3 ms·

Those who use youtube as TV, what do you watch? Is there a way of consuming YouTube that is more like consuming Netflix, where the 1% (or 0.001%) that is "profe

Those who use youtube as TV, what do you watch? Is there a way of consuming YouTube that is more like consuming Netflix, where the 1% (or 0.001%) that is "professional" content is curated somehow? I mean I have no interest in scrolling videos of people eating detergent, I just want to watch shows/films/content that I heard people recommend to me (not algorithms - people). How do you even start doing that on youtube? I have used youtube since it launched, but I still haven't found more than one or two "channels" that I enjoy (is that what it's called? Interesting people who make interesting videos?) but I haven't bothered logging in or subscribing to one. Should I have? Does it help consuming in any way?

Timshel 3y ago
If you want any recommandation subscription is needed. I use multiple profile to separate things like more learning focused vs gaming or whatever. Never watch a silly random video in one of those profile.
- _dark_matter_ 3y ago
  This sounds like an exhausting amount of work for a paid product
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    I think this is a somewhat "over engineered" approach. I have a range of interests and don't feel any need to have multiple profiles. YouTube is quite good at understanding what I want. One way this manifests for example is that I use YouTube at work to listen to concerts in the background while I work, but at home I will almost never listen to music or concerts on YouTube as I'm mostly using it like a TV. Despite the same YouTube profile, my work machine gets mostly concerts in the home feed, and my home machine gets mostly other stuff. There's just enough crossover that I can get into either style of watching on either machine though, and in the rare cases where I have done, YouTube seems to react quickly.
  - Timshel 3y ago
    Containers on Firefox make it quite trivial I can have all those side by side.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    You don't really need an account. The recommendation algorithm works well with just a cookie.
krisoft 3y ago
> I just want to watch shows/films/content that I heard people recommend to me (not algorithms - people). How do you even start doing that on youtube? I don’t understand your question. You talk with people you care about, they tell you what they recommend and then you use the search bar to locate the content and watch it. This is so obviously the answer to your question that I am worried I am misunderstanding you in some way.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  I think their point is that discovery for authentic content is really awful which is true. The homepage never shows me subscriptions, there's a gigantic amount of shorts. The subscription page itself has no way to group or find anything and it also shoves shorts in your face. The Youtube UI is actually so bad and Tiktok-ified that I just use Feedly to follow individual channels and avoid the website. Even creators talk about this quite often. "ProZD" most recently encouraged people to support him on Patreon because his long form content essentially is algorithm-punished. Apparently only 10% of his views ever come from the subscription page. I think it's quite telling that the people who make the kind of content that I think the OP is after so heavily encourage people to support them outside of the actual platform.
  - alkonaut 3y ago
    Not only that: also long-form curated content at all. If I watch TV (Here "TV" means I'm in a couch, there is a big screen I'm often surrounded by other people) then I don't want 3 minute bits of content or extremely niche personal content. I want the general sports/news/entertainment stuff that a group of people can enjoy. Everyone already sits with their phones and watches video content. But that's not TV. That's my personal video content consumption. What I'm talking about is something for passive consumption on a big screen. That's TV. Linear broadcast TV does this well. Netflix does it too. But I struggle to use YouTube for this.
- alkonaut 3y ago
  If someone mentions a TV show and I search for it, there will be 100 reviews of the show, 1000 short clips of the show. Try yourself: think of a TV show that was big in the last 10 years, then search for it on YouTube. Whether or not the actual content is ON youtube (which is the question my search is trying to answer) you'll get thousands of search results. In the off chance that the actual content of the show is actually on YouTube, the odds that you'll get the episodes of the show in your search result in any sensible order seems like zero. Another example: a huge use of TV is news. Every big news outlet has a presence on YouTube. But if you pick one (say CNN) and go to their page on YouTube, you can see a list of clips. But the clips seem randomly selected and unordered a a week old. So there is no way I can play their "news"? At least not at first sight.
lupusreal 3y ago
Youtube is a mirror, it shows you more of what you watch (at least most of the time.) If you can't resist the temptation of clicking on clickbait/trash, it will show more of that to you. How to use youtube: 1. Log out, clear your cookies or clear your watch history. 2. Turn off autoplay. 3. Search for a few high quality videos/channels you have seen before, to seed the recommendation algorithm. I use the "Applied Science" channel for this but you use what suits you. 4. Never click on clickbaity trash.
- alkonaut 3y ago
  I just fail to find much of the content interesting. TV for me is 99% news, sports, or traditional entertainment (Internationally known example: "Jeopardy", just for the sake of discussion). I find YouTube just isn't geared for this. I mean I have lots of narrow interests, but I don't want to watch a 1 hour video of someone discussing the latest stuff in my area of interest no matter how good it is. Because the people in my family who is also in the room would protest. And there is no one I can discuss this with when I have seen it because it's such a slim topic. I mean if you sit down at lunch today and want to grab a 30min news summary for national news, from a reasonably trustworthy news source how would you even do that on YouTube?
  - wildrhythms 3y ago
    Sounds like you just want an endless feed of traditional TV. I suggest you talk to younger people because this is not how they generally consume content anymore, and that is the target audience for YouTube and why the traditional content on YouTube is corralled into a small walled section sandwiched between vast swaths of algorithmic suggested content.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    Note, this is all from a US perspective. FWIW, YouTube TV, the paid subscription package, has what you're looking for. If you wanted to watch an episode of some cable or local news broadcast, you can do that. Pick your flavor: Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Fox Business, HLN, PBS News, local affiliates, etc. It is practically just cable TV on the internet. Want to watch Game Show Network and watch endless shows like Jeopardy and Deal or No Deal or whatever, it is there. Lots of sports-centric TV channels as well, but not all regional sports networks are available (at least last time I checked). Some news channels do offer more traditional news segments on regular YT. NBC News and ABC News offer a 24/7 live stream and often makes entire episodes available. https://www.youtube.com/@NBCNews https://www.youtube.com/@NBCNews https://www.youtube.com/@ABCNews https://www.youtube.com/@ABCNews PBS NewsHour offers full episodes on traditional YT as well and are usually live during notable events and during their broadcast times. https://www.youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour https://www.youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour

Timshel 3y ago

If you want any recommandation subscription is needed. I use multiple profile to separate things like more learning focused vs gaming or whatever. Never watch a silly random video in one of those profile.

_dark_matter_ 3y ago
This sounds like an exhausting amount of work for a paid product
- danpalmer 3y ago
  I think this is a somewhat "over engineered" approach. I have a range of interests and don't feel any need to have multiple profiles. YouTube is quite good at understanding what I want. One way this manifests for example is that I use YouTube at work to listen to concerts in the background while I work, but at home I will almost never listen to music or concerts on YouTube as I'm mostly using it like a TV. Despite the same YouTube profile, my work machine gets mostly concerts in the home feed, and my home machine gets mostly other stuff. There's just enough crossover that I can get into either style of watching on either machine though, and in the rare cases where I have done, YouTube seems to react quickly.
- Timshel 3y ago
  Containers on Firefox make it quite trivial I can have all those side by side.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  You don't really need an account. The recommendation algorithm works well with just a cookie.

krisoft 3y ago

> I just want to watch shows/films/content that I heard people recommend to me (not algorithms - people). How do you even start doing that on youtube? I don’t understand your question. You talk with people you care about, they tell you what they recommend and then you use the search bar to locate the content and watch it. This is so obviously the answer to your question that I am worried I am misunderstanding you in some way.

