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It's not complicated. They need to stop showing people the upvote and view COUNTS. Behind the scenes they can still use it to make recommendations. Those numb
by kodz4 7y ago
It's not complicated.
They need to stop showing people the upvote and view COUNTS. Behind the scenes they can still use it to make recommendations.
Those numbers are pseudo signals of quality to people who encounter content they have never encountered before.
Even when they have doubts that are watching something unhealthy the mind goes "well if the rest of the world thinks this dumbass is important I better pay attention..."
If a dumbass hurting people on video gets 10 million views other dumbasses worldwide automatically get triggered looking at the count. "hey I can do this maybe I should run for President..."
Remove the counts and you remove the pseudo signal of quality.
- jakear 7y agoFully agree. Instagram is removing like counts (or at least looking into it). I think this a great path forward for the industry. Too often people see “popular” as “correct and not needing question”. Edit: the Instagram motivation is admittedly a bit different, but a good path regardless
- verall 7y agoIt is complicated. I think thats a bad solution. I want to see the counts. I feel it is far more transparent to see the counts than for things to just be surfaced or not opaquely. Youtube is not a discussion site and it does not work as one. How popular things are is a part of the context of pop culture, and most youtube content is pop culture.
- smt88 7y ago> How popular things are is a part of the context of pop culture, and most youtube content is pop culture. I can't think of any traditional medium that tells you the popularity of something before you consume it. Movie theaters, TV stations, radio stations, etc. have no concept of "view counts" telling you whether or not to consume something.
- rexpop 7y ago> I can't think of any Well, information IS available, beforehand in nielson ratings and films' grossing numbers, but you're essentially right. That's the problem: opaqueness leaves us vulnerable to being misled. Some PR company calls it "the hottest ticket of the season," and we have no way of corroborating this claim.
- verall 7y agoUh, they don't have view counts, but they certainly tell you when things are popular. These are bad examples because all of these have very public "view counter"-alikes. First-weekend box office for ""popular"" movies is reported in news media. TV stations have ratings. Pop music has Billboard. In fact we have a local "Top 50" station which only plays ""popular"" music. View counts ~= box office take ~= TV ratings ~= Billboard. Every type of media you list has gatekeepers, kingmakers, and counters, and other things influencing your to or not to consume.
- smt88 7y agoI have never met anyone who chooses their movies based on box office, nor have I met anyone who chooses TV shows based on their ratings. Those are all after-the-fact consumption stats, unlike YouTube view counts, which are shown to you upfront (without you looking for them).
- cheez 7y agoEvery single day, I watch the channel of a guy who has put out < 15 minute videos going back to nearly the founding of YouTube. He gets an average of 10-15 views per day. The value this guy adds to my day is literally measurable in $$$. If I could find more people like him, that would be great, but instead these are my recommendations: - 5 ways to do X - Bill Gates breaks down blah blah blah - Something about Tesla - One video by a guy I discovered outside of YouTube who is similar to the guy I watch every day. I don't watch this one that much though. YouTube's algorithm is not designed for discovery. It's designed for engagement. So I keep separate accounts: 1. Account for actually useful stuff where YT's recommendations are useless 2. Account where YT's recommendations are OK: white noise like things. Howard Stern interviews, etc I wish you could configure the algorithm for discovery somehow.
- verall 7y agoI completely agree, and for a good example of "better", I think spotify's discovery algorithms are "pretty alright". It's less likely to get stuck in a rut. Youtube is happy to try to bring you down a rabbit hole. And content-creators play a part in this: next time you hear about some pop-drama do a youtube search and admire how many videos are a single person just reblabbing the same story in front of a mic, cam, or videogames. You'll find hundreds. And so many things on youtube are like this...
- Nasrudith 7y agoOf course it is a matter of metrics - it has no way of knowing what is useful. The closest way to algorithmically discover (outcomes over time) would be prone to spurious correlations and be so intrusive it would make Cambridge Analytica look like LavaBit.
- cheez 7y agoI'm thinking "make things more discoverable" than "find more useful things" if that makes sense. I'm willing to wade through it myself if you present me with options.
- onemoresoop 7y ago
- naravara 7y ago>How popular things are is a part of the context of pop culture, and most youtube content is pop culture. Only with respect to people you know talking about it. Not just arbitrary metrics. Rating systems are part of the context of putting valuations on ads, not part of culture. Whatever impact they do have is based on advertisers trying to reel you in by applying the bandwagon fallacy and stoking your sense of FOMO. It's not something edifying.
- hellbanner 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdaPJLJCK1M&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdaPJLJCK1M&t=6s remember that anyone can manipulate these algorithms
- merpnderp 7y agoPeople aren't children needing information withheld from them. Give them the information and let them make up their own minds. This kind of coddling is how we ended up here in the first place.
- rossdavidh 7y agoExcept, you know, for the ones who are children, who are on YouTube a lot.
- Proven 7y agoNot my problem. If their parents don't care, why should I? And furthermore why should my freedom of speech be curtailed to protect somebody from their own irresponsible behavior?
- pier25 7y ago> Give them the information and let them make up their own minds. That only works for rational people.
- Nasrudith 7y agoAnd if you forever treat people as irrational actors they will never grow to be rational ones.
- pier25 7y agoThat's not really the problem though, but that irrational people have power. Like voting or spreading fake information. Also, I'd say people turn rational or irrational on their own choices.
- notenoughbeans 7y agoThat only works for a specific usecase. I've been looking at videos on how to drywall. Views and upvotes helped me find the most useful instructionals and skip the bad ones.
- lstamour 7y agoI often find the upvote to downvote ratio to be a higher sign of quality than purely the number of upvotes. If they showed me the ratio, I still might get the same value from it.
- notenoughbeans 7y agoThe ratio is important too, but the vote count is important. I interpret 4 upvotes and 1 downvote much differently than 4000 upvotes and 1000 downvotes.
- lstamour 7y agoWhile I agree there isn’t much signal in 1:1 and 4:1, it’s been my experience that if a video gets a downvote that quickly, it probably isn’t as good as a video only attracting upvotes for educational, howto or technical content.
- bubblewrap 7y agoI would expect most of the time the counts actually are a pretty good indicator. There may be good content that is overlooked, but if something is successful, it probably has something going for it.