11 ms·

YouTube Doesn't “Get It”

84 points by wankle 4y ago

Today I'm signing out of YouTube and here's why... You know how you click the X to disable Shorts and it says "Shelf will be hidden for 30 days" but then it pops up again in like a week or less? Or how when you X one of those panels on some topic you have no interest in and it says "Got it, message hidden" then pops back up in a few days? If YouTube is using AI then why is it so demonstrably, phenomenally bad at learning X means NO; not [Ok not today]? If YT does use AI, and if it's AI is powering any other parts of Google's (Alphabet's soup) then could it explain why all Google products suck at remembering basic preferences we tell them? Hey Google AI, NO means NO. Clicking X means NO. No as in forever NO, not just today or the next few days.

ss108 4y ago
Agreed, YouTube homepage and recommendations have been garbage for YEARS. Since around 2018, to my recollection. I just keep getting the same crap recommendations day after day. It's like, dude, you've suggested the same random clip from Mask of Zorro to me for GOD KNOWS WHAT REASON to me for the past several months, and I haven't clicked on it once. Don't think it's time to generate some fresh recs that might induce me, as a user, to click and watch stuff?
- unity1001 4y ago
  I just clicked on a KPOP video link 4-5 years ago once. JUST once. Youtube is still insistively showing me ads for KPOP tutorials despite I havent interacted with ANY KPOP content since then.
  - Euphorbium 4y ago
    Ban all of those channels with “dont recommend channel”. I had this when I clicked on some video ranting about horrible mobile game ads, and youtube decided that I am interested in playing shitty mobile games.
- borbulon 4y ago
  It’s not just YouTube, the Google mobile app feed has the same issues. It’s like they take one thing you read or watched and then try to throw anything even tangentially related at you ad nauseam and don’t really listen when you say “not interested”
- Euphorbium 4y ago
  Start using “dont recommend channel” option massively.
  - ss108 4y ago
    I have done that a few times, but it's tiring. I don't want to have to play whack-a-mole with it as much as their system seems to demand.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      I spent about an hour doing it in total and youtube has been fine ever since. Any video that isn't along the lines I want to watch and I just drop the entire channel, no thinking. Clickbait? Then I'm not interested in your channel. Cute animal video? Nope, wont watch anything from you, etc. Its well worth the effort if you watch youtube a lot. You can still find them in search, just wont get any recommends from them any more, so you wont be missing anything that you explicitly want to find.
      - ss108 4y ago
        > Cute animal video? Nope, wont watch anything from you, etc. ;___;
revskill 4y ago
No, impossible task for now. Because in enterprise world, even adding a simple if then else clause is impossible for current sprint. The worst part is, the code is hard to understand enough that the task could be deprioritized until later, undefined future.
pictur 4y ago
youtube is a site that oscillates between being a social network and not being. and for the most part they choose not to be. and maybe that's why it's constantly growing and unrivaled. they don't care about things like personalization.
danuker 4y ago
The AI is not the reason for the poor experience. The poor experience is caused by misguided policies excessively pushing for features (like Shorts). An AI would have toned it down long ago. I also think Shorts is garbage, especially for a desktop/laptop. The reason I use YouTube is BECAUSE it's not TikTok. Not every service must emulate every other service. Also, I am still bitter about the missing dislike stats. They were very useful for deciding among tutorials or courses, and avoiding misleading ones.
- trident5000 4y ago
  You always have heads of products who feel they need to do something to make their name known or feel like they're doing their job. They did more and the product is clearly worse. What they needed to do was nothing, but thats out of line with restless employees.
- tarotuser 4y ago
  > Also, I am still bitter about the missing dislike stats. They were very useful for deciding among tutorials or courses, and avoiding misleading ones. The Firefox plugin "Return Youtube Dislike" does exactly that.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Where does it get its data?
    - tarotuser 4y ago
      https://returnyoutubedislike.com/faq https://returnyoutubedislike.com/faq "A combination of archived data from before the offical YouTube dislike API shut down, and extrapolated extension user behavior." You're retrieving like/dislike data from that site's API. And when you set a dislike, it gets sent to Google AND returnyoutubedislike.com Given I watch Youtube in a FF container not logged in, I'm not worried at all. But I could see how some people could be concerned .
      - 4y ago
gpderetta 4y ago
Because when it was A/B tested, a non-functional feature-disable button lead to greater user engagement with the feature than the other options. /s but not really. edit: also 'No' means 'Remind Me Later'.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  So anyways, do you want to start a free trial for YouTube premium? No? It's been no for the last how many years straight? Okay, I'll just ask next time your open the app.
  - dv35z 4y ago
    I wonder if someone has started a list of tools for our field which are not adversarial to the user intention like this…
coffeebeqn 4y ago
Business goals trump good UX. Their executives have decided that you will like the TikTokification or else. Google is certainly more than capable of saving the state of a “close this” flag..
- kybernetyk 4y ago
  >Google is certainly more than capable of saving the state of a “close this” flag.. With the new generation of devs I'm not too sure anymore.
- danuker 4y ago
  I am skeptical even the bottom line gains from it. Whenever I click a Short, I am extremely annoyed. The scroll wheel is repurposed to skip the video, rather than the typical desktop interaction of going to the description and comments. When that happens, I close the tab and visit some place other than YouTube.
  - teawrecks 4y ago
    The eyes they care about are on mobile, the desktop experience is an afterthought.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > Whenever I click a Short, I am extremely annoyed. Why do you keep clicking it?
    - rolenthedeep 4y ago
      Because they get inserted into the timeline like normal videos, or maybe there's just one that you really want to watch. By design, it's hard to avoid them entirely.
      - andsoitis 4y ago
        > or maybe there's just one that you really want to watch So in those cases you want them to be there?
toomuchtodo 4y ago
https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
kybernetyk 4y ago
Or you click on "don't recommend this channel" yet you still get that trash recommended.
- soco 4y ago
