On YouTube’s recommendation system • Hacker News Board

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#211

Post by fsckboy » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #92

jeffwask wrote: post #44

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.

> Mine is all pretty much filled with content that matches what I watch.

it should know that I don't want to watch the same things every day over and over relentlessly. There's hardly anything (by topic) I want to watch again the next day, except some news and political commentary which I do watch and it NEVER offers me.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#212

Post by iotku » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #155

Be careful with YouTube. For years people have talked about social media's effect on mental health, but personally, I've found the biggest hit to be YouTube. Their recommendation system is really the heart of the beast. It's essentially a dopamine reward system, not too dissimilar from a slot machine at a casino. Pull the lever (refresh the page) and get random results! It sucks you in to a cycle of refreshing, findi…

>Far more productive, is going to YouTube for something SPECIFIC. Use the search function to find what you're looking for, and watch those videos, but never use the homepage or sidebar recommendations.

Unfortunately the search is far from independent of the recommendation algorithm.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#213

Post by DantesKite » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

I've learned so much from YouTube. It's essentially a Gutenberg Revolution.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#214

Post by srcreigh » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

yummypaint wrote: post #120

kenjackson wrote: post #92

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.

Personal experience sharing time. I use YouTube heavily, and even pay for YT Premium.

The other day a little modal appeared on the side of youtube.com desktop saying something like, "Curious for new stuff? Explore content that isn't what you usually watch."

It ended up being sorta like an alternate reality. It was all the topics I usually watch, but with different channels I don't normally see at all. In other words, it was as if all the channels I normally watch don't exist, what else would exist to fill the void.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#215

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

The best YouTube interface I've yet found is the commandline "mps-youtube" (mpsyt) utility (https://pypi.org/project/mps-youtube/)

Unfortunately, it's been all but entirely crippled through API limits.

When it did work, what it allowed was:

- A terminal text-only interface.

- The ability to search by keyword or publisher.

- The ability to restrict to music, or all videos.

- The ability to set playback preferences (audio only, video, preferred resolution)

- The ability to create current or permanently saved playlists. These could be edited down from the search results.

- Runs on Linux, MacOS, Android (under Termux via pip), and Windows (Cygwin or WSL). On Android, it permits backgrounding video or listening to audio only.

- Accrues no user history.

- Recommendations-free.

And the killer feature:

- The ability to play through a curated playlist from beginning to end.

(It also suppresses advertising, which is a plus in my book.)

You could also download directly from the utility (audio, video, or both). All state are retained locally, there's no need to have or use an account.

For topics of interest, I would stack up 5, or 10 or 20, or 40 videos, and roll through them over an hour, day, or week. It was really marvelous.

As noted, YouTube killed it through their application API control.

mpv offers the ability to play back either a single video, a (separately maintained) playlist, or a channel or YouTube playlist, and is my usual go-to. It's also useful on other sites (mpv uses the youtube-dl utility which supports a whole slew of video and audio sites and platforms).

Absent mpsyt, what I'll frequently do is use YouTube's site search or a third party (e.g., DDG video search) to grab a bunch of video URLs, and either play those from the commandline (mpv will take multiple arguments) or as a saved file (useful for restarting later). This gives an ad-free experience as well.

But for YouTube itself, mpsyt was amazing.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#216

Post by kyle-rb » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

jeffwask wrote: post #134

kenjackson wrote: post #92

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.

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

The Explore page seems to be globally-curated stuff not based on personal taste, so it seems like the opposite of recommended.

And is that the main page for you? When I open the website or the Android app I get "Home". "Explore" is a separate tab. "Home" is pretty much filled with recommendations from channels I've watched recently, no corporate stuff (excluding ads).

I do see the issue of recommendations being flooded with one topic you've watched recently, but I generally don't have too much of a problem with it. When the recommendations stop being relevant/interesting to me, I tend to shut off YouTube.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#217

Post by sigmar » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: 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…

The same thing happened to me with plants. I knew nothing about plants last year. Now I tell people I was radicalized by youtube into a house plant and pepper plant obsession.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#218

Post by beckman466 » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: 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…

What makes you share such an unrelated anecdotal story here?

Seriously? Is it 'telling 'cute' stories to distract from the black box youtube algorithm that creates white supremacists' -time? It comes across as incredibly unempathetic, gaslighty and dismissive, posting on a thread that is discussing an important societal problem; especially using the word 'dangerous' in the sarcastic way in which you used it here.

It's frustrating that the readers themselves have to replace YouTube's cryptic and doublespeak-y 'borderline' label in this article with the word 'white supremacist' and/or 'alt-right' to get the real picture.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#219

Post by isk517 » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #180

isk517 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running is a hobby that feels like it should be cheap but gets surprisingly expensive. Two quick pieces of advice to save you from a bit of hurt. 1. Track your miles, shoes need to be replaced every 300-500 and 2. Go get a foot orthotic and gait assessment done. Wearing the right type of shoes and finding out if you require orthotics is a easy way to prevent injuries that won't pop up for another year or two down the…

I know quite a few casual runners (5K to 10K) and been running for over 15 years myself. Other than a $120 pair of running shoes every year or two, what is the expense? Maybe the water backpack things if you are into extreme running? It is not even a separate expense for me, as I just use my running shoes as my regular shoes. Also, maybe it is my gait or my lack of weight, but I estimate my shoes last 1k miles.

I suppose things aren't as expensive if you are a casual but I'm still surprised you can get 1k out of a pair of shoes. My mother also runs and is significantly lighter than myself and she gets shin splints if she doesn't change runners out at 500 miles. My current system is to run a pair of shoes for about 350 - 450 miles then downgrade them to a pair of walking shoes in till they fall apart.

I started running fairly casually but eventually started doing marathons. I run about 110 miles a month so I'm switching out shoes every 3 months. My feet suck so I'm also replacing a pair of orthotics every 2 years. I got a full set of summer and winter running gear and enough of each to last me a week. I also have a hydration vest, a GPS watch (not necessary but very useful), a set of Aftershokz bone conductive headphones so that I can listen to music while maintaining situational awareness, a pair of good sunglasses specifically for running (I sweat a lot and would not want to ware the same pair for everyday use), I have a few soft flasks that go in my hydration vest, and I've had to invest in a pretty decent treadmill to run on during the worst parts of winter.

Not everything I've listed is 100% necessary but as with most hobbies it finds ways to become expensive the more dedicated you are to it.

Re: On YouTube’s recommendation system

#220

Post by kenjackson » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

yummypaint wrote: post #120

kenjackson wrote: post #92

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.

What they watch is shaped by recommendations, but I think most are also aware of it. For example, when I want to watch something about basketball I typically go to YouTube and there are recommendations of what to watch. There are probably millions of basketball videos, but YouTube is going to show me a handful based on previous videos I've watched and liked. I'm not surprised to see certain content creators more than others. But at the same time if they did a poor job of recommendation (like Spotify) then I'd probably just go and search through channels that I know I like.