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> I 'member YouTube back when it wasn't all dog shit. And that was...? The first video I ever watched on Youtube, in 2005, was a teenager acting goofy in fron

> I 'member YouTube back when it wasn't all dog shit. And that was...? The first video I ever watched on Youtube, in 2005, was a teenager acting goofy in front of the camera. The second video I ever watched on YouTube, in 2005, was teenagers goofing around a toilet, and I turned it off because I thought they were going to show actual shit in the toilet. Oh, wait, you said dog shit. That was human shit. My bad. But, jokes aside, the whole point of YouTube is that anyone can upload anything. There are no gatekeepers. What do you expect? The content was always shit from the beginning; the only thing that's changed is that it turns out that, if you remove the gatekeepers, people will exploit it. (And if you have gatekeepers, the gatekeepers exploit their power.)

mschuster91 2y ago
> And that was...? Probably around the same time as yours. > But, jokes aside, the whole point of YouTube is that anyone can upload anything. There are no gatekeepers. What do you expect? The content was always shit from the beginning; the only thing that's changed is that it turns out that, if you remove the gatekeepers, people will exploit it. (And if you have gatekeepers, the gatekeepers exploit their power.) Well there are gatekeepers: moderation! It's one thing during the beginning of YouTube... but honestly, YouTube could and should go and detect viral trends (they do it anyway to present to users) and moderate stuff that's dangerous.
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  > Well there are gatekeepers: moderation! It's one thing during the beginning of YouTube... but honestly, YouTube could and should go and detect viral trends (they do it anyway to present to users) and moderate stuff that's dangerous. I agree, but that's easier said than done. At a certain point it costs money to pay someone to watch all the popular videos. (It's very clear that this isn't something that can be 100% AI, although I'm sure AI could help to some degree.)
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    YouTube makes 31 billion dollars a year in advertising revenue. I am sure they could afford paying a couple hundred people with fluency in popular languages to do actual content moderation instead of abusing the general public to notice stuff going bad and press/courts as support system.
    - gwbas1c 2y ago
      > a couple hundred people That will only scratch the surface. There are way more videos to watch than that; and way more dangerous videos. To put it in perspective: I pay $22 / month for a family plan. That pays for 0.5 / 4 hours of labor, depending on who/where you hire. We probably watch 40+ hours of Youtube a month. In contrast, "in the olden days" when TV only had a few channels, you betcha someone was carefully choosing what went out over the airwaves. So think more critically about numbers here: There's no way "a couple hundred people" can police Youtube. The economics don't make sense.

mschuster91 2y ago

> And that was...? Probably around the same time as yours. > But, jokes aside, the whole point of YouTube is that anyone can upload anything. There are no gatekeepers. What do you expect? The content was always shit from the beginning; the only thing that's changed is that it turns out that, if you remove the gatekeepers, people will exploit it. (And if you have gatekeepers, the gatekeepers exploit their power.) Well there are gatekeepers: moderation! It's one thing during the beginning of YouTube... but honestly, YouTube could and should go and detect viral trends (they do it anyway to present to users) and moderate stuff that's dangerous.

gwbas1c 2y ago
> Well there are gatekeepers: moderation! It's one thing during the beginning of YouTube... but honestly, YouTube could and should go and detect viral trends (they do it anyway to present to users) and moderate stuff that's dangerous. I agree, but that's easier said than done. At a certain point it costs money to pay someone to watch all the popular videos. (It's very clear that this isn't something that can be 100% AI, although I'm sure AI could help to some degree.)
- mschuster91 2y ago
  YouTube makes 31 billion dollars a year in advertising revenue. I am sure they could afford paying a couple hundred people with fluency in popular languages to do actual content moderation instead of abusing the general public to notice stuff going bad and press/courts as support system.
  - gwbas1c 2y ago
    > a couple hundred people That will only scratch the surface. There are way more videos to watch than that; and way more dangerous videos. To put it in perspective: I pay $22 / month for a family plan. That pays for 0.5 / 4 hours of labor, depending on who/where you hire. We probably watch 40+ hours of Youtube a month. In contrast, "in the olden days" when TV only had a few channels, you betcha someone was carefully choosing what went out over the airwaves. So think more critically about numbers here: There's no way "a couple hundred people" can police Youtube. The economics don't make sense.