this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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The algorithm seems like it is optimized for profit, not for actually being a good platform.
That should mean engagement. It serves up such bad videos that I disengage.
Once in a while I'll realize I just spent 20, 30 minutes looking at a streak of pretty decent stuff. Rare enough to be remarkable. Usually after just 3 or 4 consecutive crap clips I'll close it down and get back to work.
I doubt anything disengages a user faster than low-quality content. I bet it does it even faster than the authoritarian politics and bigotry YouTube seems to inexorable serve you.
If that were true, it wouldn't be the way it is.
Just because it causes your disengagement, doesn't mean it causes disengagement with the vast majority of their userbase.
They're also more concerned with ad views and clicks, so if you're not the kind of person who gives a crap about ads... they don't really care that much about you.
This is predicated on the belief that Google/YouTube is run in a 100% hyper-competent way. I don't buy that.
Google does things the easiest way possible to make tons of money. They make unforced errors all the damn time.
They don't have to be 100% competent, but they are very competent at what they want to do... which is monetize the technologies and services they provide. They're not trying to make something that people can use well and enjoy... they're making things to make a shit-ton of money. The two goals are not generally mutually inclusive.
Yours, on the other hand, is predicated on the belief that they're all super-incompetent and have no capability of doing anything right ever... which is confusing considering they're a multi-billion dollar company and not just some guy in a shack banging rocks together to see how they sound.
Nope. It's only this specific thing that I necessarily think they're doing a bad job of. And I'm right; they are. Their algorithm is a struggling baby compared to TikTok and YouTube at large is not a major profit center (and indeed may not be profitable at all -- but they maintain it because abandoning it would be too costly for them).
TikTok is so good at doing this thing that it is a profitable business for them. YouTube is struggling, and we can clearly see why.
What specific thing? The entirety of YouTube? Just the algorithm? Either way their algorithm may not be designed to do promote videos you want to watch, in reality it’s most likely designed to promote stuff that will draw them the most ad revenue and not promote really good stuff all the time. If your content is always great people will expect that and there will never be a great video, on the contrary if there is a great video among mediocre ones at best people will engage more in those (especially if they are longer and even if they have more ads), and additionally will engage more in your platform. This means that even if they aren’t making as much per video they are still making more in the long-term. And that’s really all they care about, your experience means nothing to them.
This is a thread about YouTube shorts and its bad algorithm, dude.
What’s a YouTube short?
The literal subject of this thread.
You're in here arguing with people without even reading the headline of the article.
I read the title, I just don’t. Know what that is. I assumed it was short YouTube videos, and hence the same algorithm information would apply.