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I feel the same way, and it makes me sad. I was so bullish on Google when I first got a job and investing my savings, bought into the company when it was still

I feel the same way, and it makes me sad. I was so bullish on Google when I first got a job and investing my savings, bought into the company when it was still Google. I thought the rebrand to Alphabet was a good idea like everything Google, though their abandonment of 'Don't be Evil' planted the first seed of doubt. What made that doubt grow was that I use Youtube as a customer and... well. I'm sure you've seen the same decline. I finally divested this Spring after giving Google six months to come out with something that would reawaken my old optimism. Besides coming out with a mean go engine, all the news out of Google in that time was depressing. I'm frankly surprised at how easily a true believer like myself could do a one-eighty in their opinion of the company. I know there's a possibility that they turn this thing around and I look foolish, but they'd have to do that without my cheerleading.

ubercow13 8y ago
What's wrong with YouTube?
- snarfy 8y ago
  Search for anything, watch the video, then watch the next recommended video. Keep following the recommendations. See where you end up. If you know exactly what you want to watch it's fine, but the whole browsing/surfing experience sucks.
  - ubercow13 8y ago
    I agree that if you leave it playing it will go off on a tangent, but I find the list of recommended videos along the right side to be _very_ good. It really does list things I would want to watch based off past viewing and what's currently playing. I find it to be the most useful (only useful?) recommendation engine in any product.
    - dx87 8y ago
      It's good at finding things you'd watch, but not necessarily things you should be watching. Ex-youtube employees said that the algorithm is trained to keep you engaged and watching videos, so the recommended videos keep getting more and more extreme. This isn't really an issue with music because it just ends up at more niche artists, but if you watch a political video and keep following its recommendations, eventually you end up wathcing extremist left/right wing propaganda. Sure, it's something you don't mind watching once you get there, but it's not necessarily something you would have wanted to watch before the youtube algorithm led you there. Again, this is how the algorithm was described by an ex-youtube employee, not just a casual user.
- larkeith 8y ago
  Separate from the recommendation problems, which seem to vary by person, the site has gotten substantially worse for mobile players, to the point I've almost entirely stopped using it: - The mobile page does not allow quality selection, and always selects quality options far below what would be supported by your connection (It sometimes drops to 240p, and I have not seen it select anything above 480p, yet can easily stream 1080p on the desktop site or other players). - The mobile page does not respect the "Request Desktop Site" option, even in Chrome - and neither does their own "Desktop Site" link; Both still use the abysmal mobile player, and only by enabling both can you use a high-quality video player. - Anything 60fps has issues on my mobile device, while other web players are fine - even 720p60 lags, while I can stream 1080p60 elsewhere. I uninstalled the app years ago when it requested additional permissions with an update, and implemented a 30-second delay (with countdown!) before launching until I updated. YouTube is no longer the pinnacle of web video, and have not been for years.
  - mikelward 8y ago
    Does it select low quality when you're on Wi-Fi, or on cellular?
    - larkeith 8y ago
      That's a good point - I pretty much always use cellular, so I wonder if the quality cap for the mobile player is there as a misguided attempt to reduce data usage. Would make it more understandable, if no less irritating.
      - TheKarateKid 8y ago
        It could also be throttling via the cellular provider or ISP. Try with a VPN and see if it still happens.
