13 ms·

The Boring YouTube

111 points by iosifnicolae2 5y ago

mxstbr 5y ago
What's the outcome of doing this, do you just eventually end up with weird and/or no recommendations?
- iosifnicolae2 5y ago
  give it a try :) Usually, you might get videos that you haven't seen before.. (at least, that's my hypothesis)
- m4l3x 5y ago
  Maybe it is just defaulting to most popular? I would be also interested in the outcome.
teddyh 5y ago
Even more boring YouTube: Remove YouTube Suggestions https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtube-s-suggestions/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub...
- jrimbault 5y ago
  FYI, if you're using Ublock Origin or something like it, you can block whole divs with it, wihtout another extension.
  - contravariant 5y ago
    Its syntax [1] is also surprisingly powerful. You want to block an element if it doesn't contain an element matching a particular string/xpath/css selector? But only on specific pages? Even if the URL is manipulated by .pushState? Easy. I've also used it to blur the text of newsarticles talking about a particular sports event. Frankly that part of the extension on its own is amazingly useful. [1]: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/wiki/Static-filter-syntax https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/wiki/Static-fi...
- pwenzel 5y ago
  Also Distraction-Free Youtube for Firefox and Chrome! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-distraction-free/mjdepdfccjgcndkmemponafgioodelna https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-distractio... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/
falcolas 5y ago
Might also be interested in astronaut - random low-view count youtube videos. http://astronaut.io http://astronaut.io
- dewey 5y ago
  I was going to say "there's probably a reason these have low view counts" but it's actually very entertaining and I just spent a few minutes watching these random videos. - Some birthday party - a random hiker somewhere in latin america where I even clicked through to their channel - skiing in Korea - person singing in a car
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    There are reasons why: Keywords being used in title are not popular ones, account not having any videos, subscriptions, likes etc. All this is taken as criteria when ranking algorithms rank videos.
- irthomasthomas 5y ago
  this is awesome. It reminds me of early youtube when you could go to the new tab and watch videos from randoms pouring in. The glory days before youtube face. I hope they add some more features, like navigation and control, and maybe choose a country or continent. And make the UI more obvious, it took me a minute to realise I could stay on a video by tapping the circle.
- optimalsolver 5y ago
  Anyone remember the Iconian gateway from Star Trek: TNG? This reminds me of that for some reason.
- lethologica 5y ago
  This is awesome to watch while stoned too. I just teleported through a hundred different realities. Awesome.
dcchambers 5y ago
It would be nice if apps/websites that offer "tailored" content (basically every social media and media consumption company) had an official way of letting you do an "algorithm reset" to your account. I get why they don't do that - it's all about creating the most addictive environment possible to keep your eyes glued to their service - but it's something I find myself wishing for all too often.
- Artistry121 5y ago
  I think logging out or just starting a new account suffices. I also think in settings Youtube allows you to delete your history and therefore the algorithm's learning from it. Most times I see the front page of youtube I'm happy they take me into my own universe of interests.
  - baud147258 5y ago
    I think I've disabled my watching history in Youtube and the frontpage suggestions are quite poor (mostly videos from my subscriptions I have already watched or videos that might share one or two tags with a video I watched last year and don't interest me at all).
  - iosifnicolae2 5y ago
    Yup, I've noticed that when I use an account old enough (like for 7-8 years), Youtube recommends the same videos.. (it seems to be in a local maximum).
- cryptojanne 5y ago
  Yes that would be wonderful. Sometimes I don't let my significant other search for her stuff while i'm logged in, i dont want to get suggestions based on her search.
- II2II 5y ago
  It doesn't really worked when logged in, but I have used Firefox's mult-account containers to create 'profiles' for different topics on YouTube.
- 5y ago
feupan 5y ago
If you think you’ll get better suggestions doing this I’m afraid you’ll be surprised. Just open the Trending page to see what kind of junk is popular. Hint: Curate your feeds if you care about them.
- nunb 5y ago
  The curation tools are limited especially with playlists and worst of all watch later SILENTLY fails after 5000 videos are added to the watch later playlist. Yesterday a watching now playlist glitched and kept looping in the middle. I had to manually click on the next video as the next button and shift N didn’t advance the playlist but looped instead.
drcongo 5y ago
If only it had a feature to get rid of every video with someone pulling a stupid face on the poster frame. I might even actually visit YouTube if it did.
- mattgreenrocks 5y ago
  I'd pay for a YouTube that bans all reaction videos. I can't stand them.
  - sillyquiet 5y ago
    Yea, I don't get the appeal of watching someone pretend they haven't seen "The Empire Strikes Back" and are watching it for the first time and are agog at the the twist.
    - krapp 5y ago
      The original Star Wars trilogy is decades old by now. Most modern Star Wars fans haven't even seen them, much less the general public.
      - sillyquiet 5y ago
        Sure maybe? but it's penetrated popular culture enough that I refuse to believe anybody would be surprised by 'No, I am your father'
        krapp 5y ago
        I don't know... I'm as familiar with it as anyone of my generation, but I honestly can't remember when I actually saw it last referenced in media or popular culture. I'd definitely be skeptical of anyone close to my age being unaware of it, though.
- pcurve 5y ago
  Try a plugin called "Clickbait Remover for youtube". Your thumbnail will be replaced by freeze frame from video. I love it. And you can turn it off/on easily.
markbnj 5y ago
I know recommendations are hard, so I don't want to be too critical, but youtube does a couple of things that drive me nuts: they recommend videos I've already watched, and which they know I've already watched because the site fills in the red progress bar on the bottom; they recommend videos I've added to my watch later list; and they recommend the same videos over and over even though I don't click on them and don't watch them.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  I suspect, without proof, that this is because a large segment of the global population watches music videos and variety show clips on YouTube, over and over on repeat.
  - buscoquadnary 5y ago
    I'll attest that info sometimes I need to do a boring but slightly involved task such as putting together a vision chart where most of the thinking has been doing, but there is a lot of little fiddly arranging boxes and pulling lines that is annoying and tedious but requires some degree of attention. The only way to make that bearable for me is to either solve the meta problem which often isn't feasible, or turn on some mindless show that I've already seen and don't have to pay attention to enjoy. I find in particular The Simpsons seems to often hit that sweet spot between funny enough to be entertaining and mindless enough to not be distracting. Whereas if I try and listen to a podcast or audiobook it requires too much focus and I miss the book or can't pay attention to that task I am working on, liking filling in a years worth of time sheets at the end of December.
    - all2 5y ago
      > liking filling in a years worth of time sheets at the end of December. 10 lines of Python and some browser automation. You did mention "solving the meta problem", and this looks like it is a candidate for that.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Some waiting rooms put on long youtube videos of stuff like "jungle scenery" or "fish" as makeshift screensavers.
kevincox 5y ago
My problem is that whenever I want to have a video recommended and open the YouTube homepage I just get a list of videos that I have watched before. I don't know how this can possible be an effective way to watch videos.
- neom 5y ago
  Do you tell youtube that you've seen this video before? Usually after 5/6 of these it starts serving new stuff again.
  - kevincox 5y ago
    I do sometimes but it doesn't seem to help. Roughly a third of the videos have a progress bar underneath (usually complete or nearly so) so YouTube knows that I have seen them.
    - neom 5y ago
      You have to be aggresive about it for it to work. It totally bogles my mind that youtube doesn't have a toggle for this, I get recommending things I've seen before, my wife loves it, I must have seen her watch the same youtube video 300 times, she doesn't explore youtube she just wants the same set of 50 videos recommended to her over and over again, this has been a pretty common observation I've made... people like this... so then make it a toggle for people who don't.
- rasz 5y ago
  I see you bought a washing machine recently, you will LOVE this selection of washing machine ads.
  - kevincox 5y ago
    You'd be amazed how well these work. Sometimes the order falls through, sometimes the washer needs to be returned. The thing is that these items are so high-profit that targeting this small chance of purchase is very valuable. And these users, even though they have just bought this thing that typically they need 1 of for 20 years, are still higher probability than average to purchase another.
neom 5y ago
If you just tell youtube to stop recommending things you've seen and channels you don't want to see as you go, and subscribe to a very wide variety of channels, it gets very good at serving you new content quickly, at least mine does.
- iosifnicolae2 5y ago
  I should search for a list of 100 popular channels where I can subscribe to :)
EvRev 5y ago
Recently I added my YT API key on a Kodi box at work and it "poisoned" all of my recommendations I see on my YT homepage. I look at it as a feature and not a bug, as it has curbed my ability to go to the home page and be entertained. Compared to the other plugins/add-ons that change the thumbnail or hide all the recommendations this seems to be a preferable alternative.
wintermutestwin 5y ago
I have multiple google accounts and have tabs up for each of them (thanks to multi-account containers in Firefox). For each account, I have tried to to focus on sets of specific interests - always being careful to switch to the proper tab when I subscribe or search. The recommendations engine only shows me something good on a ~1:20 ratio. It seems like it would be so easy to improve it: 1. Show me new videos from my subscriptions! It does this rarely and, when it does, it shows me the same video over and over and over. 2. If it shows me a video >4 times - stop showing me the damn video! 3. Have a robust tagging system and use that for new discovery. 4. Use my subscribed channels for topical relevance REGARDLESS of what I have been watching lately! 5. Youtube is begging to be disrupted by anyone providing good curation.
- iosifnicolae2 5y ago
  5. I agree.
Nanplune 5y ago
There is so much incredible content out there that we're being deprived of. As someone who loves the "discovery" aspect of the internet, I can't believe we dont have better tools for this. It's disturbing the degree to which our web experiences are curated now.
cloverich 5y ago
I watch a lot of youtube because its really the only form of TV I enjoy any longer. But the recommendations are a drag for the reasons mentioned here. What I'd really like is a better channels concept -- collections of videos from people I subscribe to -- or perhaps other's channels that get regularly updated content. A mix of algorithmically generated, user generated, and generated from myself (ex: put all my guitar subs into the same channel). I keep expecting these things to exist but perhaps user error is holding me back. Having a shared viewing experience with people with comparable interests would be particularly interesting. In that case, having channels that work a bit more like TV -- as opposed to on demand -- wouldn't be so bad because it links you up with other people currently watching it. Perhaps even voting to skip or replay. Its one of those things where, I feel like there is an extraordinary amount of potential in this product still, but will it ever be tapped? It has so much innertia that time is more on its side than perhaps it should be.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  I used https://youtube.videodeck.net/ https://youtube.videodeck.net/ for a long time to have Youtube "TV channels" but it got unreliable due to youtube api shenanigans. Now I use a script that makes direct youtube playlists I keep in a bookmark folder. Bonus you can set playlists to public and use 3rd party youtube apps with sponsor block on mobile. https://github.com/Elijas/auto-youtube-subscription-playlist-2/issues https://github.com/Elijas/auto-youtube-subscription-playlist...
  - iosifnicolae2 5y ago
    Interesting idea.
    - dirtyid 5y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/awJ6vCe.png https://i.imgur.com/awJ6vCe.png Yeah it's solid setup, one can get a youtube api key and setup a decent management spreadsheet that pulls channel names and other info. Only issue with spreadsheet+script is it polls for new video on set timer. Apparently possible to be locked out with too many requests. I have it every 4 hours, with a bookmarket that forces a refresh. Overall it's not a bad system.
dr-detroit 5y ago
anderspitman 5y ago
YouTube is no longer a video hosting platform built on the best tech. They're a video discovery platform built on network effects. And any startup or open source project that wants a piece of this pie is going to have to win on that front.
ItsMonkk 5y ago
Last month I setup tartube to download my YouTube Playlist videos through yt-dlp and then I play the videos through Plex. This was the problem I ran into after doing so, because I never officially watch any videos, all of my recommendations are either unwanted or downloaded videos. This quickly pushed me to subscribe to everything I want to watch, but it's made browsing YouTube itself useless as a content recommendation service. I suppose that could be considered a good thing?
