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The article mentions "Technology Connections titled 'Algorithms Are Breaking How We Think'" I'm a huge fan of the channel, and that video is mostly great and i

The article mentions "Technology Connections titled 'Algorithms Are Breaking How We Think'" I'm a huge fan of the channel, and that video is mostly great and insightful. But his being "puzzled" at the way people use the subscriptions "feed" is kinda surprising. The low percentaged from that feed should lead to asking questions to understand why, instead of assuming people are "doing it wrong". People use subscriptions as a sort of meta bookmarking system. It's also a way of honing their algorithm. People can have a wide variety of interests. Just because someone is subscribed to a channel on anime doesn't mean it's the thing they're looking for at the time they dip into that feed. And some channels just fill the feed up with posts that don't always necessitate the work of pruning it. So, that firehose ends up being a lot of noise. The ideal would be some sort of in-between. Where you can pare down the subscriptions feed based on a current interest. One doesn't need to see the very latest post by a creator of they aren't someone who is chronically online. I think we will still see the emergence of "human algorithms" that personally curate content for you.

al_borland 1y ago
Some of it has to do with app defaults. When you load up YouTube it doesn’t go to the subscriptions, it goes to the Recommended page. It has enough of the new videos from subscribed channels people watch, plus enough of the new videos from channels they commonly watch without a subscription, that people have no reason to go to the Subscriptions page. Launching from the Subscriptions is an intentional act by people who are actively trying to avoid the Recommendation page, or where the Recommendation page failed to surface what they wanted. I would not be at all surprised if any using of the Subscriptions page triggered YouTube to adjust their algorithm for that user to see more of what they played on the Recommendation page. They probably see the use of the Subscriptions as a failure of the Recommendation engine. For a short while my YouTube app on my AppleTV was showing Watch Later and Subscriptions when it launched. I loved it. I assume they were just A/B testing, because it stopped doing that after a while.
- xbmcuser 1y ago
  I have set my history to be deleted for YouTube after just 3 months. This does surface some videos I have already watched but most recommendations are usually more from my subscriptions
  - mh- 1y ago
    I wouldn't sweat it. I've let it keep my watch history since they launched the feature, and it still puts reruns in my recommended feed all the time.
gobdovan 1y ago
I think avoiding algorithms completely is tricky. Even things like podcast guests or suggestions from friends feel as manipulable but in a human way. What works for me is checking if people I respect in a domain also blog or link elsewhere. That is how I found Peter Norvig's blog... or maybe it was on hacker news.
- whycome 1y ago
  Veritasium is another popular creator that would overlap with the HN audience. It deliberately uses different thumbnails and titles when videos are new. It's a human (afaik) using the A/B suggestions in the back end. So it's like a second degree AI manipulation.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    That crap—together with the nonsensical kinetic weapon video—genuinely turned me off his channel. It clowned him up in a way that felt gimmicky, almost aimed for children versus adults.
    - zrobotics 1y ago
      I can't put my finger on what exactly I find distasteful about his channel, but his content is just off-putting to me. The closest I can describe it is that it annoys me in the same way that shows on discovery or the history channel did 15-20 years ago before I quit watching cable TV. It just seems like it's over produced and glossing over details, maybe it's trying to aim fore a more general audience and that is what hurts it.
LocalH 1y ago
I don't want any algorithms, AI or human, curating my default feed. I want my feed to be a chronologically-ordered listing of the content creators I choose to follow and like. If I want to explore the algorithm, that should still be possible, but it shouldn't be the default.
- whycome 1y ago
  That's what the subscriptions feed is. But in practice (when one subscribes to a lot of creators) it isn't always useful.
  - ascagnel_ 1y ago
    I've found that creators and channels I've subscribed to don't always appear in the subscriptions feed. Thankfully, YouTube still posts an RSS feed for every channel, and following a bunch of them in my reader app reliably captures all the output. I'll dip in and out, only watching what I want, and it's harder to do that when a chunk of the feed is silently hidden from view.
    - pezezin 1y ago
      There is an additional setting for notifications. Click on the little bell to the side of the channel name, and make sure to select to get all the notifications, otherwise they might get hidden.
- chongli 1y ago
  You say that, but then you probably won’t like it when it happens. Some creators post way more than others. Low frequency posters tend to get swept away by the current. Some of my favourite YouTube channels post very infrequently (one video every few months) whereas others post every single day. The YouTube algorithm seems to know this and pins the low frequency guys’ new videos right to the top when they come out.
  - zrobotics 1y ago
HeavenFox 1y ago
Yeah I don't understand why all YouTubers seem to despise "the algorithm", and some of the creators I follow even created their own rival, Nebula, that does not have "the algorithm". Without "the algorithm" I wouldn't find out about your channel in the first place!
- dostick 1y ago
  What is the purpose of that algorithm. I think YouTube’s algorithm purpose is to keep people engaged. The ethical algorithm would only suggest content user is interested in or may be interested based on interests of other users with similar subscriptions.
  - the_af 1y ago
    YouTube mostly suggests videos related to other videos I've watched or to my subscriptions. So it already works like this for me. It almost never suggests random crap. I'd be hard pressed to come up with an example where I was puzzled or infuriated by one of YT's suggestions... (Facebook and Reddit, on the other hand, are way more random and infuriating).
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

