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YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

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Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#521
post #331

I really hate youtube shorts. Can I completely turn them off? And whose idea was that??

I don't really mind that they added a new interface for viewing short videos. Buy what I don't like is that when I get linked to the new player it is lacking tons of features for no apparent upside (you can work around this by manually fixing the URL) and your can't play then via Chromecast (but old vertical videos not tagged #shorts work perfectly fine).

Sure, add a browser for short vertical videos. But don't ruin the existing experience for no reason.

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#522

YouTube for the things I enjoy has improved dramatically because the comment section is vastly improved. Everyone used to use YouTube comments as an example of a comment section dumpster fire, but they fixed it. I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been. Again, for me. One complaint: I like to upload interesting clip…

My biggest issue is algorithm that gets used for the user's landing page, a quarter to a third of that is things Ive seen before (with red bar at the bottom and not music), then at some point at the bottom of the page it just fills in another 2-3 rows with just a bunch from the same channel. There should be a consistent and easy way to watch things outside of your "bubble", e.g. they can fill that bottom section to show random "new" videos..

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#523

YouTube for the things I enjoy has improved dramatically because the comment section is vastly improved. Everyone used to use YouTube comments as an example of a comment section dumpster fire, but they fixed it. I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been. Again, for me. One complaint: I like to upload interesting clip…

> I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been. Again, for me. Teach me your secret to receiving good recos. The bad quality of recos is the total downturner for me. Nothing, absolutely nothing interesting for months. All that's being recommended is totally generic high view stuff, not at all related to my channels or c…

This Mitchell & Webb sketch is a pretty good summation of many of my recent Youtube recommendations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MusyO7J2inM?t=55

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#524

YouTube for the things I enjoy has improved dramatically because the comment section is vastly improved. Everyone used to use YouTube comments as an example of a comment section dumpster fire, but they fixed it. I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been. Again, for me. One complaint: I like to upload interesting clip…

>I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been.

It is a completely horrible experience for me, bunch of same videos over and over again, often completely unrelated to what I'm watching now. I don't want a recommendation for some dumb shit when I'm watching a programming tutorial.

I've spend over a year clicking "Not Interested" or "Block channel" over various topics only for them to suddenly come back and dominate the recommendation feed again. I've once visited a profile of a youtuber that hadn't uploaded in a decade only for ALL of his videos to suddenly start popping up in my recommended feed, even though I've seen them dozens of times already. Why did it assume I am interested even though I just briefly clicked on a bunch of videos? Is the top data-hoarding company in the world unable to tell causal browsing form an actual engagement?

I still shudder when I think about the time I clicked a bunch of trashy meme videos and how they poisoned my recommended feeds for months. Once the algorithm decides you like something there's no way to stop it.

I've asked for possible solutions and people were like "well go to your history and delete everything that might be causing this". Like really? I am supposed to dedicate time to curating my own browsing history for a chance of a non-shitty recommendation? I have no idea how this algorithm works in the first place, so why would I dedicate my time doing that? Isn't a browsing history supposed to reflect - well - the history of browsing rather than being a dataset for a ML model where the only metric that matters is a video click? Why can't I have a browsing history and get recommendations relevant to what I'm watching? Why does it all needs to be bundled together into an uncontrollable, non-customizable mess where no one knows how it works?

I don't remember it being that bad in the 2010s and I won't even consider paying anything for anything related to YouTube until they make it good.

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#525

Using YouTube is physically painful. I am pretty sure if I was at risk of heart problems, I would be advised to avoid YouTube. it's UX is fatal. it raise blood pressure almost instantly and it has the feature set of a vaporware product demonstration as far as sort and search is concerned. it's like YouTube decided to make a point of removing all useful search and sort functionality and make sure it was nothing but a…

Oh yes, search is the worse.

They inserted a few widets with unrelated videos ("People also watched", "Previously watched", etc.) after the first 5 results and you have to scroll through multiple pages to get to the next search results.

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#526
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sponsors don't pay a fixed amount to creators. They pay for (estimated) views. What I'm proposing is exactly, 100% symmetric to how advertisers who pay Google for YouTube ad placement are already treated -- they pay for views, and YouTube can and does choose to not show those ads to some users, those who pay for Premium. Is that unfair for the ad buyers? Sure, if you squint right… but they're not being deprived somet…

> Sponsors don't pay a fixed amount to creators. They pay for (estimated) views. This can't be right, I've seen many videos from creators that say the opposite, it is a fixed amount per contract which can be one or more videos. Maybe it is different with creators that have more than 1M subscribers.

You're correct, for at least a large fraction of the sponsored videos I've ever seen.

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#527
post #462

Discovery sucks on it, I feel like walking into an echo chamber everytime I go in

what platform is not an echo chamber? For example, if you don't want to read tangentially related pet peeves every time bigtechco is in the news, you stop coming to HN. You stop coming to HN, and only complainers are left.

HN is different, it seem separate from the rest of Reddit. The comments are almost always informative without karma farmers popping crowd pleasing jokes

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#528
post #484

She is the last exec I expected to step down. YouTube vastly improved in the recent years. If there's anyone who should step down, it's Sundar. What an uninspiring leader.

> YouTube vastly improved in the recent years.

Can you explain how?

From my perspective, the platform is still struggling to get the basics right : lots of spam in the comments, recommendation is meh at best, some videos are hard to find even when typing the exact title in the search bar and I can go on and on.

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasnt there like a 10 year gap between the two? It's clear Vine left a gap that TikTok filled but it's wasnt like one shut down and the next started right away... Rgiht?

TikTok launched in 2016, about 4 months before Vine shut down, although it wasn't immediately available worldwide. Musical.ly, the precursor to TikTok which then merged with it, launched in 2014.

I think you are being disingenuous. It wasnt widely available or popular until 2018.

Saying that Musical.ly, a Chinese based lip syncing service, was where everyone went after Vine, a USA based short video service, closed down in 2016 is quite the stretch.

I said 10 years which was an exaggeration but TikTok may be the spiritual successor to Vine but TikTok didnt even exist in the country where the majority of Vines users existed until two years later.

I guess you could say there was a exodus from Vine, users wandered around in a desert for two years, and then finally arrived at the promised land, TikTok...

Re: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down

#530
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess most people forgot fast that Spotify platformed a major antivaxxer? I cancelled them immediately and can't even imagine subscribing to them any time. It was just a year ago...

lmao

Yeah a few million dead is very funny
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