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On YouTube’s recommendation system

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Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What corporate stuff do you have on your main page? Mine is all pretty much filled with content that matches what I watch.

This seems pretty tautological. What you watch will reflect your reccomendations because there is a causal relationship there, unless you never use youtube for discovery. I alledge that what people spend time watching is more heavily shaped by reccomendations than they are aware of.

I'm not who you're replying to, but at least for me, I've found a way of keeping the recommendations on check.

https://i.imgur.com/XIRW4U2.jpeg

When opening videos that are sent to me by others, I always use a private window, so my main account is pretty low "variance".

When I find a creator I like, I do a "fake binge", by queuing all their recent videos and some old ones too and playing them unattended.

I also try to minimize my use of the recommendation sidebar, since it usually shows content related to the current video rather than the more general recommendations of the home page.

When something foreign sneaks its way to my home page, I immediately click "not interested", paying attention to not hover the thumbnail.

Overall, Youtube has got me trained pretty well, but at least I get some nice recommendations out of it, so much so in fact that over half the recommendations I get are usually videos I have already watched (even if Youtube thinks I haven't yet for whatever reason).

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#132

A lot of comments here seem to not know: 1. If you don't have your YouTube activity history enabled, the algorithm doesn't remember what you've watched and you'll probably get clickbaity/junky recommendations. 2. If you have set your history to expire after some amount of time, it will start re-recommending videos you've already seen once it has forgotten you have watched them. You can set both options here: https://…

I have viewing history tracking disabled and 90% of videos I see are new/popular videos from channels I subscribe to. It's not so bad, definitely less clickbait.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#133

You youtube algo keeps showing me fox news. I have not once clicked but it keeps showing me them. Also, what is the deal with mrbeast and other video always being on default? Did they pay for that exposure or what.

> Did they pay for that exposure or what

Kind of. Mr. Beast videos make Youtube tons of money. Shouldn't be a surprise that Youtube pushes them harder than videos that don't make a ton of money.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad because I remember being able to find new and interesting creators passively. Now the main page is all corporate BS and the algorithm locks you in. We played a bit of WOW Classic last year and all of a sudden I was just flooded with Asmongold videos and videos of people clipping and replaying Asmongold. It took a day of "never show this again" to make it stop.

What corporate stuff do you have on your main page? Mine is all pretty much filled with content that matches what I watch.

I guess what they call it now is the Explore page which is all Ellen and Tonight Show clips.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#135

A lot of comments here seem to not know: 1. If you don't have your YouTube activity history enabled, the algorithm doesn't remember what you've watched and you'll probably get clickbaity/junky recommendations. 2. If you have set your history to expire after some amount of time, it will start re-recommending videos you've already seen once it has forgotten you have watched them. You can set both options here: https://…

I'm pretty sure Youtube knows that people who did one of the things you mentioned get fed up with their crappy recommendations and enable the recommendations, just to be 'fed' with new content. Which in turn is great for their monetization strategy.

It would be nice if Youtube offered a feature where the recommended lists are completely removed and youtube simple loads as a search bar. Where you find what you are looking for without distractions.

I've done this myself by adding the following rules to ublockorigin:

www.youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer.style-scope.ytd-watch-flexy

www.youtube.com###comments.ytd-watch-flexy.style-scope

www.youtube.com##ytd-browse.ytd-page-manager.style-scope[page-subtype="home"]

www.youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer

www.youtube.com##ytd-vertical-channel-section-renderer

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad because I remember being able to find new and interesting creators passively. Now the main page is all corporate BS and the algorithm locks you in. We played a bit of WOW Classic last year and all of a sudden I was just flooded with Asmongold videos and videos of people clipping and replaying Asmongold. It took a day of "never show this again" to make it stop.

That's why I started using multiple accounts, makes it a lot easier to keep the algorithm on topic and not get side tracked just because you searched for a song or game once. In the end the core problem with the recommendation system is simply that there is only one list of recommendations, which makes it damn near impossible to switch to a different topic unless you start account hopping. The new topic-bar helps a l…

I did this till I started paying for premium then it sucked.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#137
post #21

I've found some good stuff from YouTube recommendations, but the reccs are mostly pretty dumb -- tons of repeats, tons of "hey, here's something EXACTLY LIKE what you just watched." It's nowhere close to as good as the recommendations for TikTok (which seem to read your mind and your subconscious). Would love to see TikTok make a YouTube competitor.

Genuinely curious, would you actually want that product to exist? I'm at a point where I don't want better recommendations to tell me what to think. I'm already having enough of a challenge keeping my focus with the status quo.

I would. Not because I necessarily even want to use it. But at this point, I consider any competition to Youtube to be a good thing. It's been over a decade without Youtube having a single viable alternative, and I want that to end.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#139
post #11

The reccomendation system is absolutely dangerous. Just this summer, I watched one video on peppers out of curiousity. By the end of summer I've got multiple different varieties growing, and all the accessories to support them. I'm really enjoying my garden, but it's very unlikely I would have started one without the youtube algorithm. Similarly my doctor reccomended I exercise more, so I started running. Then I goog…

Read it as “video on preppers” and everything still worked for the most part, but you didn’t mention freeze dried food or holsters so figured I read something wrong.

Same here, though I caught on at "multiple different varieties [of preppers?] growing" (WTF?).

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#140

And as I got on YouTube just now, the recommendations are just utter junk. It is a bunch of clickbait on things I don't even like and find annoying and repulsive. This is why I use things like youtube-dl, NewPipe, etc.

> This is why I use things like youtube-dl, NewPipe, etc.

Perhaps this is the reason the recommendations are junk? How can Youtube recommend you videos if you hide what you like from Youtube?

I watch a lot of Youtube, signed in, on Youtube.com, and my recommendations are great.

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