al_borland 1y ago

Some of it has to do with app defaults. When you load up YouTube it doesn’t go to the subscriptions, it goes to the Recommended page. It has enough of the new videos from subscribed channels people watch, plus enough of the new videos from channels they commonly watch without a subscription, that people have no reason to go to the Subscriptions page. Launching from the Subscriptions is an intentional act by people who are actively trying to avoid the Recommendation page, or where the Recommendation page failed to surface what they wanted. I would not be at all surprised if any using of the Subscriptions page triggered YouTube to adjust their algorithm for that user to see more of what they played on the Recommendation page. They probably see the use of the Subscriptions as a failure of the Recommendation engine. For a short while my YouTube app on my AppleTV was showing Watch Later and Subscriptions when it launched. I loved it. I assume they were just A/B testing, because it stopped doing that after a while.

xbmcuser 1y ago
I have set my history to be deleted for YouTube after just 3 months. This does surface some videos I have already watched but most recommendations are usually more from my subscriptions
- mh- 1y ago
  I wouldn't sweat it. I've let it keep my watch history since they launched the feature, and it still puts reruns in my recommended feed all the time.

gobdovan 1y ago

I think avoiding algorithms completely is tricky. Even things like podcast guests or suggestions from friends feel as manipulable but in a human way. What works for me is checking if people I respect in a domain also blog or link elsewhere. That is how I found Peter Norvig's blog... or maybe it was on hacker news.

whycome 1y ago
Veritasium is another popular creator that would overlap with the HN audience. It deliberately uses different thumbnails and titles when videos are new. It's a human (afaik) using the A/B suggestions in the back end. So it's like a second degree AI manipulation.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  That crap—together with the nonsensical kinetic weapon video—genuinely turned me off his channel. It clowned him up in a way that felt gimmicky, almost aimed for children versus adults.
  - zrobotics 1y ago
    I can't put my finger on what exactly I find distasteful about his channel, but his content is just off-putting to me. The closest I can describe it is that it annoys me in the same way that shows on discovery or the history channel did 15-20 years ago before I quit watching cable TV. It just seems like it's over produced and glossing over details, maybe it's trying to aim fore a more general audience and that is what hurts it.

LocalH 1y ago

I don't want any algorithms, AI or human, curating my default feed. I want my feed to be a chronologically-ordered listing of the content creators I choose to follow and like. If I want to explore the algorithm, that should still be possible, but it shouldn't be the default.

whycome 1y ago
That's what the subscriptions feed is. But in practice (when one subscribes to a lot of creators) it isn't always useful.
- ascagnel_ 1y ago
  I've found that creators and channels I've subscribed to don't always appear in the subscriptions feed. Thankfully, YouTube still posts an RSS feed for every channel, and following a bunch of them in my reader app reliably captures all the output. I'll dip in and out, only watching what I want, and it's harder to do that when a chunk of the feed is silently hidden from view.
  - pezezin 1y ago
    There is an additional setting for notifications. Click on the little bell to the side of the channel name, and make sure to select to get all the notifications, otherwise they might get hidden.
chongli 1y ago
You say that, but then you probably won’t like it when it happens. Some creators post way more than others. Low frequency posters tend to get swept away by the current. Some of my favourite YouTube channels post very infrequently (one video every few months) whereas others post every single day. The YouTube algorithm seems to know this and pins the low frequency guys’ new videos right to the top when they come out.
- zrobotics 1y ago

HeavenFox 1y ago

Yeah I don't understand why all YouTubers seem to despise "the algorithm", and some of the creators I follow even created their own rival, Nebula, that does not have "the algorithm". Without "the algorithm" I wouldn't find out about your channel in the first place!

dostick 1y ago
What is the purpose of that algorithm. I think YouTube’s algorithm purpose is to keep people engaged. The ethical algorithm would only suggest content user is interested in or may be interested based on interests of other users with similar subscriptions.
- the_af 1y ago
  YouTube mostly suggests videos related to other videos I've watched or to my subscriptions. So it already works like this for me. It almost never suggests random crap. I'd be hard pressed to come up with an example where I was puzzled or infuriated by one of YT's suggestions... (Facebook and Reddit, on the other hand, are way more random and infuriating).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]