Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?
186 comments
Especially since the removal of downvoting it's hard to get to good quality material. Majority of tech videos are a case of blind leading the blind and unless you know the subject already it's hard to spot.
Nowadays I start with a forum/reddit/discord/hn search for a list of hive approved creators and only then go to youtube with that list in hand. Starting the search in youtube (unless for a very niche/non-marketable topics) is close to worthless.
Nowadays I start with a forum/reddit/discord/hn search for a list of hive approved creators and only then go to youtube with that list in hand. Starting the search in youtube (unless for a very niche/non-marketable topics) is close to worthless.
> Majority of tech videos are a case of blind leading the blind and unless you know the subject already it's hard to spot.
It drives me CRAZY!
How often I want to know something about a product (something less popular than smartphones, let's say IP cameras) and I find only ~3 reviews, I watch them all and they are all full of BS, because the reviewer has no experience with the product type they are given, they just follow the manual/or some given instructions by the sponsor how to make the product work. So I still know nothing about the product, its pros and cons and I can spot mistakes and BS even in those basic info that was given. In this specific case of IP cameras for example there are TONS of videos NOT showing the real video feed (recordings) from the camera, they just record the smartphone screen with another smartphone/camera and that's it.
It drives me CRAZY!
How often I want to know something about a product (something less popular than smartphones, let's say IP cameras) and I find only ~3 reviews, I watch them all and they are all full of BS, because the reviewer has no experience with the product type they are given, they just follow the manual/or some given instructions by the sponsor how to make the product work. So I still know nothing about the product, its pros and cons and I can spot mistakes and BS even in those basic info that was given. In this specific case of IP cameras for example there are TONS of videos NOT showing the real video feed (recordings) from the camera, they just record the smartphone screen with another smartphone/camera and that's it.
Many reviews the reviewers don't have the product and instead cobble together information from the description and other sources, that's why there is no unique information in the reviews and they are so information light. They do this so that they can have affiliate links where they can make money, with a heavy understanding of SEO this can be a very profitable practice.
When I discovered this practice from a well known SEO guru, I was both sad and angry.
When I discovered this practice from a well known SEO guru, I was both sad and angry.
It's so frustrating, too.
I watch those videos to learn something new about the product (actual pros and cons, specific feature implementations, ...). But most of the time the "reviewer" basically reads the product description and goes over the list of features that I can find on literally any shop page that has that product.
It's so hard to find videos of people that have actually used the product for longer periods of time and can give an actual review.
I watch those videos to learn something new about the product (actual pros and cons, specific feature implementations, ...). But most of the time the "reviewer" basically reads the product description and goes over the list of features that I can find on literally any shop page that has that product.
It's so hard to find videos of people that have actually used the product for longer periods of time and can give an actual review.
This extends to review articles as well. 20 years ago there used to be magazines that reviewed products by actually using them. There were also users reviewing products and there were websites where these personal reviews were aggregated
Nowadays all review article just work off the specs without using and testing the products. And the user reviews have moved to Amazon, which are mostly very poor quality or just fakes, or possibly reviews for other products. In any case, there are no incentives to give high quality reviews of products, and google seems to have no incentive to show me the few remaining real review blogs.
Nowadays all review article just work off the specs without using and testing the products. And the user reviews have moved to Amazon, which are mostly very poor quality or just fakes, or possibly reviews for other products. In any case, there are no incentives to give high quality reviews of products, and google seems to have no incentive to show me the few remaining real review blogs.
For all its flaws, this is why I still check the Wirecutter before I buy a lot of things. Although they seem to make their picks in part based on what will get them affiliate revenue, you can be sure someone on the staff has actually picked up the product and used it enough to understand how well it works.
I've also found user reviews on Home Depot to be more helpful than most. I'm not sure what they're doing to combat spam, but it seems to be working.
I've also found user reviews on Home Depot to be more helpful than most. I'm not sure what they're doing to combat spam, but it seems to be working.
That's a difficult problem to solve and extends far beyond Youtube. The reason why that happens is just due to timing, first one to review a new product gets all the clicks. So they can't spend weeks actually using the product to write a proper review, as interest would have been largely faded at that point. Back in the paper magazine days they had much more time, as magazines only got released once a month.
Meanwhile if you ignore all the commercial Youtubers and look for regular people using the product, you might end up with a more 'authentic' review, but also with an equally uninformative one, as most people just don't have access to all the latest tech gadgets on the market. They just have the one they are reviewing right now, so it's hard to get any meaningful comparisons.
There are a couple of good review sites left, but not nearly enough to cover all the tech stuff that gets released in the wild.
Meanwhile if you ignore all the commercial Youtubers and look for regular people using the product, you might end up with a more 'authentic' review, but also with an equally uninformative one, as most people just don't have access to all the latest tech gadgets on the market. They just have the one they are reviewing right now, so it's hard to get any meaningful comparisons.
There are a couple of good review sites left, but not nearly enough to cover all the tech stuff that gets released in the wild.
> Especially since the removal of downvoting
A wake-up call that a single company annihilated our ability to sort out information for ourselves. I'm still rather disturbed and shaken.
A wake-up call that a single company annihilated our ability to sort out information for ourselves. I'm still rather disturbed and shaken.
You're waking up a bit too late... It's not different than Facebook and their news feed sorted by the "algorithm", the same as Instagram, TikTok or Twitter (at least with Twitter you still can choose)...
Yes, this ship has sailed ever since search is not returning most relevant results but ordered by whatever they think would make me watch more...
You can still see the downvotes with a browser add-on. But yes, I'm also quite disturbed this by this absolutely idiotic decision.
"Shaken"? That seems a bit hyperbolic.
Did that dislike button ever do anything? It made a number go up, but other than that I have never seen any effect of it. If you want to make bad channels go away, hit the three-dots next to the video on the recommendation side and click "Not Interested".
It helped a lot with how to/tutorial videos. When looking for a solution I could see at first glance if I'm watching correct video. If there was more dislikes than likes I could tell straight away to not follow this suggestions.
That sounds wonderful except that it works about as well as the voice on my Google assistant understanding anything beyond simplistic questions and answers. I’ve attempted to train YouTube repeatedly since the appearance of “not interested” that I’m not interested in violence. If I wanted this much violence, I could have gotten it for free. At least with Google assistant I can scream expletives and insults at the ai and get some satisfaction that the qa retrospective will be amusing for those stuck working there. I mean, does ai really deserve respect when it is so poorly designed?
The list of "not interested" is also limited to 100 entries. Once you've reached that limit the oldest entries get removed.
It's a pointless feature at this point if you ask me.
It's a pointless feature at this point if you ask me.
Are you logged in? I don't ever see violent videos on YouTube. It seems to suggest what I like to watch. If you aren't logged in, it will pickup on what other people in your household are watching.
There is an addon to bring back downvote visibility in firefox. [1] I believe it makes a call to an API on a 3rd party site so there may be privacy implications.
[1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/return-youtub...
[1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/return-youtub...
I disagree. YouTube content has never been better for me. There has been an explosion of specialized and niche videos and the recommendation algorithm really seems to be working for me.
I still downvote videos on YouTube.
There’s still the “don’t recommend channel” and “not interested” options to modify recommendations.
I am curious, why was downvoting removed? It seems to have had a bad effect based on what you are saying.
Examples of forums that you search at?
Opportunity for a browser plugin counting upvotes / downvotes / other useful flags
>Especially since the removal of downvoting it's hard to get to good quality material.
This is it isnt it. When they removed downvoting I figured it didnt matter, but really youtube really got past its peak because of this.
This is it isnt it. When they removed downvoting I figured it didnt matter, but really youtube really got past its peak because of this.
Unfortunately all those downvotes on Biden’s videos on the White House channel right after his inauguration were effective.
I think YouTube is like Reddit: it is what you make of it.
If you only ever look at the front page of Reddit, you're going to be fed memes and outrage. If you go and subscribe to a few small, focused subreddits, you're going to see things that are relevant to you.
Same with YouTube. If you watch a lot of junk content, that's what it's going to feed you in recommendations. If you focus on some specific segment of content, it'll give you that instead.
For example I watch a bunch of creators that build stuff (e.g. Tested, ThisOldTony, AvE) and as a result I get recommendations for other relevant creators, like Alec Steele, James Bruton, Tom Stanton and Colin Furze.
When I see recommendations I don't like, I flag them with "not interested" or "don't recommend channel".
There's definitely still organic, passion-driven content out there, especially with new fan-funding mechanisms like Patreon, you just need to focus on it, because it's really easy for YouTube to shovel junk down your throat, if you give it the chance.
If you only ever look at the front page of Reddit, you're going to be fed memes and outrage. If you go and subscribe to a few small, focused subreddits, you're going to see things that are relevant to you.
Same with YouTube. If you watch a lot of junk content, that's what it's going to feed you in recommendations. If you focus on some specific segment of content, it'll give you that instead.
For example I watch a bunch of creators that build stuff (e.g. Tested, ThisOldTony, AvE) and as a result I get recommendations for other relevant creators, like Alec Steele, James Bruton, Tom Stanton and Colin Furze.
When I see recommendations I don't like, I flag them with "not interested" or "don't recommend channel".
There's definitely still organic, passion-driven content out there, especially with new fan-funding mechanisms like Patreon, you just need to focus on it, because it's really easy for YouTube to shovel junk down your throat, if you give it the chance.
I think the OP's point is that people like Colin Furze used to film themselves and just put out content, but now they court sponsors and have a production team. All of the people you mentioned have a production team, I think.
I've got some channels I watch that don't have production crews (I think) like "Under Dunn" and I enjoy them every bit as much as the big ones you named, if not more... But there's no doubt that even they pay at least some attention to monetization.
I also heavily curate my recommendations. It's kind of painful because there's so much crap, but I do still find channels that I enjoy once in a while. They generally aren't new channels, though, just ones I hadn't found yet.