  You don't mean Facebook now, right? I'm not even joking, they use the exactly same tactics of showing you the exact same (usually fringe) contents regardless how many times you tell them to f*off.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  Or worse, they start recommending it more often :\
- wankle 4y ago
  Yes I've seen that happen as well, forgot to mention it thanks!
- timbit42 4y ago
  Have you tried the "Channel Blocker" web browser add-on? It lets you block channels and it then hides them even if YT shows them.
bparsons 4y ago
I love YouTube, but the shorts feature is pushing really harmful content at their users. Even though I exclusively subscribe to food and skiing channels, every fourth video on shorts is really vile stuff from Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate. Giving it the "thumbs down" appears to do nothing about this. It reminds me of 2015 when the FB algo was being hijacked by all sorts of shadowy political interests to push weird agendas.
- kybernetyk 4y ago
  Yup, I, too, hate being reminded to clean my room.
  - unscenetv 4y ago
    You know… If you’re talking and they’re not listening, then stop talking.
- jesuscript 4y ago
  They have been showing me prison and public fights.
aethertron 4y ago
NewPipe is a 3rd party Android YouTube client. You might like it, or an alternative. Online Services and their client interfaces are ideally separated. This removes a conflict of interest and allows for client software to serve one master, the user.
heresjohnny 4y ago
YouTube’s current front-end is indeed unbearable. I’m nowadays exclusively using Invidious [1]. It is minimalist, fast, open source, has no ads, and most importantly, has no dark patterns. [1] https://docs.invidious.io/instances/ https://docs.invidious.io/instances/
valdiorn 4y ago
> If YouTube is using AI then why is it so demonstrably, phenomenally bad at learning X means NO; Because unfortunately most users are not consistent in their choices. They might say that they don't like shorts of teenagers doing stupid dance moves, but if they continuously click on those videos when presented, the AI will learn to ignore your explicit choice and go with your implicit one; that you like shit videos. (Not you, specifically, but people in general :)
n8cpdx 4y ago
I’m surprised YouTube is getting all the heat here. User-hostile product design has become the norm in the industry, _especially_ among FAANG/MAMA. Twitter, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, all streaming sites (anything that makes you scroll to find the “continue watching” list), arguably Apple, Nextdoor, anything that uses an algorithmic feed and won’t let you permanently enable chronological feed, anything that prioritizes “engagement” in a coercive way (so all social media including YouTube), etc. I used to aspire to work at a company like Microsoft or Google, but now I’m so glad I dodged that bullet. I care too much about making a _positive_ impact on the lives/experiences of users. I also have values that don’t tolerate industrial scale fraud and abuse (and yes, promising relief for 30 days and withdrawing it after 7 is clearly fraudulent). I hope more engineers would be willing to consider their role in making the world a worse place, and consider working for a company that doesn’t actively harm their users. But it seems most engineers will do anything in exchange for a total comp package bigger than the next guy. P.S. To the user-hostile PMs who aren’t swayed by a values argument consider this: if you let off the gas just 5% and allowed some breathing room for objectives other than user/engagement growth this quarter, you might spare yourself the PR/reputation hit that lead to things like hostile HN posts, popular support for antitrust enforcement, and executives being called to testify.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Why do people go to YouTube? To be entertained, or to learn something. The more videos you watch, isn’t that a strong signal that the user’s needs are served better?
  - n8cpdx 4y ago
    Only in a paper clip factory view of the world. Situations where the simplistic PM dashboard metrics model breaks down: - Users watch more videos than they want because they can’t find the right ones (maybe because the dislike button was reviewed) - The user went to complete a task, then got distracted by a bad recommendation - The user has a gambling addiction and is being served ads for gambling content. - The user went to learn something but was served highly engaging but false content Viewership is one signal among many.
wodenokoto 4y ago
I was surprised to learn that downvotes are a positive signal for YouTube to show videos to more users. I think YouTube is betting strong on “it’s not about what you like, but what you end up watching”
- IYasha 4y ago
  Yes, the worst thing you can do to a video is stop and close it ASAP. Any interaction adds to its value.
michaelt 4y ago
IMO the only page worth visiting on Youtube is https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions Only the channels you've subscribed to, in chronological order. Sadly it does include shorts in that - but at least they're not a dedicated section of the page.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Absolutely. At this point in time, the "Home" page is hot garbage, which seems to focus on showing me either videos I've already watched or videos that I'll never watch.
  - Snacklive 4y ago
    Recently i installed a neat extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/ it allows you to hide elements of the UI, including the Home feed, the recommendations, shorts and even the comment section. Very useful if you can't resist the urge to scroll like me
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- leshenka 4y ago
  yeah but what about content discovery?
  - michaelt 4y ago
    The recommendations, main home page, search etc are still there if you want them - and you can get recommendations from friends, family, and people on other social media. Personally I watch perhaps 20 minutes of video per day, and I've got enough subscriptions to give me that much content, so I don't really need content discovery. Or at least, not the type of content discovery Youtube has to offer me!
- PaulKeeble 4y ago
  I also have a feed of subscriptions via RSS and one thing I have noticed happens quite a lot is that a video might actually get hidden and only appear in the RSS. That same video however will often appear as the top video on the home page, as if you just "missed" it and once you go back to subscriptions its present. Youtube is messing with the subscriptions page too unfortunately but it remains the most useful page its just not as good as it should be due to the hiding of videos.
jjk166 4y ago
My settings remain stable and my recommendations are reasonable. If anything I have the opposite problem where I won't watch videos on a certain topic or from a specific channel for a few weeks and then Youtube thinks I never want to see it ever again, even if I've been manually looking for it.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Or serve stuff I already watched. Or gets obsessed over a new channel just because I happened to watch 3 videos I was interested in out of their 50 that I was not
