly market. Who's gonna stop them.

>Who’s gonna stop them Ive been thinking for a while that Netflix could. They desperately need to seperate themselves from the competition and they already have the video distribution tech and captive audience to launch a real challenge to youtube.

That's ... brilliant?

I mean amazon prime is full of "kids cartoons" that started out as youtube fodder ten years ago. So yeah Netflix could maybe start a "yourflix" side bar - but they would have to work with people who were actual production companies for fear of, well everything.

Something tells me if they setup a package for everyone who had got 100k views on youtube, handed them a better microphone and a contract, they might stand a chnace of building a thousand new production companies.

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

#215

Post by arnold_palmur »

I've actually really enjoyed some of the recommendations I get - my homepage is usually videos on Java, networking, DCS related content and for some reason last week I got a recommendation for a video by this channel that recreates historic life and the video was how to make a typical dinner as if it were 1820 - it was so random but awesome.

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

#216

Post by solarkraft »

Asdrubalini wrote: post #98

It has been one year since I can't find interesting stuff in the recommended section anymore. I also thought about building my own recommendation system using YouTube's RSS feed for each individual channel, Telegram for notifications and some simple logic written in Rust and SQLite (of course) and always running on my VPS, where I manually add and remove the channels I like and I also give them a score to have a prio…

> I also thought about building my own recommendation system

Awesome! Please do and document it. A lot of "tech should serve its users" people seem to be completely opposed to recommendation algorithms, but I would disagree. I find automatic recommendation immensely valuable when it works, it just needs to work for me (e.g. be more configurable).

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

#217

Post by hither_shores »

andsoitis wrote: post #189
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.)?

> why not introduce you to other things

Because that's not what I told it to do.

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

#218

Post by pjbk »

abenga wrote: post #183
RL_Quine wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. SmartTubeNext: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext. I use it with a FireTV stick since it's much easier than hacking my Samsung TV. It supports SponsorBlock too. It lacks some YT features but if you just want to browse and watch videos it works wonderfully.

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

#219

Post by danaris »

dereg wrote: post #204
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…

The best part of YouTube recommendations - side bar recommendations - have been broken for at least 7-9 years. I remember going on deep YouTube rabbit holes in another era, because their recommendations always pointed to new, highly related content. Then, at some point in time, YouTube switched their recommendations algorithm to direct me to a mixture of 1) videos (mostly on unrelated topics) that I've already viewed…

I fairly reliably get the next part of a multi-part series provided they're in a playlist (even if I'm not looking at them in the playlist).

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

#220

Post by solarkraft »

xattt wrote: post #144
maxdo wrote: post #135

Youtube start reminding me a video platform from 3rd world country. There was this "look&feel" difference where you have more expensive less-adds and good quality. That was their competitive advantage. Right now everything desperately optimized for money. That's how platform dies. They don't know how to grow organically. They become no different. Just another video hosting.

The third-world feel also comes from the types of ads they show. They are all scammy with some sort of gimmick to keep your eyes peeled past the skip ad button, usually some sort of claim to subvert the “system”. This plays well to a poorly-educated population (which may be the crowd stuck on their phone during the daytime), but comes off slimy to any savvy consumer.

For a while they would run 5-second TikTok ads with a siren and a baseball flying towards the viewer. Along with text in arabic. What the fuck?
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