- chillingeffect 8y ago
  In addition to those technical options, they have been substantially reducing revenue to producers and their algorithms have been shifting popular videos out of visible areas. Often popular producers will see sudden losses in their incomes. Videos are not enough to sustain, they're like apps; a part of a larger revenue model. This disincentivizes smaller, interesting producers and pushes the platform to be more like network television was, with handfuls of large, conventionally attractive people. I don't find it terrible at all now, but i hope it doesn't keep going in this direction. It's currently a wonderful resource for people who want to do all kinds of things from home and garden improvements, to cooking, improve mental and physical health, etc. Far closer to the utopian dreams of early internet enthusiasts than most other sites.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    I find it almost impossibly difficult to find older videos now.
    - buckminster 8y ago
      They've also removed the video title from the web page title. It just says YouTube. This makes browser history useless.
wutbrodo 8y ago
Can you elaborate on the problem with YouTube? Other people have mentioned it too here. I use it pretty frequently and it seems to work the way it always did, more or less. Hell, they don't even bug me with original content recommendations the way they did briefly (and the way Netflix continues to).
- mcculley 8y ago
  Maybe he is referring to things like the weird videos for kids that emerged from monetization: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...
- larkeith 8y ago
  Not OP, but I posted a comment regarding YouTube for mobile here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075895
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    Interesting, I haven't ever used YouTube mobile web (despite generally preferring to use web to native when possible) because I've never found it up to snuff, presumably for technical reasons. I wasn't aware the quality had declined. Thanks for the info!
- frabcus 8y ago
  The recommendation algorithm seems to radicalise people politically. There is some research on this - Zeynep Tufekci is the best communicator of it. Overview in the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po... There are flaws in the algorithm - 1) for scaling reasons it doesn't run full deep learning over everything, but uses a simple popular-only algorithm first. 2) it is optimised for next video watch time, which is a very shallow measure of what the user really wants long term. https://www.quora.com/How-does-YouTubes-recommendation-algorithm-work/answer/Francis-Irving https://www.quora.com/How-does-YouTubes-recommendation-algor...
Chris_Jay 8y ago
OP here on a different device, a lot of people have been asking about my beef with Youtube, so I'll try and put what I noticed in a timeline. 1. Youtube comes out with the promise of revolutionizing video, I immediately love it because of its idiosyncrasy and unpredictability. Despite low production values, the videos are varied enough that I can always find something interesting and the algorithm is quite good at suggesting things I'll like. 2. Google acquires youtube, whether because of more money or improving the algorithm, the offerings get even better 3. Youtube merges with google+. 4. Youtube hires new management and begins modeling itself after the old cable companies whose lunch it had 'till now been happily eating. 5. Youtube's algorithms progressively play it safer with their recommendations, the youtube personalities I follow either become more mainstream (Joe Rogan) or increasingly complain of being arbitrarily demonetized (Phillip Defranco). 7. Present day If you use Youtube as a substitute for television, it might not look like a decline. But I find television generally boring, and Youtube seemed to promise a general improvement. With a better algorithm for suggesting videos and a less hostile relationship to creators it still could be, but for years now it's been moving in the opposite direction on both counts.

