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> [YouTube is] incentivised to make what they're looking for as difficult to find as possible so that they'll spend hours and hours binging vacuous addictive co

> [YouTube is] incentivised to make what they're looking for as difficult to find as possible so that they'll spend hours and hours binging vacuous addictive content looking for something but never quite finding it and getting no satisfaction from the experience. What you just gave is an imaginary description from someone who evidently doesn't use YouTube. I remember seeing Google presentations (on its official YouTube channel) in 2007 and 2008 where executives were saying that the goal of Google Search is to get you to what you're looking for as quickly as possible, and that's one reason that Google Search became the leader in search, and its very name is a verb for looking up something online. YouTube does the same exact thing, and the way they hook you into watching more are the automatic "related video" and "subscribe" overlays in the video player itself, and then the long column of related videos and, for any professional video, a pre-made playlist that is based on the viewing selections of other viewers, in the left column (on desktop browsers) or under the video (on phones). If I'm looking up a video by a singer, I find a long list of results. If I'm looking up funny bulldog videos, I find the same. If I'm looking up burger-cooking tutorials, I find the same. If I'm looking up clips from a certain TV show, I find the same. You're saying that YouTube doesn't do that? Try looking up some things on it and see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/ https://www.youtube.com/

lucideer 8y ago
I use YouTube a lot. Looking up a clip from a TV show or movie, a movie trailer, or a specific old TV ad works fine. Searching for a specific how-to works. And that's where YouTube's searchability begins and ends. Looking for content of a certain variety is essentially impossible. YouTube's categorisation is vague to the point of uselessness. There's almost no metadata associated with videos (even algorithmically) and most of it isn't exposed as a search facet. I follow a number of channels on YouTube that I enjoy: finding similar channels is no easier than it was before I discovered them. YouTube doesn't intelligently recommend me similar things, nor is there any facility to look for similar channels unless the creators of those channels have gone and curated such lists manually. The "because you watched" recommendations on YouTube's home feed are always of the same variety, with weak relationship to what I follow, rather than genuine similarity. Some examples: - I watch an educational video about repairing an old engine; YouTube gives me tonnes of promotional videos about car brands instead of educational content by other makers/fixers. - I watch an academic critique of the Bechdel test; YouTube gives me Hollywood trailers and popular movie clips - I watch a documentary clip about traditional food in Italy; YouTube gives me BuzzFeed millennials tasting things The latter recommendations are not because that's the only content, the former content exists, it's just not pushed by YouTube because it doesn't lead to addictive content consumption cycles.

lucideer 8y ago

I use YouTube a lot. Looking up a clip from a TV show or movie, a movie trailer, or a specific old TV ad works fine. Searching for a specific how-to works. And that's where YouTube's searchability begins and ends. Looking for content of a certain variety is essentially impossible. YouTube's categorisation is vague to the point of uselessness. There's almost no metadata associated with videos (even algorithmically) and most of it isn't exposed as a search facet. I follow a number of channels on YouTube that I enjoy: finding similar channels is no easier than it was before I discovered them. YouTube doesn't intelligently recommend me similar things, nor is there any facility to look for similar channels unless the creators of those channels have gone and curated such lists manually. The "because you watched" recommendations on YouTube's home feed are always of the same variety, with weak relationship to what I follow, rather than genuine similarity. Some examples: - I watch an educational video about repairing an old engine; YouTube gives me tonnes of promotional videos about car brands instead of educational content by other makers/fixers. - I watch an academic critique of the Bechdel test; YouTube gives me Hollywood trailers and popular movie clips - I watch a documentary clip about traditional food in Italy; YouTube gives me BuzzFeed millennials tasting things The latter recommendations are not because that's the only content, the former content exists, it's just not pushed by YouTube because it doesn't lead to addictive content consumption cycles.