- mikebenfield 4y ago
  > I won't watch videos on a certain topic or from a specific channel for a few weeks and then Youtube thinks I never want to see it ever again For me it's kind of the converse issue. I watch 2 or 3 videos on a topic and then YouTube thinks I'm obsessed with that topic and nothing else.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    This is my experience. Sometimes I think it actually makes me avoid clicking on videos that cover new topics. Especially if it's something gross or weird I'm about to click on out of morbid curiosity. It's like, "hmmm.... do I really want to be spammed with recs for videos on this for the next three weeks?"
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    I have the same experience but I will also say that designing algo’s and UX to find the right balance between exploring new things and exploiting a topic you’re interested in is no small feat. And doing it effectively for a very diverse user base where your intent in the moment cannot be inferred, compounds the complexity.
- greatpostman 4y ago
  It’s very annoying to me that google won’t recommend topics I was into years ago.
andsoitis 4y ago
> Or how when you X one of those panels on some topic you have no interest in and it says "Got it, message hidden" then pops back up in a few days? And > Clicking X means NO. While clicking X might mean No for all circumstances to you, that doesn’t mean it a the same for everyone else. To handle more variety, you really want at two affordances: “never” and “not now”. Note, when a user turns a feature off (your “never” case), now whenever you change that feature all the users who turned it off will now be left behind, even if the change or improvement would be appealing to them. So now you need a way to communicate the changes (even though they said “don’t show this feature”) and a way to change that preference.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  I wish apps had some kind of history for the things you said "no" to. Everything is constantly getting in user's way with some pop-ups, usually specifically to try to get me to do or agree to something I don't want, that I'm conditioned to blindly find the non-highlighted button and click it. Especially as these pop-ups usually come just as I visit the site to get something done. Sometimes (often, actually) my brain realizes that the dialog contained (or may have contained) something interesting/actually relevant only after it's already gone. I found the "red notification dot" works really well. It's nagging enough that I will take a look at it, but doesn't get in my way like a pop-up. I can first get my task done, then look at what it's about, instead of having to choose between interrupting my task and swatting away this obnoxious wall in my face. If you try to force something on me, I'm already much more likely to hate and not want it.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    I like that. A Notification Center vs. modal reminders…
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    The worst popups are the tutorial-ish ones for new feutures. They might be multiple clicks.
thenerdhead 4y ago
Show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome. The incentive is likely engagement and that comes at a cost of satisfaction. Computers are great at following directions like your preferences for being shown certain types of content or disabling functionality you don't want to use. Yet every platform somehow "forgets" your preferences regularly.
ThereIsNoWorry 4y ago
Youtube absolutely gets it; the profit increases, meaning it's successful at optimizing the most important metric set by the capitalistic system we have the marvelous pleasure to partake in involuntarily.
- wankle 4y ago
  We do have a wonderful economic system and I'm proud of it. Yet, I no longer feel incentivized to continue watching and throwing Ad dollars their way associated with my personal login, because they habitually ignore what I tell them I don't want, including in multiple Feedback posts using their feedback tool.
bluedino 4y ago
I'm just tired of seeing commercials for the Ridge wallet, Baerskin hoodie, and Sasquatch soaps
- ta8903 4y ago
  >I'm just tired of seeing commercials If only there was something you could do about that.
  - FalconSensei 4y ago
    those are paid promotion inside the video, not an ad
    - exq 4y ago
      https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ Sponsor block.
metadat 4y ago
Once YouTube Vanced broke I couldn't be bothered to go through the annoying sequence of steps to reinstall it again. Now I've been off YouTube for 10 months, I never browse for content or peruse the feed anymore. I don't miss it.
karaterobot 4y ago
I like to pretend there is a counter somewhere that is noting down every time I explicitly hide Shorts from my feed, and when it gets to a certain number they will realize I don't want them.
- qbrass 4y ago
  They realize you don't want them, they just see it as a bug to fix, and not a reason to quit showing them to you.
xnorswap 4y ago
Youtube music offers me a "free trial" several times a day. I "skip trial". There's no option to permanently not be bothered by being offered a "free trial". It infuriates me.
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
The part of YouTube I hate most is Mr Beast. I can’t get rid of the guy. He creates new channels just as quickly as I can block them from my recommendations. I’m sure that is a strategy to force himself in front of people. I wish there was a way to say that I don’t want any Mr Beast channels, I don’t want any Mr Beast collaborations, and I don’t want any Mr Beast reactions.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  This is the first i'm hearing of MrBeast having multiple channels so I looked it up. Turns out he has 5 channels total which includes his main channel. The creation dates of his channels are as follows: Feb 19, 2012 Apr 24, 2016 Apr 7, 2020 Aug 21, 2020 Sep 17, 2020 How often are you blocking? MrBeast is one of the most popular Youtuber(I think he is the second largest American channel) so he is going to be a large part of their platform whether you like it or not.
- dezzadk 4y ago
  He's a clickbaity youtuber profiting on 'free money scams' I hope he gets banned.
  - nubinetwork 4y ago
    When youtube used to let me report malicious ads, it used to tell me those ads and channels were based out of India... and youtube has had a long-standing issue of not vetting their ads for scams. If it's not MrBeast, it's the "how to get a free Coke mini-fridge" (or Louis Vuitton handbags, or Milwaukee tools).
  - Graffur 4y ago
    How are they scams? Assuming you're talking about the videos where he gives people free money
    - dezzadk 4y ago
      He also paid an advertisement (still running on youtube I assuming, seen it within the last week) "Anyone who visits this page get $1200" or something in that range..
moralestapia 4y ago
YouTube changes my country/language to whatever place I'm at the moment and starts giving me "recommended" local stuff. At least twice a week for the past 5 or so years, I have gone to settings -> change country/language, save. That's HUNDREDS of times I've told YT that I want English, US-based content. And it just doesn't get it ...
throwaway13337 4y ago
The "Remind me later" pattern is completely user-hostile and is getting more and more common. The way in which we communicate with our software is through these buttons. In a sense, it is our 'voice' to click something. The software uniquely can re-cast your voice into whatever it wants you to say. In a way, it is a sort of mind control. A nudge to think the way they want you to think. The software that we use to communicate with our world needs to be our own agent. Anything else is morally wrong.
- pndy 4y ago
  It's not more common, it's sadly the default everywhere for at least 5 years if not longer. Constantly being nagged with modals that offers no definite "No" option while trying all the time to shove you content or settings provider/developer sees as more "accurate" (for own benefits) is a form of abuse.
undershirt 4y ago
I find most “suggestions” to be bad distractions that I am best guarded from. Custom CSS helped me block them on my laptop, but on my TV and phone I now just watch everything on Plex[1] instead. It’s a lot of work, but Plex looks beautiful and helps me stay disciplined about what I’m watching, like a sacred space on my TV and phone. I download YouTube videos, movies, and TV shows and organize them on Plex, so I don’t have to hold my breath through ads and suggestions to watch them. [1]: http://plex.tv http://plex.tv
- wankle 4y ago
  Interesting thought. If I sign up then sign in, can I change the Dark Theme to a Light Theme or are we held captive to a Dark Theme like Amazon Prime and Netflix? That could be a strong potential alternative site thanks!
  - undershirt 4y ago
    It’s probably stuck on Dark Theme for now. Maybe check out other local media server apps: https://github.com/Protektor-Desura/Archon/wiki/Compare-Media-Servers https://github.com/Protektor-Desura/Archon/wiki/Compare-Medi...
FalconSensei 4y ago
Another find that I dislike about shorts and to me makes no sense: if I'm casting to my TV, clicking on a short asks me to disable the connection, instead of casting it to the TV like a regular (but vertical) video. WHYYYYY??
bitwize 4y ago
Complete the sentence: You are not the customer, you are the __________.
michael_j_x 4y ago
I am quite annoyed that youtube app always defaults to low quality for me, even though I ve set multiple times my preferences to be 1080p
lessname 4y ago
I really dislike youtube shorts because it's literally unusable on desktop. And it always pushes political content (mostly right wing but also religious stuff) like "x destroys sjw" where someone giving a speach starts "roasting" someone from the audience for their supposedly ridiculous views. There are also too many videos of people like Andrew Tate and short movie clips. The "funny" part: I still get to see them weeks later even though I disliked the videos. It seems to me that many Youtube creators do not want to create shorts. However, the algorithm for shorts seems a bit flawed too: * On Instagram for example I get to see videos in different languages (which does not happen really often on Youtube, even though I speak these languages and watch youtube videos in these languages) * I get to see much more "crappy" content with like 10 likes * Some videos I have seen on shorts were a quite disturbing, such a thing did not happen on reels
bm3719 4y ago
The BlockTube extension can make shorts disappear. In the options, check "Block Youtube Shorts videos". I also block all videos under 59 seconds, since they're effectively shorts. You can also block channels and never see them again. Combine this with normal adblock, SponsorBlock (to skip the mid-video junk), and Unhook (to hide junk features of the platform), and the site becomes much more useful. This doesn't solve: the fact that YT will still dip from an endless supply of dreck to keep your recommendations annoying, search results being full of click bait and repeated results, and the fact that watching hours of video on YT is at best marginally better than being a TV addict.
logicalmonster 4y ago
As far as I'm aware, there's a number of browser extensions out there that change the default YouTube experience for the better. Might be worth looking into of the customizations available fits your needs.
dezzadk 4y ago
YouTube Posts - go away.
justnotworthit 4y ago
For people looking for an addon to block all the garbage and make youtube a little less hostile: "RYS — Remove YouTube Suggestions" for good and chrome (and on github). It has gotten quite sophisticated.
trilbyglens 4y ago
Google is somehow incredibly bad at these sorts of products. They have no vision at all if it's not a super technical thing. They just plain suck at consumer products that aren't maps or Gmail.
ohCh6zos 4y ago
I hate that videos appear in my feed long before they are available. I don't want to load a video only to discover it's coming in 48 hours. Just add the video to my feed 48 hours later.
the_third_wave 4y ago
Just use a YT frontend like Invidious [1] and you're free from whatever shenanigans they pull. You can subscribe to whatever you want without their algorithms or cadre of trained gerbils or whatever they use getting a whiff of it. You don't need a YT account for this as it keeps its own subscription lists on your own server or that of whichever instance you use. [1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
IYasha 4y ago
YouTube logic: - I see he liked this video. Great. Let's recommend watching it again for a few months. - I see he pressed "Don't show, already seen", but, hey, he can't be honest! Let's ignore this. - I see he's back again. Let's feed his nostalgia by offering him all previously watched videos! - I see he hid shorts. NOBODY HIDES MY SHORTS!
- IYasha 4y ago
  - I see he said no. Surely, he can't be serious. He'll change his mind in a day. - I see he's chosen English from Paris. That's rude! - I see he dislikes this video. Let's keep it secret. - He must see my viral shorts! Who wants shorts shorts? Everyone loves shorts shorts!
tdsanchez 4y ago
Google is not customer focused. They're much more like Microsoft than the old "do no evil" Google. Google only cares about raising stock price and are mostly a navel gazing advertising company,
dns_snek 4y ago
Don't forget about their search engine. This inexplicable change killed the entire discovery and learning process for me. They now present me with up to 12 videos that were "blessed" by the algorithm, then trim the search results with no way to see the rest, replaced with "Other videos that are completely unrelated, but you might be interested in". When I search for a certain niche topic I want to see everything that matches my search query, not more and certainly not less.

84 points by wankle 4y ago

ss108 4y ago

Agreed, YouTube homepage and recommendations have been garbage for YEARS. Since around 2018, to my recollection. I just keep getting the same crap recommendations day after day. It's like, dude, you've suggested the same random clip from Mask of Zorro to me for GOD KNOWS WHAT REASON to me for the past several months, and I haven't clicked on it once. Don't think it's time to generate some fresh recs that might induce me, as a user, to click and watch stuff?

unity1001 4y ago
I just clicked on a KPOP video link 4-5 years ago once. JUST once. Youtube is still insistively showing me ads for KPOP tutorials despite I havent interacted with ANY KPOP content since then.
- Euphorbium 4y ago
  Ban all of those channels with “dont recommend channel”. I had this when I clicked on some video ranting about horrible mobile game ads, and youtube decided that I am interested in playing shitty mobile games.
borbulon 4y ago
It’s not just YouTube, the Google mobile app feed has the same issues. It’s like they take one thing you read or watched and then try to throw anything even tangentially related at you ad nauseam and don’t really listen when you say “not interested”
Euphorbium 4y ago
Start using “dont recommend channel” option massively.
- ss108 4y ago
  I have done that a few times, but it's tiring. I don't want to have to play whack-a-mole with it as much as their system seems to demand.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    I spent about an hour doing it in total and youtube has been fine ever since. Any video that isn't along the lines I want to watch and I just drop the entire channel, no thinking. Clickbait? Then I'm not interested in your channel. Cute animal video? Nope, wont watch anything from you, etc. Its well worth the effort if you watch youtube a lot. You can still find them in search, just wont get any recommends from them any more, so you wont be missing anything that you explicitly want to find.
    - ss108 4y ago
      > Cute animal video? Nope, wont watch anything from you, etc. ;___;

revskill 4y ago

No, impossible task for now. Because in enterprise world, even adding a simple if then else clause is impossible for current sprint. The worst part is, the code is hard to understand enough that the task could be deprioritized until later, undefined future.

pictur 4y ago

youtube is a site that oscillates between being a social network and not being. and for the most part they choose not to be. and maybe that's why it's constantly growing and unrivaled. they don't care about things like personalization.

danuker 4y ago

The AI is not the reason for the poor experience. The poor experience is caused by misguided policies excessively pushing for features (like Shorts). An AI would have toned it down long ago. I also think Shorts is garbage, especially for a desktop/laptop. The reason I use YouTube is BECAUSE it's not TikTok. Not every service must emulate every other service. Also, I am still bitter about the missing dislike stats. They were very useful for deciding among tutorials or courses, and avoiding misleading ones.

trident5000 4y ago
You always have heads of products who feel they need to do something to make their name known or feel like they're doing their job. They did more and the product is clearly worse. What they needed to do was nothing, but thats out of line with restless employees.
tarotuser 4y ago
> Also, I am still bitter about the missing dislike stats. They were very useful for deciding among tutorials or courses, and avoiding misleading ones. The Firefox plugin "Return Youtube Dislike" does exactly that.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Where does it get its data?
  - tarotuser 4y ago
    https://returnyoutubedislike.com/faq https://returnyoutubedislike.com/faq "A combination of archived data from before the offical YouTube dislike API shut down, and extrapolated extension user behavior." You're retrieving like/dislike data from that site's API. And when you set a dislike, it gets sent to Google AND returnyoutubedislike.com Given I watch Youtube in a FF container not logged in, I'm not worried at all. But I could see how some people could be concerned .
    - 4y ago

gpderetta 4y ago

Because when it was A/B tested, a non-functional feature-disable button lead to greater user engagement with the feature than the other options. /s but not really. edit: also 'No' means 'Remind Me Later'.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
So anyways, do you want to start a free trial for YouTube premium? No? It's been no for the last how many years straight? Okay, I'll just ask next time your open the app.
- dv35z 4y ago
  I wonder if someone has started a list of tools for our field which are not adversarial to the user intention like this…

coffeebeqn 4y ago

Business goals trump good UX. Their executives have decided that you will like the TikTokification or else. Google is certainly more than capable of saving the state of a “close this” flag..

kybernetyk 4y ago
>Google is certainly more than capable of saving the state of a “close this” flag.. With the new generation of devs I'm not too sure anymore.
danuker 4y ago
I am skeptical even the bottom line gains from it. Whenever I click a Short, I am extremely annoyed. The scroll wheel is repurposed to skip the video, rather than the typical desktop interaction of going to the description and comments. When that happens, I close the tab and visit some place other than YouTube.
- teawrecks 4y ago
  The eyes they care about are on mobile, the desktop experience is an afterthought.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > Whenever I click a Short, I am extremely annoyed. Why do you keep clicking it?
  - rolenthedeep 4y ago
    Because they get inserted into the timeline like normal videos, or maybe there's just one that you really want to watch. By design, it's hard to avoid them entirely.
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      > or maybe there's just one that you really want to watch So in those cases you want them to be there?

toomuchtodo 4y ago

https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious

kybernetyk 4y ago

Or you click on "don't recommend this channel" yet you still get that trash recommended.

soco 4y ago
You don't mean Facebook now, right? I'm not even joking, they use the exactly same tactics of showing you the exact same (usually fringe) contents regardless how many times you tell them to f*off.
yamazakiwi 4y ago
Or worse, they start recommending it more often :\
wankle 4y ago
Yes I've seen that happen as well, forgot to mention it thanks!
timbit42 4y ago
Have you tried the "Channel Blocker" web browser add-on? It lets you block channels and it then hides them even if YT shows them.

