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Why is everybody pretending the recommendation system is designed to show you what you want to see, rather than to maximise ad revenue?
by Sophistifunk 4y ago
Why is everybody pretending the recommendation system is designed to show you what you want to see, rather than to maximise ad revenue?
- bricemo 4y agoAgree. This study is assuming the intent of the feature is to remove those types of videos. In reality the intent is to use it as one of many signals to make better ML recommendations. Oftentimes, there are also differences in revealed and stated preferences.
- kilroy123 4y agoI assume this because I pay and don't see ads.
- harry8 4y agoYou are in a minority. Why do you think they built their recommendation system with you in mind at all? You've already paid, you no longer impact the fit of the short term revenue maximization objective function.
- maroonblazer 4y agoI suspect daily/weekly/monthly active users and minutes viewed are a metric they're interested in maximizing. That would be incentive to optimize the recommendation system for paid users too.
- Kbelicius 4y agoI think that, concerning paid users, what they would be interested in would just be daily/weekly/monthly paying users. As for minutes watched they'd be incentivized to reduce it as far as it is possible while still retaining a paying user. After all, they don't show more ads if a paying user watches more minutes of video. At least not yet.
- Sophistifunk 4y agoSo do I. As such, what we watch doesn't make much difference to their bottom line, so they're certainly not going to write a second, just-as-expensive-to-maintain recommender engine just for the three of us.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- vineyardmike 4y agoWhy is everyone pretending that the maximal amount of ad revenue comes doesn’t come from showing you what you want to see? Individual videos don’t pay to be in the recommended feed. There’s no opportunity to see an ad except when you watch a video. YouTube has a perfectly balanced incentive to show you more content you’ll watch. Where is the exclusive choice between (what the user wants to watch) and (what makes more money)? The only thing I can imagine is that they would down-rank videos not cached in your region.
- Ferret7446 4y agoTechnically correctly, although there is a subtle nuance here. What you want to see is not necessarily the same as what you will end up watching. Just because you dislike a video doesn't mean you wouldn't watch it. Or put another way, you can tell YouTube what you want (to be perceived socially as wanting) to see, but the algorithm knows what you actually want to see.
- JohnFen 4y ago> Or put another way, you can tell YouTube what you want (to be perceived socially as wanting) to see, but the algorithm knows what you actually want to see. Except the algorithm doesn't know what I actually want to see. Nobody but YouTube knows what I tell YouTube I like or dislike, so there's not even a theoretical pressure to lie about by wants in order to present an appearance to others.
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoIsn't it more like YouTube can condition you to get obsessed and practically addicted, that's better for revenue so they do their best to do that?
- vineyardmike 4y agoWell yea, but that’s the wrong conclusion. By definition, clicking on a a dislike button means you watched at least part of the video. It’s a signal that “I started watching this and it wasn’t a good match”. That should send the message that it’s appealing from the title/thumbnail but a bad video. I don’t think the “socially be seen as wanting” plays too much here… because starting to watch already. You already sent a different signal.
- bobsmooth 4y agoThose two are the same thing. If the algo recommends good videos, you keep watching. More watch time more ads.
- kristopolous 4y agoThat's why I've never intentionally clicked on a recommended video. I'll go to watch one thing and leave. All the recommended stuff is just straight up garbage.