Barrin92 3y ago
I think their point is that discovery for authentic content is really awful which is true. The homepage never shows me subscriptions, there's a gigantic amount of shorts. The subscription page itself has no way to group or find anything and it also shoves shorts in your face. The Youtube UI is actually so bad and Tiktok-ified that I just use Feedly to follow individual channels and avoid the website. Even creators talk about this quite often. "ProZD" most recently encouraged people to support him on Patreon because his long form content essentially is algorithm-punished. Apparently only 10% of his views ever come from the subscription page. I think it's quite telling that the people who make the kind of content that I think the OP is after so heavily encourage people to support them outside of the actual platform.
- alkonaut 3y ago
  Not only that: also long-form curated content at all. If I watch TV (Here "TV" means I'm in a couch, there is a big screen I'm often surrounded by other people) then I don't want 3 minute bits of content or extremely niche personal content. I want the general sports/news/entertainment stuff that a group of people can enjoy. Everyone already sits with their phones and watches video content. But that's not TV. That's my personal video content consumption. What I'm talking about is something for passive consumption on a big screen. That's TV. Linear broadcast TV does this well. Netflix does it too. But I struggle to use YouTube for this.
alkonaut 3y ago
If someone mentions a TV show and I search for it, there will be 100 reviews of the show, 1000 short clips of the show. Try yourself: think of a TV show that was big in the last 10 years, then search for it on YouTube. Whether or not the actual content is ON youtube (which is the question my search is trying to answer) you'll get thousands of search results. In the off chance that the actual content of the show is actually on YouTube, the odds that you'll get the episodes of the show in your search result in any sensible order seems like zero. Another example: a huge use of TV is news. Every big news outlet has a presence on YouTube. But if you pick one (say CNN) and go to their page on YouTube, you can see a list of clips. But the clips seem randomly selected and unordered a a week old. So there is no way I can play their "news"? At least not at first sight.

lupusreal 3y ago

Youtube is a mirror, it shows you more of what you watch (at least most of the time.) If you can't resist the temptation of clicking on clickbait/trash, it will show more of that to you. How to use youtube: 1. Log out, clear your cookies or clear your watch history. 2. Turn off autoplay. 3. Search for a few high quality videos/channels you have seen before, to seed the recommendation algorithm. I use the "Applied Science" channel for this but you use what suits you. 4. Never click on clickbaity trash.

alkonaut 3y ago
I just fail to find much of the content interesting. TV for me is 99% news, sports, or traditional entertainment (Internationally known example: "Jeopardy", just for the sake of discussion). I find YouTube just isn't geared for this. I mean I have lots of narrow interests, but I don't want to watch a 1 hour video of someone discussing the latest stuff in my area of interest no matter how good it is. Because the people in my family who is also in the room would protest. And there is no one I can discuss this with when I have seen it because it's such a slim topic. I mean if you sit down at lunch today and want to grab a 30min news summary for national news, from a reasonably trustworthy news source how would you even do that on YouTube?
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  Sounds like you just want an endless feed of traditional TV. I suggest you talk to younger people because this is not how they generally consume content anymore, and that is the target audience for YouTube and why the traditional content on YouTube is corralled into a small walled section sandwiched between vast swaths of algorithmic suggested content.
- vel0city 3y ago
  Note, this is all from a US perspective. FWIW, YouTube TV, the paid subscription package, has what you're looking for. If you wanted to watch an episode of some cable or local news broadcast, you can do that. Pick your flavor: Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Fox Business, HLN, PBS News, local affiliates, etc. It is practically just cable TV on the internet. Want to watch Game Show Network and watch endless shows like Jeopardy and Deal or No Deal or whatever, it is there. Lots of sports-centric TV channels as well, but not all regional sports networks are available (at least last time I checked). Some news channels do offer more traditional news segments on regular YT. NBC News and ABC News offer a 24/7 live stream and often makes entire episodes available. https://www.youtube.com/@NBCNews https://www.youtube.com/@NBCNews https://www.youtube.com/@ABCNews https://www.youtube.com/@ABCNews PBS NewsHour offers full episodes on traditional YT as well and are usually live during notable events and during their broadcast times. https://www.youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour https://www.youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour