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Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

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Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#321
post #92
post #9

This seems rather user-hostile. The downvote count is useful for identifying videos that aren't what they claim to be. And how about DIY videos that give terrible advice? A big downvote ratio will get most people's attention in a way that critical comments may not.

Your first mistake was thinking that you are the user they care about serving :p

I guess Tron wasn’t clear enough, it should have been “fight for the end user.”

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#322
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first mistake was thinking that you are the user they care about serving :p

I guess Tron wasn’t clear enough, it should have been “fight for the end user.”

That's still the advertiser, isn't it?

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#323
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am actually paying to get rid of advertisements, not to get rid of useful features. This will just get me to stick with my channel subscriptions, as the recommendations are already often better and better scams.

Unfortunately even then Google doesn't view you as the customer in any substantial way. Advertisers have been, and continue to be, who they want to keep happy. The reality is that, in aggregate, most users are willing to take a fair amount of abuse as long as it's free.

It would have been an interesting experiment to show dislikes for premium users and see how many people pay for those feature, but I think that would have been too controversial compared to the ads that are accepted practice already.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#324
post #303

Has anyone else been slowly watching YouTube turn into cable TV? When I search "Hong Kong protests" I just get a bunch of videos from CNN and Fox News, not that long ago a search like that would turn up first hand videos of people who were there. Now they are copying streaming services in making it harder to tell what is garbage and what is worth watching.

News networks have much better SEO than John Doe with a phone and 0 subscribers.

It's not even SEO. Youtube / Google personally partners with certain businesses and injects them into seemingly organic video feeds. For example, there is an invite only advertisement tier that you don't automatically get access to regardless of view or subscriber count.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#325

Has anyone else been slowly watching YouTube turn into cable TV? When I search "Hong Kong protests" I just get a bunch of videos from CNN and Fox News, not that long ago a search like that would turn up first hand videos of people who were there. Now they are copying streaming services in making it harder to tell what is garbage and what is worth watching.

Yes, just like they got rid of the "Discussions" search filter that used to show you results from forums (i.e. the content of individuals) - now every search topic is dominated by sales channels.

BoardReader.com aims to replace this, but IME attempts to search for exact phrases (multiple words in quotes) doesn't work well.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#326
post #176
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first mistake was thinking that you are the user they care about serving :p

Perhaps, but this is the last Google product I still use. If they break YouTube like they did search, chrome, cellphones, and email, I guess I am off to find something else which must hurt their bottom line eventually.

Nebula seems like an obvious alternative

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#327
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's entirely too much good stuff on YouTube to ignore. I learn so much there, all for free.

But what are the opportunity costs of learning stuff on YouTube, especially if you're watching hours of content? There is good stuff in there - don't get me wrong. It's just that the good stuff you want to find is often quite hidden, and I've on occasion spent more time trying to find some video that actually shows a tricky part of some bit of equipment maintenance than it would take to just do things the slow way (t…

I can't stand video as casual content generally (e.g. news stories), but in terms of how-to information, a video is truly worth a million words at least. Compare watching five videos on doing a somewhat complex maintenance job on your truck compared to reading the Chiltons manual, and you get an idea.

Re: Testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but I think downvotes have been useful to me relatively recently. Fake videos may not show up in recommendation feeds, but they still appear in search results don't they? (And if you're searching for something relatively obscure, you can realistically hit the bottom of the barrel, rather than only seeing the more highly rated results.)

>Fake videos may not show up in recommendation feeds, but they still appear in search results don't they? Use report button

Given its Google, I assume those get forwarded to /dev/null
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