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Ask HN: Is it time for YouTube to go?
As a user of YouTube from the very beginning, I see YT only going downhill. It used to be an awesome place where there was funny, honest and real content. The content nowadays is filled with self-obsessed people, click-bait titles and stupid pranks. Is it time for a new platform that will bring us back to the old good days? ('member')
- herbst 10y agoHonestly i dont even notice all that crap other than some youtubers i followed that complained about it. If you use YouTube to watch what you want to watch it is still just as amazing as it ever was.
- detaro 10y agoIMHO: Don't click on the "trending" tab and everything is fine, at least once you subscribe to a few users so it has something to create suggestions off. There is a lot of annoying stuff, but also many many high-quality creators and the bad is easy to avoid. An alternative could do things better, but I'd expect YouTube is still clearly good enough that it would have a hard time getting users.
- matonias 10y agoI think the users group might switch over time, more people that go there for easy, non-informatic, stupid videos. The other group will maybe find its way to a new platform (if there is one) where there is informatic, high-quality content.
- simonh 10y agoI clicked on Trending a few days ago and discovered "Simon's Cat". It's how my youngest daughter discovered Numberphile (I'd actually showed my kids some of them a while back but she'd forgotten, now she's addicted). I never really used YT regularly, just looking up the latest Scott Manley Kerbal video form time to time, but my kids were subscribing to channels so I started to as well. Now I'm hooked and have subscribed to some great channels like Nerdwriter, Primitive Technology and Close to Truth. For me, Youtube has never been better.
- onion2k 10y agoYou're conflating "content I like" with "content that people like". A lot of people watch those 'bad' videos. As hard as it might be to believe, they're content people watch. There's no reason for Youtube to change what they do - that's content that makes them a lot of money. What there almost certainly is room for is a site (or sites) that curate videos in order to filter out the content you and people like you don't want to see. Essentially you'd pay (directly perhaps, or through some sort of affiliate scheme if Youtube offers one) for someone to trawl through the rubbish to find things that match your criteria. There'd be a lot of risk - Youtubers can limit playback of their videos to only on Youtube so content could vanish, and you'd be relying on Youtube for revenue, plus it'd be something Youtube themselves could quite easily introduce as a feature on their site. Still, there's almost certainly a market for it.
- matonias 10y agoThat's what I have been thinking of. Because there is a lot of good content on YT, but too much sh*t that is in between. I have the feeling that they are killing themselves (user-friendly-wise) by keeping the shitty content. Unfortunately its money > quality.