bparsons 4y ago

I love YouTube, but the shorts feature is pushing really harmful content at their users. Even though I exclusively subscribe to food and skiing channels, every fourth video on shorts is really vile stuff from Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate. Giving it the "thumbs down" appears to do nothing about this. It reminds me of 2015 when the FB algo was being hijacked by all sorts of shadowy political interests to push weird agendas.

kybernetyk 4y ago
Yup, I, too, hate being reminded to clean my room.
- unscenetv 4y ago
  You know… If you’re talking and they’re not listening, then stop talking.
jesuscript 4y ago
They have been showing me prison and public fights.

aethertron 4y ago

NewPipe is a 3rd party Android YouTube client. You might like it, or an alternative. Online Services and their client interfaces are ideally separated. This removes a conflict of interest and allows for client software to serve one master, the user.

heresjohnny 4y ago

YouTube’s current front-end is indeed unbearable. I’m nowadays exclusively using Invidious [1]. It is minimalist, fast, open source, has no ads, and most importantly, has no dark patterns. [1] https://docs.invidious.io/instances/ https://docs.invidious.io/instances/

valdiorn 4y ago

> If YouTube is using AI then why is it so demonstrably, phenomenally bad at learning X means NO; Because unfortunately most users are not consistent in their choices. They might say that they don't like shorts of teenagers doing stupid dance moves, but if they continuously click on those videos when presented, the AI will learn to ignore your explicit choice and go with your implicit one; that you like shit videos. (Not you, specifically, but people in general :)

n8cpdx 4y ago

I’m surprised YouTube is getting all the heat here. User-hostile product design has become the norm in the industry, _especially_ among FAANG/MAMA. Twitter, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, all streaming sites (anything that makes you scroll to find the “continue watching” list), arguably Apple, Nextdoor, anything that uses an algorithmic feed and won’t let you permanently enable chronological feed, anything that prioritizes “engagement” in a coercive way (so all social media including YouTube), etc. I used to aspire to work at a company like Microsoft or Google, but now I’m so glad I dodged that bullet. I care too much about making a _positive_ impact on the lives/experiences of users. I also have values that don’t tolerate industrial scale fraud and abuse (and yes, promising relief for 30 days and withdrawing it after 7 is clearly fraudulent). I hope more engineers would be willing to consider their role in making the world a worse place, and consider working for a company that doesn’t actively harm their users. But it seems most engineers will do anything in exchange for a total comp package bigger than the next guy. P.S. To the user-hostile PMs who aren’t swayed by a values argument consider this: if you let off the gas just 5% and allowed some breathing room for objectives other than user/engagement growth this quarter, you might spare yourself the PR/reputation hit that lead to things like hostile HN posts, popular support for antitrust enforcement, and executives being called to testify.

andsoitis 4y ago
Why do people go to YouTube? To be entertained, or to learn something. The more videos you watch, isn’t that a strong signal that the user’s needs are served better?
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  Only in a paper clip factory view of the world. Situations where the simplistic PM dashboard metrics model breaks down: - Users watch more videos than they want because they can’t find the right ones (maybe because the dislike button was reviewed) - The user went to complete a task, then got distracted by a bad recommendation - The user has a gambling addiction and is being served ads for gambling content. - The user went to learn something but was served highly engaging but false content Viewership is one signal among many.

wodenokoto 4y ago

I was surprised to learn that downvotes are a positive signal for YouTube to show videos to more users. I think YouTube is betting strong on “it’s not about what you like, but what you end up watching”

IYasha 4y ago
Yes, the worst thing you can do to a video is stop and close it ASAP. Any interaction adds to its value.

michaelt 4y ago

IMO the only page worth visiting on Youtube is https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions Only the channels you've subscribed to, in chronological order. Sadly it does include shorts in that - but at least they're not a dedicated section of the page.

falcolas 4y ago
Absolutely. At this point in time, the "Home" page is hot garbage, which seems to focus on showing me either videos I've already watched or videos that I'll never watch.
- Snacklive 4y ago
  Recently i installed a neat extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/ it allows you to hide elements of the UI, including the Home feed, the recommendations, shorts and even the comment section. Very useful if you can't resist the urge to scroll like me
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
leshenka 4y ago
yeah but what about content discovery?
- michaelt 4y ago
  The recommendations, main home page, search etc are still there if you want them - and you can get recommendations from friends, family, and people on other social media. Personally I watch perhaps 20 minutes of video per day, and I've got enough subscriptions to give me that much content, so I don't really need content discovery. Or at least, not the type of content discovery Youtube has to offer me!
PaulKeeble 4y ago
I also have a feed of subscriptions via RSS and one thing I have noticed happens quite a lot is that a video might actually get hidden and only appear in the RSS. That same video however will often appear as the top video on the home page, as if you just "missed" it and once you go back to subscriptions its present. Youtube is messing with the subscriptions page too unfortunately but it remains the most useful page its just not as good as it should be due to the hiding of videos.

jjk166 4y ago

My settings remain stable and my recommendations are reasonable. If anything I have the opposite problem where I won't watch videos on a certain topic or from a specific channel for a few weeks and then Youtube thinks I never want to see it ever again, even if I've been manually looking for it.

ilyt 4y ago
Or serve stuff I already watched. Or gets obsessed over a new channel just because I happened to watch 3 videos I was interested in out of their 50 that I was not
mikebenfield 4y ago
> I won't watch videos on a certain topic or from a specific channel for a few weeks and then Youtube thinks I never want to see it ever again For me it's kind of the converse issue. I watch 2 or 3 videos on a topic and then YouTube thinks I'm obsessed with that topic and nothing else.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  This is my experience. Sometimes I think it actually makes me avoid clicking on videos that cover new topics. Especially if it's something gross or weird I'm about to click on out of morbid curiosity. It's like, "hmmm.... do I really want to be spammed with recs for videos on this for the next three weeks?"
- andsoitis 4y ago
  I have the same experience but I will also say that designing algo’s and UX to find the right balance between exploring new things and exploiting a topic you’re interested in is no small feat. And doing it effectively for a very diverse user base where your intent in the moment cannot be inferred, compounds the complexity.
greatpostman 4y ago
It’s very annoying to me that google won’t recommend topics I was into years ago.

andsoitis 4y ago

> Or how when you X one of those panels on some topic you have no interest in and it says "Got it, message hidden" then pops back up in a few days? And > Clicking X means NO. While clicking X might mean No for all circumstances to you, that doesn’t mean it a the same for everyone else. To handle more variety, you really want at two affordances: “never” and “not now”. Note, when a user turns a feature off (your “never” case), now whenever you change that feature all the users who turned it off will now be left behind, even if the change or improvement would be appealing to them. So now you need a way to communicate the changes (even though they said “don’t show this feature”) and a way to change that preference.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
I wish apps had some kind of history for the things you said "no" to. Everything is constantly getting in user's way with some pop-ups, usually specifically to try to get me to do or agree to something I don't want, that I'm conditioned to blindly find the non-highlighted button and click it. Especially as these pop-ups usually come just as I visit the site to get something done. Sometimes (often, actually) my brain realizes that the dialog contained (or may have contained) something interesting/actually relevant only after it's already gone. I found the "red notification dot" works really well. It's nagging enough that I will take a look at it, but doesn't get in my way like a pop-up. I can first get my task done, then look at what it's about, instead of having to choose between interrupting my task and swatting away this obnoxious wall in my face. If you try to force something on me, I'm already much more likely to hate and not want it.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  I like that. A Notification Center vs. modal reminders…
- rightbyte 4y ago
  The worst popups are the tutorial-ish ones for new feutures. They might be multiple clicks.

thenerdhead 4y ago

Show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome. The incentive is likely engagement and that comes at a cost of satisfaction. Computers are great at following directions like your preferences for being shown certain types of content or disabling functionality you don't want to use. Yet every platform somehow "forgets" your preferences regularly.

ThereIsNoWorry 4y ago

Youtube absolutely gets it; the profit increases, meaning it's successful at optimizing the most important metric set by the capitalistic system we have the marvelous pleasure to partake in involuntarily.

wankle 4y ago
We do have a wonderful economic system and I'm proud of it. Yet, I no longer feel incentivized to continue watching and throwing Ad dollars their way associated with my personal login, because they habitually ignore what I tell them I don't want, including in multiple Feedback posts using their feedback tool.

bluedino 4y ago

I'm just tired of seeing commercials for the Ridge wallet, Baerskin hoodie, and Sasquatch soaps

ta8903 4y ago
>I'm just tired of seeing commercials If only there was something you could do about that.
- FalconSensei 4y ago
  those are paid promotion inside the video, not an ad
  - exq 4y ago
    https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ Sponsor block.

metadat 4y ago

Once YouTube Vanced broke I couldn't be bothered to go through the annoying sequence of steps to reinstall it again. Now I've been off YouTube for 10 months, I never browse for content or peruse the feed anymore. I don't miss it.

karaterobot 4y ago

I like to pretend there is a counter somewhere that is noting down every time I explicitly hide Shorts from my feed, and when it gets to a certain number they will realize I don't want them.

qbrass 4y ago
They realize you don't want them, they just see it as a bug to fix, and not a reason to quit showing them to you.

xnorswap 4y ago

Youtube music offers me a "free trial" several times a day. I "skip trial". There's no option to permanently not be bothered by being offered a "free trial". It infuriates me.

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

The part of YouTube I hate most is Mr Beast. I can’t get rid of the guy. He creates new channels just as quickly as I can block them from my recommendations. I’m sure that is a strategy to force himself in front of people. I wish there was a way to say that I don’t want any Mr Beast channels, I don’t want any Mr Beast collaborations, and I don’t want any Mr Beast reactions.

nebula8804 4y ago
This is the first i'm hearing of MrBeast having multiple channels so I looked it up. Turns out he has 5 channels total which includes his main channel. The creation dates of his channels are as follows: Feb 19, 2012 Apr 24, 2016 Apr 7, 2020 Aug 21, 2020 Sep 17, 2020 How often are you blocking? MrBeast is one of the most popular Youtuber(I think he is the second largest American channel) so he is going to be a large part of their platform whether you like it or not.
dezzadk 4y ago
He's a clickbaity youtuber profiting on 'free money scams' I hope he gets banned.
- nubinetwork 4y ago
  When youtube used to let me report malicious ads, it used to tell me those ads and channels were based out of India... and youtube has had a long-standing issue of not vetting their ads for scams. If it's not MrBeast, it's the "how to get a free Coke mini-fridge" (or Louis Vuitton handbags, or Milwaukee tools).
- Graffur 4y ago
  How are they scams? Assuming you're talking about the videos where he gives people free money
  - dezzadk 4y ago
    He also paid an advertisement (still running on youtube I assuming, seen it within the last week) "Anyone who visits this page get $1200" or something in that range..

moralestapia 4y ago

YouTube changes my country/language to whatever place I'm at the moment and starts giving me "recommended" local stuff. At least twice a week for the past 5 or so years, I have gone to settings -> change country/language, save. That's HUNDREDS of times I've told YT that I want English, US-based content. And it just doesn't get it ...

throwaway13337 4y ago

The "Remind me later" pattern is completely user-hostile and is getting more and more common. The way in which we communicate with our software is through these buttons. In a sense, it is our 'voice' to click something. The software uniquely can re-cast your voice into whatever it wants you to say. In a way, it is a sort of mind control. A nudge to think the way they want you to think. The software that we use to communicate with our world needs to be our own agent. Anything else is morally wrong.

pndy 4y ago
It's not more common, it's sadly the default everywhere for at least 5 years if not longer. Constantly being nagged with modals that offers no definite "No" option while trying all the time to shove you content or settings provider/developer sees as more "accurate" (for own benefits) is a form of abuse.

undershirt 4y ago

I find most “suggestions” to be bad distractions that I am best guarded from. Custom CSS helped me block them on my laptop, but on my TV and phone I now just watch everything on Plex[1] instead. It’s a lot of work, but Plex looks beautiful and helps me stay disciplined about what I’m watching, like a sacred space on my TV and phone. I download YouTube videos, movies, and TV shows and organize them on Plex, so I don’t have to hold my breath through ads and suggestions to watch them. [1]: http://plex.tv http://plex.tv

wankle 4y ago
Interesting thought. If I sign up then sign in, can I change the Dark Theme to a Light Theme or are we held captive to a Dark Theme like Amazon Prime and Netflix? That could be a strong potential alternative site thanks!
- undershirt 4y ago
  It’s probably stuck on Dark Theme for now. Maybe check out other local media server apps: https://github.com/Protektor-Desura/Archon/wiki/Compare-Media-Servers https://github.com/Protektor-Desura/Archon/wiki/Compare-Medi...

FalconSensei 4y ago

Another find that I dislike about shorts and to me makes no sense: if I'm casting to my TV, clicking on a short asks me to disable the connection, instead of casting it to the TV like a regular (but vertical) video. WHYYYYY??

bitwize 4y ago

Complete the sentence: You are not the customer, you are the __________.

michael_j_x 4y ago

I am quite annoyed that youtube app always defaults to low quality for me, even though I ve set multiple times my preferences to be 1080p

lessname 4y ago

I really dislike youtube shorts because it's literally unusable on desktop. And it always pushes political content (mostly right wing but also religious stuff) like "x destroys sjw" where someone giving a speach starts "roasting" someone from the audience for their supposedly ridiculous views. There are also too many videos of people like Andrew Tate and short movie clips. The "funny" part: I still get to see them weeks later even though I disliked the videos. It seems to me that many Youtube creators do not want to create shorts. However, the algorithm for shorts seems a bit flawed too: * On Instagram for example I get to see videos in different languages (which does not happen really often on Youtube, even though I speak these languages and watch youtube videos in these languages) * I get to see much more "crappy" content with like 10 likes * Some videos I have seen on shorts were a quite disturbing, such a thing did not happen on reels

bm3719 4y ago

The BlockTube extension can make shorts disappear. In the options, check "Block Youtube Shorts videos". I also block all videos under 59 seconds, since they're effectively shorts. You can also block channels and never see them again. Combine this with normal adblock, SponsorBlock (to skip the mid-video junk), and Unhook (to hide junk features of the platform), and the site becomes much more useful. This doesn't solve: the fact that YT will still dip from an endless supply of dreck to keep your recommendations annoying, search results being full of click bait and repeated results, and the fact that watching hours of video on YT is at best marginally better than being a TV addict.

logicalmonster 4y ago

As far as I'm aware, there's a number of browser extensions out there that change the default YouTube experience for the better. Might be worth looking into of the customizations available fits your needs.

dezzadk 4y ago

YouTube Posts - go away.

justnotworthit 4y ago

For people looking for an addon to block all the garbage and make youtube a little less hostile: "RYS — Remove YouTube Suggestions" for good and chrome (and on github). It has gotten quite sophisticated.

trilbyglens 4y ago

Google is somehow incredibly bad at these sorts of products. They have no vision at all if it's not a super technical thing. They just plain suck at consumer products that aren't maps or Gmail.

ohCh6zos 4y ago

I hate that videos appear in my feed long before they are available. I don't want to load a video only to discover it's coming in 48 hours. Just add the video to my feed 48 hours later.

the_third_wave 4y ago

Just use a YT frontend like Invidious [1] and you're free from whatever shenanigans they pull. You can subscribe to whatever you want without their algorithms or cadre of trained gerbils or whatever they use getting a whiff of it. You don't need a YT account for this as it keeps its own subscription lists on your own server or that of whichever instance you use. [1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious

IYasha 4y ago

YouTube logic: - I see he liked this video. Great. Let's recommend watching it again for a few months. - I see he pressed "Don't show, already seen", but, hey, he can't be honest! Let's ignore this. - I see he's back again. Let's feed his nostalgia by offering him all previously watched videos! - I see he hid shorts. NOBODY HIDES MY SHORTS!

IYasha 4y ago
- I see he said no. Surely, he can't be serious. He'll change his mind in a day. - I see he's chosen English from Paris. That's rude! - I see he dislikes this video. Let's keep it secret. - He must see my viral shorts! Who wants shorts shorts? Everyone loves shorts shorts!

tdsanchez 4y ago

Google is not customer focused. They're much more like Microsoft than the old "do no evil" Google. Google only cares about raising stock price and are mostly a navel gazing advertising company,

dns_snek 4y ago

Don't forget about their search engine. This inexplicable change killed the entire discovery and learning process for me. They now present me with up to 12 videos that were "blessed" by the algorithm, then trim the search results with no way to see the rest, replaced with "Other videos that are completely unrelated, but you might be interested in". When I search for a certain niche topic I want to see everything that matches my search query, not more and certainly not less.