- krapp 5y ago
  >I suppose that could be considered a good thing? It depends. I personally find Youtube's recommendations to be useful, particularly at discovering new music and tutorials. But that requires putting in the effort to curate your account - subscribe, watch, smash that like button, all that stuff.
mrkramer 5y ago
You don't have to mark all YouTube videos as "Not interested"; you can make front-end which hides all recommended videos so you can focus on the video you are currently watching and not be distracted.
animal_spirits 5y ago
YouTube's recommendation algorithm works great for me. I consistently tell youtube to not recommend videos that I don't want to watch and it will cut them out of my feed. I've gotten rid of most clickbaity material and it shows me longer form and more in depth content. If your recommendations aren't good I suggest using the features to not recommend certain videos or ignore entire channels. The algorithm will figure out what you want to watch
notRobot 5y ago
1. Doesn't seem to be working for me in Firefox 2. Convert this script into a handy bookmarklet to be able to use it with a single click using this tool: https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/ https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/
- iosifnicolae2 5y ago
  1. Hmm, feel free to propose a cross-platform solution :) 2. Nice.
- iosifnicolae2 5y ago
  1. I've updated the code to be compatible with Firefox.
  - notRobot 5y ago
    Nice!
dharma1 5y ago
I can imagine a future where users of content/social networks can pick (an open source) recommendation engine/model they like, and train/use their own if they want to
adamrezich 5y ago
slightly off-topic but the single most frustrating part of the YouTube android app is that when you accidentally tap on another video, it loads it up immediately, and there doesn't seem to be any way to go "back" to the video you were just watching, aside from going over to your History and finding it there. I don't watch a ton of YouTube videos but this gets me about once a week. is there anything I'm missing or is this as crappy as it seems?
iosifnicolae2 5y ago
It would be useful if Youtube would have some sort of agents with which users can talk, something like: User: hey, the feed is boring - I see the same videos. Could you please recommend something I haven't seen? Youtube: sure, I'll try. Youtube: is it better now? User: hmm, a bit better, but I would like some not so boring educational videos Youtube: sure
rollcat 5y ago
I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, I guess. I've unsubscribed everything, hidden/removed all recommendations and like/dislike, view count, subscriber count, etc with some user CSS/JS. Logged out for good measure. Then I've put the 20ish channels I care about into my RSS reader (NetNewsWire + The Old Reader, I recommend both), which allows me to do things like "mark all as read" on whole folders. You can get the feed for a user/channel like this: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=xxx https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=xxx or https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=xxx https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=xxx - it's a bit cumbersome since YT doesn't provide either link in the channel's meta tags. I only had to do this once, so I've thrown away the code, but I had two bits of JS: to generate an OPML file with the feeds for import, and to mass-unsubscribe everything afterwards. Maybe I should rewrite and publish that somewhere? If there's interest.
- gwenbell 5y ago
  >Maybe I should rewrite and publish that somewhere? If there's interest. Please do.
lxe 5y ago
Oh no, I liked my recommendations! Is there a way to revert?
wodenokoto 5y ago
Every once in a while YouTube places a tile on my front page asking if I wanna see some different kinds of recommendations and I get all excited to see something different and new and get so disappointed in myself when I realize I actually just wanna watch pretty much the same thing as always.
Uehreka 5y ago
Wouldn’t it be trivial for YouTube to just make a filter that says “If a user marks over 20 videos ‘Not Interesting’ in 24 hours, stop counting their ‘Not Interesting’ marks in our recommendation algorithm”?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mdrzn 5y ago
Useful script, but has to be coupled with this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-youtube-watched-vide/ekcdnnkolgkikkhbbjcabcjdibfbafbl https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-youtube-watch... It hides all the videos you've already watched from appearing in the homepage or searches or related.

