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YouTube, the jewel of the internet

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Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#191

Post by pentagrama »

mastax wrote: post #81

I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube algorithm is great. Signing out of YouTube and viewing the default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, but my little corner of it is a bit too good. There was a period of time semi-recently when the algorithm was better than my heuristics, too. I had associated too-good thumbnails with overproduced shallow clickbait videos churned out by co…

I rarely check the Home (algorithmic) feed or Trending feed, I just check my Subscriptions feed and I get amazing and lots of content. It take me time to build my subscriptions list, usually via recommendations by channels that I'm subscribed.

YouTube is my preferred app to watch videos by a mile, I never ever will change it for Netflix, HBO, TikTok, etc.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#192

Post by evanchisholm »

EGreg wrote: post #69
evanchisholm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently in high school, you definitely are right that the majority of people my age do just waste their time on YouTube (I do too sometimes) but there are a few of us that really take advantage of it. I have personally spent a large amount of time on YouTube learning to program over the past few years, I have now become quite competent and built some pretty cool things on my own (search engines, chess bots, pe…

[flagged]

I think this may be useful for people who are already interested in learning various things on the internet, however I don't think it would necessarily pull most people away from the highly addictive content they are already consuming. In my experience people who are curious will find the resources they need to satisfy their curiosity and it's very hard to get those who aren't curious to engage with anything.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#193

Post by tomcam »

I pay happily for YouTube, but just so you know... if your politics are considered wrongthink they will happily delete accounts or apply repressive algorithm changes to search results. For example, they kicked well-intentioned people off for suggesting that Covid might have been caused by the Wuhan lab until the New York Times finally published an article suggesting exactly that.

This comment will be downvoted and flagged, but before you do so imagine how you'd feel if you wanted simply to watch a video but Neil Mohan didn't want you to and gave you a shit Fox News video instead.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#194

Post by joshspankit »

This leans in to what I’ve been saying as an armchair board member:

The value prop of YT is everygreen content.

There is a net-negative effect when they try to be the “right now” platform (they pollute the index of factually-right answers). If YT doubled-down on hosting evergreen content they wouldn’t have to fight for market share against TT/IG/SC/WE because those apps need 10 years to catch up to where YT is today.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#195

Post by helpfulclippy »

mastax wrote: post #81

I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube algorithm is great. Signing out of YouTube and viewing the default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, but my little corner of it is a bit too good. There was a period of time semi-recently when the algorithm was better than my heuristics, too. I had associated too-good thumbnails with overproduced shallow clickbait videos churned out by co…

I am... OK with the Youtube algorithm. I find that it is pretty good at this point at not giving me stuff I find awful. However, I think it has lost a lot of ground in helping me find newer, more obscure topics that I'd also find interesting, compared to where it was 5-6 years ago.

Overall I think Youtube IS a jewel of the Internet. The amount of astoundingly interesting, informative, entertaining, educational, insightful, important or just plain COOL content that has appeared over the time it has been up is phenomenal, and it is like a Library of Alexandria of our time.

My big fear is that someday, Youtube will no longer be profitable. And then, like so many other beloved services, it will send out an e-mail saying it's been a great X years, blah blah blah, we'll be shutting down in a few months, bye.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#198

Post by MichaelZuo »

flangola7 wrote: post #188
MichaelZuo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know there's supposed to be a bunch of clickbait garbage on YouTube but I just wouldn't know, because I literally never see it. Just sort by view count for any common english word and filter out the music videos. Well, even including music videos there appear to be several dozen or hundred accounts dedicated to reposting the exact same Indian music videos, film trailers, clips, etc... Not even small variations of…

Why is anything with India content so... spammy? Endless cheap reposts with low res text and memes (or the India flag) pasted on top. Page after page of what I can only call video garbage. I have the feeling it is a cultural difference I am ignorant of.

Perhaps there is a way to game the youtube algorithm such that they still pay out on what seems like obvious spam.

But considering there are literally thousands of such videos with millions of views each, this could not possibly have escaped the attention of youtube engineers.

Though maybe there is a fix in the pipeline?

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#199

Post by mcmcmc »

javajosh wrote: post #181
brewtide wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 9 and 7 year old and we are constantly enjoying such YouTube channels as "smarter every day", "veritasium" (spelling?), "Stuff made here", to some extent Colin furze, "technology connections", and other such edutainment. Not sure it speaks about differences in kids, in ages, in households, or likely a combination of sorts. Also, not a judgement on your kids, just a counterpoint about the resources available…

peaked my interest That's "piqued my interest". It's a homophone. Also used in "fit of pique" and, very rarely "piquant". It's a word on its way out, but I like it.

It's a homophone, not a homonym. If you're going to correct someone's grammar, you should probably proofread your correction.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#200

Post by jahsome »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #182
crazygringo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I'm the same. I've totally given up on navigating anything except my home page, I'm actually astonished at how good it is. The newest videos from my favorite channels are always listed first, and then it's a smattering of older popular ones from the topics and channels I watch the most, and a handful of things "adjacent" to those that are sometimes not for me but sometimes become my new favorite rabbit hole, so…

I am hooked as well. (But, please, stop with the YouTube Shorts, I'm just not that into you.)

I'd double my premium subscription fee to remove this feature from the Android app.
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