4 ms·

Google wants YouTube to be a place for cat videos and shitty listicals, where people escape from their lives to laugh and be influenced by advertisers. If your

by aftbit 2y ago

Google wants YouTube to be a place for cat videos and shitty listicals, where people escape from their lives to laugh and be influenced by advertisers. If your content is even remotely confronting, advertisers don't want it, and Google doesn't want it. We really have nobody to blame but ourselves for this. Sure, video hosting is expensive, and most people can't be bothered to visit more than their default 6 or 7 apps, but we've had a decade of people shouting that from the wings and nobody has managed to fix it yet.

chongli 2y ago
most people can't be bothered to visit more than their default 6 or 7 apps I don't think it's fair to blame network effects on the user. If you're a popular YouTuber it's very difficult to convince your audience to move to another platform just to see your videos there. What's in it for them? It's much easier for an audience to switch to another video creator than it is for a creator to find a new audience. In other words, YouTube makes it a viewer's market by commoditizing content producers. This is the exact opposite of the old TV model where networks were king and viewers had to put up with whatever shows they decided to run. Unfortunately, this means it's very hard for content producers to do anything to unseat YouTube's stranglehold on the market. Google wants YouTube to be a place for cat videos and shitty listicals I think you're being unfair with this remark though. YouTube has tons and tons of educational and hobby-related content which makes it an incredibly valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn pretty much anything!
- ramon156 2y ago
  Your argument doesn't change on who's to blame. Even if it's expected behavior, the users are the ones responsible for not switching
- talldayo 2y ago
  > YouTube has tons and tons of educational and hobby-related content I think the parent's comment is about how a lot of this (even well-meaning) content is not aligned with Google's advertising profile and won't be promoted in order to increase ad-revenue. On a platform that is reliant on advertising to offset the cost of video storage, it's a sinister but logical move. The struggle really does revolve around the network effect, and how inadvertently helpless the average user has made themselves. We have no choice but to play by Google's rules because we don't know of a better way. We swipe down to search something on our iPhone, and we get a YouTube video in response. What, are we going to ideologically oppose the default response? Are we "too good" for the ordinary privacy-destroying, time-disrespecting vehicle of YouTube? No, we watch a 15 second bumper ad and then someone shows us how to fix our sink. And you can damn-well bet nobody will ever know what DailyMotion is because they're not paying phone OEMs a king's ransom to show up before everyone else.
- danaris 2y ago
  I mean...you say it's the opposite of the old TV model, but it comes to the same result, doesn't it? Before, the networks were king and viewers had to put up with what shows they decided to run. Now, Google is king and viewers have to put up with what video creators they are both willing to platform, and palatable enough that they put their stuff on YouTube. There will always be some viewers willing to follow a creator or show they like, in both of these scenarios (eg, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer moved from the WB to UPN in 2002), while others can't or won't—but there's much more difference, now, between moving from YouTube to, say, Vimeo than there was in the cable TV era moving from one channel to another, so long as you actually had that channel. (For some, these differences will not matter, and they may even claim they don't meaningfully exist; for others, they will be dealbreakers.) ...And I also agree that aftbit is being unfair with the cat videos remark. Google wants YouTube to be the place people go to watch videos on the internet, period. (Aside from, perhaps, porn.) That not only means that they get all your ad-watching eyeball time, it also means they get to control the narrative. Cat videos and shitty listicles are fantastic for Google, because they're an easy dopamine hit for viewers, but they absolutely want to be hosting more in-depth and controversial content, too. They just want to have unquestioned final say over what's actually allowed to be there, which sometimes means they'll remove things in order to make Russia happy, so Russia doesn't try to block Google/YouTube and replace them with a homegrown alternative.
  - chongli 2y ago
    you say it's the opposite of the old TV model, but it comes to the same result, doesn't it? The same result? The old network TV model gave users a choice of ~5 channels to watch. Cable TV expanded this to ~50 and later a few hundred. With YouTube there are effectively infinite channels to choose from (tens of millions). It's a HUGE difference. A channel all about knitting would never had existed on TV. A quick YouTube search for knitting yields dozens of knitting channels, each with audiences numbering from thousands to millions.
    - danaris 2y ago
      Sure; my point was about the specific dynamic of "what happens if the creator wants to move to a different venue," not the general differences between YouTube and network/cable TV.
lxgr 2y ago
> Google wants YouTube to be a place for cat videos and shitty listicals Not sure what corner of Youtube the algorithm has been feeding your suggestions with, but I've found higher-quality educational content on Youtube in the last year than I've seen on TV in my entire life, and videos of that kind make up for the majority of my recommendations. (The rest are indeed cat videos, which I happen to also enjoy watching.) Sure, there's also tons of content I don't care for at all, but I've so far found it pretty easy to just not watch that.
adamors 2y ago
This runs complete opposite to what I’ve seen, YT eventually starts to recommend alt-right gargbage if you start going down the recommended videos rabbithole and you watch anything political or featuring current events. Other people have also noticed this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by aftbit 2y ago

