Article is just incorrect: few years ago, YT realized that optimizing for watch time decreases engagement, which is obviously most critical for life-time profit

Article is just incorrect: few years ago, YT realized that optimizing for watch time decreases engagement, which is obviously most critical for life-time profits, and switched to optimizing for life-time engagement. I.e. watch less today, but return tomorrow. It’s very tricky ML problem, so by now YT ML is probably the most advanced in the world in this area. PS. Trigger for investigation was the event named “boobacalipse” - when recommender recommended videos with boobs on the first page for couple days.