The Boring YouTube

111 points by iosifnicolae2 5y ago

mxstbr 5y ago

What's the outcome of doing this, do you just eventually end up with weird and/or no recommendations?

iosifnicolae2 5y ago
give it a try :) Usually, you might get videos that you haven't seen before.. (at least, that's my hypothesis)
m4l3x 5y ago
Maybe it is just defaulting to most popular? I would be also interested in the outcome.

teddyh 5y ago

Even more boring YouTube: Remove YouTube Suggestions https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtube-s-suggestions/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub...

jrimbault 5y ago
FYI, if you're using Ublock Origin or something like it, you can block whole divs with it, wihtout another extension.
- contravariant 5y ago
  Its syntax [1] is also surprisingly powerful. You want to block an element if it doesn't contain an element matching a particular string/xpath/css selector? But only on specific pages? Even if the URL is manipulated by .pushState? Easy. I've also used it to blur the text of newsarticles talking about a particular sports event. Frankly that part of the extension on its own is amazingly useful. [1]: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/wiki/Static-filter-syntax https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/wiki/Static-fi...
pwenzel 5y ago
Also Distraction-Free Youtube for Firefox and Chrome! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-distraction-free/mjdepdfccjgcndkmemponafgioodelna https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-distractio... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/

falcolas 5y ago

Might also be interested in astronaut - random low-view count youtube videos. http://astronaut.io http://astronaut.io

dewey 5y ago
I was going to say "there's probably a reason these have low view counts" but it's actually very entertaining and I just spent a few minutes watching these random videos. - Some birthday party - a random hiker somewhere in latin america where I even clicked through to their channel - skiing in Korea - person singing in a car
- mrkramer 5y ago
  There are reasons why: Keywords being used in title are not popular ones, account not having any videos, subscriptions, likes etc. All this is taken as criteria when ranking algorithms rank videos.
irthomasthomas 5y ago
this is awesome. It reminds me of early youtube when you could go to the new tab and watch videos from randoms pouring in. The glory days before youtube face. I hope they add some more features, like navigation and control, and maybe choose a country or continent. And make the UI more obvious, it took me a minute to realise I could stay on a video by tapping the circle.
optimalsolver 5y ago
Anyone remember the Iconian gateway from Star Trek: TNG? This reminds me of that for some reason.
lethologica 5y ago
This is awesome to watch while stoned too. I just teleported through a hundred different realities. Awesome.

dcchambers 5y ago

It would be nice if apps/websites that offer "tailored" content (basically every social media and media consumption company) had an official way of letting you do an "algorithm reset" to your account. I get why they don't do that - it's all about creating the most addictive environment possible to keep your eyes glued to their service - but it's something I find myself wishing for all too often.

Artistry121 5y ago
I think logging out or just starting a new account suffices. I also think in settings Youtube allows you to delete your history and therefore the algorithm's learning from it. Most times I see the front page of youtube I'm happy they take me into my own universe of interests.
- baud147258 5y ago
  I think I've disabled my watching history in Youtube and the frontpage suggestions are quite poor (mostly videos from my subscriptions I have already watched or videos that might share one or two tags with a video I watched last year and don't interest me at all).
- iosifnicolae2 5y ago
  Yup, I've noticed that when I use an account old enough (like for 7-8 years), Youtube recommends the same videos.. (it seems to be in a local maximum).
cryptojanne 5y ago
Yes that would be wonderful. Sometimes I don't let my significant other search for her stuff while i'm logged in, i dont want to get suggestions based on her search.
II2II 5y ago
It doesn't really worked when logged in, but I have used Firefox's mult-account containers to create 'profiles' for different topics on YouTube.
5y ago

feupan 5y ago

If you think you’ll get better suggestions doing this I’m afraid you’ll be surprised. Just open the Trending page to see what kind of junk is popular. Hint: Curate your feeds if you care about them.