chongli 2y ago

most people can't be bothered to visit more than their default 6 or 7 apps I don't think it's fair to blame network effects on the user. If you're a popular YouTuber it's very difficult to convince your audience to move to another platform just to see your videos there. What's in it for them? It's much easier for an audience to switch to another video creator than it is for a creator to find a new audience. In other words, YouTube makes it a viewer's market by commoditizing content producers. This is the exact opposite of the old TV model where networks were king and viewers had to put up with whatever shows they decided to run. Unfortunately, this means it's very hard for content producers to do anything to unseat YouTube's stranglehold on the market. Google wants YouTube to be a place for cat videos and shitty listicals I think you're being unfair with this remark though. YouTube has tons and tons of educational and hobby-related content which makes it an incredibly valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn pretty much anything!

ramon156 2y ago
Your argument doesn't change on who's to blame. Even if it's expected behavior, the users are the ones responsible for not switching
talldayo 2y ago
> YouTube has tons and tons of educational and hobby-related content I think the parent's comment is about how a lot of this (even well-meaning) content is not aligned with Google's advertising profile and won't be promoted in order to increase ad-revenue. On a platform that is reliant on advertising to offset the cost of video storage, it's a sinister but logical move. The struggle really does revolve around the network effect, and how inadvertently helpless the average user has made themselves. We have no choice but to play by Google's rules because we don't know of a better way. We swipe down to search something on our iPhone, and we get a YouTube video in response. What, are we going to ideologically oppose the default response? Are we "too good" for the ordinary privacy-destroying, time-disrespecting vehicle of YouTube? No, we watch a 15 second bumper ad and then someone shows us how to fix our sink. And you can damn-well bet nobody will ever know what DailyMotion is because they're not paying phone OEMs a king's ransom to show up before everyone else.
danaris 2y ago
I mean...you say it's the opposite of the old TV model, but it comes to the same result, doesn't it? Before, the networks were king and viewers had to put up with what shows they decided to run. Now, Google is king and viewers have to put up with what video creators they are both willing to platform, and palatable enough that they put their stuff on YouTube. There will always be some viewers willing to follow a creator or show they like, in both of these scenarios (eg, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer moved from the WB to UPN in 2002), while others can't or won't—but there's much more difference, now, between moving from YouTube to, say, Vimeo than there was in the cable TV era moving from one channel to another, so long as you actually had that channel. (For some, these differences will not matter, and they may even claim they don't meaningfully exist; for others, they will be dealbreakers.) ...And I also agree that aftbit is being unfair with the cat videos remark. Google wants YouTube to be the place people go to watch videos on the internet, period. (Aside from, perhaps, porn.) That not only means that they get all your ad-watching eyeball time, it also means they get to control the narrative. Cat videos and shitty listicles are fantastic for Google, because they're an easy dopamine hit for viewers, but they absolutely want to be hosting more in-depth and controversial content, too. They just want to have unquestioned final say over what's actually allowed to be there, which sometimes means they'll remove things in order to make Russia happy, so Russia doesn't try to block Google/YouTube and replace them with a homegrown alternative.
- chongli 2y ago
  you say it's the opposite of the old TV model, but it comes to the same result, doesn't it? The same result? The old network TV model gave users a choice of ~5 channels to watch. Cable TV expanded this to ~50 and later a few hundred. With YouTube there are effectively infinite channels to choose from (tens of millions). It's a HUGE difference. A channel all about knitting would never had existed on TV. A quick YouTube search for knitting yields dozens of knitting channels, each with audiences numbering from thousands to millions.
  - danaris 2y ago
    Sure; my point was about the specific dynamic of "what happens if the creator wants to move to a different venue," not the general differences between YouTube and network/cable TV.

lxgr 2y ago

> Google wants YouTube to be a place for cat videos and shitty listicals Not sure what corner of Youtube the algorithm has been feeding your suggestions with, but I've found higher-quality educational content on Youtube in the last year than I've seen on TV in my entire life, and videos of that kind make up for the majority of my recommendations. (The rest are indeed cat videos, which I happen to also enjoy watching.) Sure, there's also tons of content I don't care for at all, but I've so far found it pretty easy to just not watch that.

adamors 2y ago

This runs complete opposite to what I’ve seen, YT eventually starts to recommend alt-right gargbage if you start going down the recommended videos rabbithole and you watch anything political or featuring current events. Other people have also noticed this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]