ubercow13 8y ago

What's wrong with YouTube?

snarfy 8y ago
Search for anything, watch the video, then watch the next recommended video. Keep following the recommendations. See where you end up. If you know exactly what you want to watch it's fine, but the whole browsing/surfing experience sucks.
- ubercow13 8y ago
  I agree that if you leave it playing it will go off on a tangent, but I find the list of recommended videos along the right side to be _very_ good. It really does list things I would want to watch based off past viewing and what's currently playing. I find it to be the most useful (only useful?) recommendation engine in any product.
  - dx87 8y ago
    It's good at finding things you'd watch, but not necessarily things you should be watching. Ex-youtube employees said that the algorithm is trained to keep you engaged and watching videos, so the recommended videos keep getting more and more extreme. This isn't really an issue with music because it just ends up at more niche artists, but if you watch a political video and keep following its recommendations, eventually you end up wathcing extremist left/right wing propaganda. Sure, it's something you don't mind watching once you get there, but it's not necessarily something you would have wanted to watch before the youtube algorithm led you there. Again, this is how the algorithm was described by an ex-youtube employee, not just a casual user.
larkeith 8y ago
Separate from the recommendation problems, which seem to vary by person, the site has gotten substantially worse for mobile players, to the point I've almost entirely stopped using it: - The mobile page does not allow quality selection, and always selects quality options far below what would be supported by your connection (It sometimes drops to 240p, and I have not seen it select anything above 480p, yet can easily stream 1080p on the desktop site or other players). - The mobile page does not respect the "Request Desktop Site" option, even in Chrome - and neither does their own "Desktop Site" link; Both still use the abysmal mobile player, and only by enabling both can you use a high-quality video player. - Anything 60fps has issues on my mobile device, while other web players are fine - even 720p60 lags, while I can stream 1080p60 elsewhere. I uninstalled the app years ago when it requested additional permissions with an update, and implemented a 30-second delay (with countdown!) before launching until I updated. YouTube is no longer the pinnacle of web video, and have not been for years.
- mikelward 8y ago
  Does it select low quality when you're on Wi-Fi, or on cellular?
  - larkeith 8y ago
    That's a good point - I pretty much always use cellular, so I wonder if the quality cap for the mobile player is there as a misguided attempt to reduce data usage. Would make it more understandable, if no less irritating.
    - TheKarateKid 8y ago
      It could also be throttling via the cellular provider or ISP. Try with a VPN and see if it still happens.
chillingeffect 8y ago
In addition to those technical options, they have been substantially reducing revenue to producers and their algorithms have been shifting popular videos out of visible areas. Often popular producers will see sudden losses in their incomes. Videos are not enough to sustain, they're like apps; a part of a larger revenue model. This disincentivizes smaller, interesting producers and pushes the platform to be more like network television was, with handfuls of large, conventionally attractive people. I don't find it terrible at all now, but i hope it doesn't keep going in this direction. It's currently a wonderful resource for people who want to do all kinds of things from home and garden improvements, to cooking, improve mental and physical health, etc. Far closer to the utopian dreams of early internet enthusiasts than most other sites.
- tracker1 8y ago
  I find it almost impossibly difficult to find older videos now.
  - buckminster 8y ago
    They've also removed the video title from the web page title. It just says YouTube. This makes browser history useless.

wutbrodo 8y ago

Can you elaborate on the problem with YouTube? Other people have mentioned it too here. I use it pretty frequently and it seems to work the way it always did, more or less. Hell, they don't even bug me with original content recommendations the way they did briefly (and the way Netflix continues to).

mcculley 8y ago
Maybe he is referring to things like the weird videos for kids that emerged from monetization: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...
larkeith 8y ago
Not OP, but I posted a comment regarding YouTube for mobile here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18075895
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  Interesting, I haven't ever used YouTube mobile web (despite generally preferring to use web to native when possible) because I've never found it up to snuff, presumably for technical reasons. I wasn't aware the quality had declined. Thanks for the info!
frabcus 8y ago
The recommendation algorithm seems to radicalise people politically. There is some research on this - Zeynep Tufekci is the best communicator of it. Overview in the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po... There are flaws in the algorithm - 1) for scaling reasons it doesn't run full deep learning over everything, but uses a simple popular-only algorithm first. 2) it is optimised for next video watch time, which is a very shallow measure of what the user really wants long term. https://www.quora.com/How-does-YouTubes-recommendation-algorithm-work/answer/Francis-Irving https://www.quora.com/How-does-YouTubes-recommendation-algor...

Chris_Jay 8y ago

OP here on a different device, a lot of people have been asking about my beef with Youtube, so I'll try and put what I noticed in a timeline. 1. Youtube comes out with the promise of revolutionizing video, I immediately love it because of its idiosyncrasy and unpredictability. Despite low production values, the videos are varied enough that I can always find something interesting and the algorithm is quite good at suggesting things I'll like. 2. Google acquires youtube, whether because of more money or improving the algorithm, the offerings get even better 3. Youtube merges with google+. 4. Youtube hires new management and begins modeling itself after the old cable companies whose lunch it had 'till now been happily eating. 5. Youtube's algorithms progressively play it safer with their recommendations, the youtube personalities I follow either become more mainstream (Joe Rogan) or increasingly complain of being arbitrarily demonetized (Phillip Defranco). 7. Present day If you use Youtube as a substitute for television, it might not look like a decline. But I find television generally boring, and Youtube seemed to promise a general improvement. With a better algorithm for suggesting videos and a less hostile relationship to creators it still could be, but for years now it's been moving in the opposite direction on both counts.