nunb 5y ago
The curation tools are limited especially with playlists and worst of all watch later SILENTLY fails after 5000 videos are added to the watch later playlist. Yesterday a watching now playlist glitched and kept looping in the middle. I had to manually click on the next video as the next button and shift N didn’t advance the playlist but looped instead.

drcongo 5y ago

If only it had a feature to get rid of every video with someone pulling a stupid face on the poster frame. I might even actually visit YouTube if it did.

mattgreenrocks 5y ago
I'd pay for a YouTube that bans all reaction videos. I can't stand them.
- sillyquiet 5y ago
  Yea, I don't get the appeal of watching someone pretend they haven't seen "The Empire Strikes Back" and are watching it for the first time and are agog at the the twist.
  - krapp 5y ago
    The original Star Wars trilogy is decades old by now. Most modern Star Wars fans haven't even seen them, much less the general public.
    - sillyquiet 5y ago
      Sure maybe? but it's penetrated popular culture enough that I refuse to believe anybody would be surprised by 'No, I am your father'
      - krapp 5y ago
        I don't know... I'm as familiar with it as anyone of my generation, but I honestly can't remember when I actually saw it last referenced in media or popular culture. I'd definitely be skeptical of anyone close to my age being unaware of it, though.
pcurve 5y ago
Try a plugin called "Clickbait Remover for youtube". Your thumbnail will be replaced by freeze frame from video. I love it. And you can turn it off/on easily.

markbnj 5y ago

I know recommendations are hard, so I don't want to be too critical, but youtube does a couple of things that drive me nuts: they recommend videos I've already watched, and which they know I've already watched because the site fills in the red progress bar on the bottom; they recommend videos I've added to my watch later list; and they recommend the same videos over and over even though I don't click on them and don't watch them.

newsbinator 5y ago
I suspect, without proof, that this is because a large segment of the global population watches music videos and variety show clips on YouTube, over and over on repeat.
- buscoquadnary 5y ago
  I'll attest that info sometimes I need to do a boring but slightly involved task such as putting together a vision chart where most of the thinking has been doing, but there is a lot of little fiddly arranging boxes and pulling lines that is annoying and tedious but requires some degree of attention. The only way to make that bearable for me is to either solve the meta problem which often isn't feasible, or turn on some mindless show that I've already seen and don't have to pay attention to enjoy. I find in particular The Simpsons seems to often hit that sweet spot between funny enough to be entertaining and mindless enough to not be distracting. Whereas if I try and listen to a podcast or audiobook it requires too much focus and I miss the book or can't pay attention to that task I am working on, liking filling in a years worth of time sheets at the end of December.
  - all2 5y ago
    > liking filling in a years worth of time sheets at the end of December. 10 lines of Python and some browser automation. You did mention "solving the meta problem", and this looks like it is a candidate for that.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  Some waiting rooms put on long youtube videos of stuff like "jungle scenery" or "fish" as makeshift screensavers.

kevincox 5y ago

My problem is that whenever I want to have a video recommended and open the YouTube homepage I just get a list of videos that I have watched before. I don't know how this can possible be an effective way to watch videos.

neom 5y ago
Do you tell youtube that you've seen this video before? Usually after 5/6 of these it starts serving new stuff again.
- kevincox 5y ago
  I do sometimes but it doesn't seem to help. Roughly a third of the videos have a progress bar underneath (usually complete or nearly so) so YouTube knows that I have seen them.
  - neom 5y ago
    You have to be aggresive about it for it to work. It totally bogles my mind that youtube doesn't have a toggle for this, I get recommending things I've seen before, my wife loves it, I must have seen her watch the same youtube video 300 times, she doesn't explore youtube she just wants the same set of 50 videos recommended to her over and over again, this has been a pretty common observation I've made... people like this... so then make it a toggle for people who don't.
rasz 5y ago
I see you bought a washing machine recently, you will LOVE this selection of washing machine ads.
- kevincox 5y ago
  You'd be amazed how well these work. Sometimes the order falls through, sometimes the washer needs to be returned. The thing is that these items are so high-profit that targeting this small chance of purchase is very valuable. And these users, even though they have just bought this thing that typically they need 1 of for 20 years, are still higher probability than average to purchase another.

neom 5y ago

If you just tell youtube to stop recommending things you've seen and channels you don't want to see as you go, and subscribe to a very wide variety of channels, it gets very good at serving you new content quickly, at least mine does.

iosifnicolae2 5y ago
I should search for a list of 100 popular channels where I can subscribe to :)

EvRev 5y ago

Recently I added my YT API key on a Kodi box at work and it "poisoned" all of my recommendations I see on my YT homepage. I look at it as a feature and not a bug, as it has curbed my ability to go to the home page and be entertained. Compared to the other plugins/add-ons that change the thumbnail or hide all the recommendations this seems to be a preferable alternative.

wintermutestwin 5y ago

I have multiple google accounts and have tabs up for each of them (thanks to multi-account containers in Firefox). For each account, I have tried to to focus on sets of specific interests - always being careful to switch to the proper tab when I subscribe or search. The recommendations engine only shows me something good on a ~1:20 ratio. It seems like it would be so easy to improve it: 1. Show me new videos from my subscriptions! It does this rarely and, when it does, it shows me the same video over and over and over. 2. If it shows me a video >4 times - stop showing me the damn video! 3. Have a robust tagging system and use that for new discovery. 4. Use my subscribed channels for topical relevance REGARDLESS of what I have been watching lately! 5. Youtube is begging to be disrupted by anyone providing good curation.

iosifnicolae2 5y ago
5. I agree.

Nanplune 5y ago

There is so much incredible content out there that we're being deprived of. As someone who loves the "discovery" aspect of the internet, I can't believe we dont have better tools for this. It's disturbing the degree to which our web experiences are curated now.

cloverich 5y ago

I watch a lot of youtube because its really the only form of TV I enjoy any longer. But the recommendations are a drag for the reasons mentioned here. What I'd really like is a better channels concept -- collections of videos from people I subscribe to -- or perhaps other's channels that get regularly updated content. A mix of algorithmically generated, user generated, and generated from myself (ex: put all my guitar subs into the same channel). I keep expecting these things to exist but perhaps user error is holding me back. Having a shared viewing experience with people with comparable interests would be particularly interesting. In that case, having channels that work a bit more like TV -- as opposed to on demand -- wouldn't be so bad because it links you up with other people currently watching it. Perhaps even voting to skip or replay. Its one of those things where, I feel like there is an extraordinary amount of potential in this product still, but will it ever be tapped? It has so much innertia that time is more on its side than perhaps it should be.

dirtyid 5y ago
I used https://youtube.videodeck.net/ https://youtube.videodeck.net/ for a long time to have Youtube "TV channels" but it got unreliable due to youtube api shenanigans. Now I use a script that makes direct youtube playlists I keep in a bookmark folder. Bonus you can set playlists to public and use 3rd party youtube apps with sponsor block on mobile. https://github.com/Elijas/auto-youtube-subscription-playlist-2/issues https://github.com/Elijas/auto-youtube-subscription-playlist...
- iosifnicolae2 5y ago
  Interesting idea.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/awJ6vCe.png https://i.imgur.com/awJ6vCe.png Yeah it's solid setup, one can get a youtube api key and setup a decent management spreadsheet that pulls channel names and other info. Only issue with spreadsheet+script is it polls for new video on set timer. Apparently possible to be locked out with too many requests. I have it every 4 hours, with a bookmarket that forces a refresh. Overall it's not a bad system.

dr-detroit 5y ago

anderspitman 5y ago

YouTube is no longer a video hosting platform built on the best tech. They're a video discovery platform built on network effects. And any startup or open source project that wants a piece of this pie is going to have to win on that front.

