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> I stopped using IG & Twitter largely because it went from having relatively few ads to where I started seeing an ad nearly every other post. The increase app

> I stopped using IG & Twitter largely because it went from having relatively few ads to where I started seeing an ad nearly every other post. The increase appears to be dramatic. I signed up for YouTube Premium long ago simply because I couldn't stand the occasional ad anymore. I recently was at a friend's, and I wanted to show him a particular cooking video that I liked, on his iPad. It was a 16-minute video and it was interrupted three times by an ad. mid-video. Unbearable. The thing is, through Premium, I was actually looking forward to discovering new music with the YouTube Music app. Was I wrong. The recommendations are crap. They are repetitive to the point of nausea. I have a few hundred "liked" songs, but the recommendations are heavily skewed towards a few, mostly recently "liked" songs. This has actually lead to me dreading marking a song as "liked", as it inevitably leads to this repetition and, much worse, to unending recommendations of the same artist's other songs, even if I "dislike" every. single. one. of. them.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago
I’ve had good luck with Spotify recommendations! I’m finding a lot of cool music.
- ckastner 7y ago
  That echoes what a I've heard from a few others. It just bugs me that an entity with such a forte in data mining can err that much, to the point where they're losing a losing customer to the competition.
- spats1990 7y ago
  The feature Spotify has where artists curate their own playlists is also amazing in my experience. (for new music discovery)
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Indeed. Big fan of the Arcade Fire ones
- shostack 7y ago
  Unfortunately Spotify is near useless to me now as it is inundated with kids songs polluting my lists, and the occasional listen to a song outside of the norm for me somehow also does the same thing. They REALLY need a way to easily say "exclude this genre entirely from my recommendations" or from specific auto-lists. I'd also love a way to reset the learning features or specify more clearly "only learn from these playlists."
anon73044 7y ago
I'm sorry, but paying money to YouTube/Google to get around their adds and garbage recommendations seems too much like rewarding them for bad behavior.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  As opposed to what? YouTube is supposed to just host videos for you for free?
  - naravara 7y ago
    >As opposed to what? YouTube is supposed to just host videos for you for free? I think there is a median point between this dichotomy where YouTube comes up with ways to collect revenue that don't depend on maintaining an adversarial relationship with their users. If the ads make you feel like they're specifically there to make you hate them enough to pay, that's basically playing highwayman. You can't blame people for thinking that's distasteful. They could have less intrusive systems for advertising or just make it subscription only, patron/donation based like Wikipedia, or some hybrid of multiple models.
    - 0xffff2 7y ago
      >If the ads make you feel like they're specifically there to make you hate them enough to pay That's inherently subjective though. About the only way for a paid product to not make me feel that way would be to keep showing me ads after I pay up, which is not what we're after. On the other hand, people have claimed on HackerNews before that they just plain don't mind ads. Where do you draw the line that says that they're specifically there to make you pay up? It's intellectually dishonest to both complain about ads and complain when a company offers a reasonable alternative to those ads. > They could have less intrusive systems for advertising or just make it subscription only, patron/donation based like Wikipedia, or some hybrid of multiple models. They have that. Subscription only makes discoverability (YouTube's primary strength) far more difficult. AFAIK YouTube does offer paid channel subscriptions, but for whatever reason Patreon seems to have captured that market far better.
- 7y ago
bobviolier 7y ago
Only the non-ads on YouTube are already worth every penny. Especially the family plan.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

I’ve had good luck with Spotify recommendations! I’m finding a lot of cool music.

ckastner 7y ago
That echoes what a I've heard from a few others. It just bugs me that an entity with such a forte in data mining can err that much, to the point where they're losing a losing customer to the competition.
spats1990 7y ago
The feature Spotify has where artists curate their own playlists is also amazing in my experience. (for new music discovery)
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Indeed. Big fan of the Arcade Fire ones
shostack 7y ago
Unfortunately Spotify is near useless to me now as it is inundated with kids songs polluting my lists, and the occasional listen to a song outside of the norm for me somehow also does the same thing. They REALLY need a way to easily say "exclude this genre entirely from my recommendations" or from specific auto-lists. I'd also love a way to reset the learning features or specify more clearly "only learn from these playlists."

anon73044 7y ago

I'm sorry, but paying money to YouTube/Google to get around their adds and garbage recommendations seems too much like rewarding them for bad behavior.

0xffff2 7y ago
As opposed to what? YouTube is supposed to just host videos for you for free?
- naravara 7y ago
  >As opposed to what? YouTube is supposed to just host videos for you for free? I think there is a median point between this dichotomy where YouTube comes up with ways to collect revenue that don't depend on maintaining an adversarial relationship with their users. If the ads make you feel like they're specifically there to make you hate them enough to pay, that's basically playing highwayman. You can't blame people for thinking that's distasteful. They could have less intrusive systems for advertising or just make it subscription only, patron/donation based like Wikipedia, or some hybrid of multiple models.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    >If the ads make you feel like they're specifically there to make you hate them enough to pay That's inherently subjective though. About the only way for a paid product to not make me feel that way would be to keep showing me ads after I pay up, which is not what we're after. On the other hand, people have claimed on HackerNews before that they just plain don't mind ads. Where do you draw the line that says that they're specifically there to make you pay up? It's intellectually dishonest to both complain about ads and complain when a company offers a reasonable alternative to those ads. > They could have less intrusive systems for advertising or just make it subscription only, patron/donation based like Wikipedia, or some hybrid of multiple models. They have that. Subscription only makes discoverability (YouTube's primary strength) far more difficult. AFAIK YouTube does offer paid channel subscriptions, but for whatever reason Patreon seems to have captured that market far better.
7y ago

bobviolier 7y ago

Only the non-ads on YouTube are already worth every penny. Especially the family plan.