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> YouTube with WAAAAYYYY more resources, data, people Alphabet, Google and to a lesser extent, YouTube, have a lot of ressources, but they might not invest it

by bertil 5y ago

> YouTube with WAAAAYYYY more resources, data, people Alphabet, Google and to a lesser extent, YouTube, have a lot of ressources, but they might not invest it in this direction. A friend worked on a team responsible for understanding creators, recently, and it was alarming how few people were involved. He left because it was poorly managed. They barely scratched the surface on engagement, not even able to measure the lack of consistency of audience engagement (the biggest point of contention of creators). They likely have fewer people dedidated to fighting spam overall, let alone in comments, than you’d expect. This is a delicate interaction to highlight because it’s both account creation (accounts that don’t upload videos, so they likely aren’t prioritised) and editing their identity, something no one cares much at YouTube (you get plates if you matter, that’s operations); all the bad things happen off YouTube… The other comment about adversarial interactions with spam is key --and likely more important-- but we need to remind everyone (including people on HN who likely have experienced this at their job) that “it’s a large company” doesn’t translate to “they have large teams working on this” but “they have many other problems prioritised over this”.

jorams 5y ago
> “it’s a large company” doesn’t translate to “they have large teams working on this” but “they have many other problems prioritised over this”. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded of that. "Company X with way more resources is failing at basic tasks" doesn't signal a misunderstanding of what those resources are used for, it is criticism of that company's priorities. The fact is that a company whose profits grow by billions every year is not fixing a very obvious problem on one of their biggest platforms. They have more than enough the resources to fix it.
- bertil 5y ago
  Their profits would only be relevant if they underpaid the staff that could fix that problem (machine-learning specialists, because you can’t imagine addressing this by hand). They don’t. Whatever lack of ressource they might have isn’t fixable with money alone. They prioritise other issues; comments, more so, comments on comments, are nowhere near the core feature of the platform. They have, seemingly, addressed issues on copyright infringement, people gaming the recommendation system and first-level comments—things that the same creators have been loudly complaining about earlier. That sound like a reasonnable prioritisation system. The phenomena that has been described is apparently new, so the issue is presumably that they aren’t able to react to new threats rapidly. That would be a new structural concern for them, and not something that they would be expected to have fixed as a large company.

by bertil 5y ago

jorams 5y ago

> “it’s a large company” doesn’t translate to “they have large teams working on this” but “they have many other problems prioritised over this”. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded of that. "Company X with way more resources is failing at basic tasks" doesn't signal a misunderstanding of what those resources are used for, it is criticism of that company's priorities. The fact is that a company whose profits grow by billions every year is not fixing a very obvious problem on one of their biggest platforms. They have more than enough the resources to fix it.

bertil 5y ago
Their profits would only be relevant if they underpaid the staff that could fix that problem (machine-learning specialists, because you can’t imagine addressing this by hand). They don’t. Whatever lack of ressource they might have isn’t fixable with money alone. They prioritise other issues; comments, more so, comments on comments, are nowhere near the core feature of the platform. They have, seemingly, addressed issues on copyright infringement, people gaming the recommendation system and first-level comments—things that the same creators have been loudly complaining about earlier. That sound like a reasonnable prioritisation system. The phenomena that has been described is apparently new, so the issue is presumably that they aren’t able to react to new threats rapidly. That would be a new structural concern for them, and not something that they would be expected to have fixed as a large company.