ItsMonkk 5y ago

Last month I setup tartube to download my YouTube Playlist videos through yt-dlp and then I play the videos through Plex. This was the problem I ran into after doing so, because I never officially watch any videos, all of my recommendations are either unwanted or downloaded videos. This quickly pushed me to subscribe to everything I want to watch, but it's made browsing YouTube itself useless as a content recommendation service. I suppose that could be considered a good thing?

krapp 5y ago
>I suppose that could be considered a good thing? It depends. I personally find Youtube's recommendations to be useful, particularly at discovering new music and tutorials. But that requires putting in the effort to curate your account - subscribe, watch, smash that like button, all that stuff.

mrkramer 5y ago

You don't have to mark all YouTube videos as "Not interested"; you can make front-end which hides all recommended videos so you can focus on the video you are currently watching and not be distracted.

animal_spirits 5y ago

YouTube's recommendation algorithm works great for me. I consistently tell youtube to not recommend videos that I don't want to watch and it will cut them out of my feed. I've gotten rid of most clickbaity material and it shows me longer form and more in depth content. If your recommendations aren't good I suggest using the features to not recommend certain videos or ignore entire channels. The algorithm will figure out what you want to watch

notRobot 5y ago

1. Doesn't seem to be working for me in Firefox 2. Convert this script into a handy bookmarklet to be able to use it with a single click using this tool: https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/ https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/

iosifnicolae2 5y ago
1. Hmm, feel free to propose a cross-platform solution :) 2. Nice.
iosifnicolae2 5y ago
1. I've updated the code to be compatible with Firefox.
- notRobot 5y ago
  Nice!

dharma1 5y ago

I can imagine a future where users of content/social networks can pick (an open source) recommendation engine/model they like, and train/use their own if they want to

adamrezich 5y ago

slightly off-topic but the single most frustrating part of the YouTube android app is that when you accidentally tap on another video, it loads it up immediately, and there doesn't seem to be any way to go "back" to the video you were just watching, aside from going over to your History and finding it there. I don't watch a ton of YouTube videos but this gets me about once a week. is there anything I'm missing or is this as crappy as it seems?

iosifnicolae2 5y ago

It would be useful if Youtube would have some sort of agents with which users can talk, something like: User: hey, the feed is boring - I see the same videos. Could you please recommend something I haven't seen? Youtube: sure, I'll try. Youtube: is it better now? User: hmm, a bit better, but I would like some not so boring educational videos Youtube: sure

rollcat 5y ago

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, I guess. I've unsubscribed everything, hidden/removed all recommendations and like/dislike, view count, subscriber count, etc with some user CSS/JS. Logged out for good measure. Then I've put the 20ish channels I care about into my RSS reader (NetNewsWire + The Old Reader, I recommend both), which allows me to do things like "mark all as read" on whole folders. You can get the feed for a user/channel like this: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=xxx https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=xxx or https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=xxx https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=xxx - it's a bit cumbersome since YT doesn't provide either link in the channel's meta tags. I only had to do this once, so I've thrown away the code, but I had two bits of JS: to generate an OPML file with the feeds for import, and to mass-unsubscribe everything afterwards. Maybe I should rewrite and publish that somewhere? If there's interest.

gwenbell 5y ago
>Maybe I should rewrite and publish that somewhere? If there's interest. Please do.

lxe 5y ago

Oh no, I liked my recommendations! Is there a way to revert?

wodenokoto 5y ago

Every once in a while YouTube places a tile on my front page asking if I wanna see some different kinds of recommendations and I get all excited to see something different and new and get so disappointed in myself when I realize I actually just wanna watch pretty much the same thing as always.

Uehreka 5y ago

Wouldn’t it be trivial for YouTube to just make a filter that says “If a user marks over 20 videos ‘Not Interesting’ in 24 hours, stop counting their ‘Not Interesting’ marks in our recommendation algorithm”?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mdrzn 5y ago

Useful script, but has to be coupled with this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-youtube-watched-vide/ekcdnnkolgkikkhbbjcabcjdibfbafbl https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-youtube-watch... It hides all the videos you've already watched from appearing in the homepage or searches or related.