A few of my channels got really stupid about monetization, though. One of my woodworking channels recently said that he wasn't going to do any more content like his old content because it doesn't attract new viewers. He's very much trying to make that channel be his day job, and it ruined it for me. I almost never watch his new stuff, but I guess others do, so... Oh well.
I've got some channels I watch that don't have production crews (I think) like "Under Dunn" and I enjoy them every bit as much as the big ones you named, if not more... But there's no doubt that even they pay at least some attention to monetization.
I also heavily curate my recommendations. It's kind of painful because there's so much crap, but I do still find channels that I enjoy once in a while. They generally aren't new channels, though, just ones I hadn't found yet.
A few of my channels got really stupid about monetization, though. One of my woodworking channels recently said that he wasn't going to do any more content like his old content because it doesn't attract new viewers. He's very much trying to make that channel be his day job, and it ruined it for me. I almost never watch his new stuff, but I guess others do, so... Oh well.
It's true that monetization has changed things and I can understand that for some folks it's bad but for some I think it's been really good.
In the old days the content was only driven by passion, because it wasn't really possible to make a living or fund a production team.
These days, you get guys like Colin Furze who are able to do what they're passionate about full-time, with nice equipment and staff to support them.
Tom Scott is another good example. He has a production team behind him but his content is still "here's a genuinely interesting thing I wanted to show you", maybe with a short, very obviously marked sponsored segment.
In the old days the content was only driven by passion, because it wasn't really possible to make a living or fund a production team.
These days, you get guys like Colin Furze who are able to do what they're passionate about full-time, with nice equipment and staff to support them.
Tom Scott is another good example. He has a production team behind him but his content is still "here's a genuinely interesting thing I wanted to show you", maybe with a short, very obviously marked sponsored segment.
Tom Scott is perhaps a better example of how hollow monetised content can be.
His formula is taking topics that have been covered by other creators, dumbing the content down a bit, adding a sponsor block and a clickbait title. There's no effort expended in contributing new topics, or adding new colour to existing topics because researching that requires too much time and expertise to repeat day after day.
His formula is taking topics that have been covered by other creators, dumbing the content down a bit, adding a sponsor block and a clickbait title. There's no effort expended in contributing new topics, or adding new colour to existing topics because researching that requires too much time and expertise to repeat day after day.
> I think the OP's point is that people like Colin Furze used to film themselves and just put out content, but now they court sponsors and have a production team. All of the people you mentioned have a production team, I think.
Why is that a problem? People don't like it when the audio and video quality are good ? Or they don't like it when content producers focus entirely on content creating instead of moonlighting (with the necessary associations with sponsors and what not). I don't mind either, and having seen a few channels "grow" into a more professional outfit, i vastly prefer the new, more qualitative version, even if it wastes me a few seconds for monetisation.
Why is that a problem? People don't like it when the audio and video quality are good ? Or they don't like it when content producers focus entirely on content creating instead of moonlighting (with the necessary associations with sponsors and what not). I don't mind either, and having seen a few channels "grow" into a more professional outfit, i vastly prefer the new, more qualitative version, even if it wastes me a few seconds for monetisation.
In itself, I don't have a problem with having sponsors.
But far too often, it feels like the person made the video just for the money, instead of because it's something their viewers would actually like to see.
Colin Furze has done remarkably little of this, but some of my other channels have entire videos that were obviously just to be a commercial, and the content is almost unlike the other channel content. Seeing one of those feels like they've wasted my time for their own profit, and that feels bad. And you often can't tell if it's going to be a whole video like that, or just an up-front sponsor message.
But far too often, it feels like the person made the video just for the money, instead of because it's something their viewers would actually like to see.
Colin Furze has done remarkably little of this, but some of my other channels have entire videos that were obviously just to be a commercial, and the content is almost unlike the other channel content. Seeing one of those feels like they've wasted my time for their own profit, and that feels bad. And you often can't tell if it's going to be a whole video like that, or just an up-front sponsor message.
> There's definitely still organic, passion-driven content out there, especially with new fan-funding mechanisms like Patreon, you just need to focus on it, because it's really easy for YouTube to shovel junk down your throat, if you give it the chance.
With all due respect, your whole post smells of "blame the victim", or "you are not doing it right" vibes. I think we can all agree that the big numbers in YT are in videos made explicitly for that, where some new stars arose due to the new media but now it's not that different from mainstream TV (yes, there is still this plus that if you dig deep enough you might find something worth that the TV didn't have due to much lower bandwidth, but I would ignore that since you can/could do that "in the Internet" anyway).
With all due respect, your whole post smells of "blame the victim", or "you are not doing it right" vibes. I think we can all agree that the big numbers in YT are in videos made explicitly for that, where some new stars arose due to the new media but now it's not that different from mainstream TV (yes, there is still this plus that if you dig deep enough you might find something worth that the TV didn't have due to much lower bandwidth, but I would ignore that since you can/could do that "in the Internet" anyway).
Yeah, you need an account on Reddit and Youtube to make it worthwhile. Going into "private browsing" and going to youtube is a weird experience.
There are a bunch of niche youtube channels that don't get a ton of views that seem to support via Patreon (or there just retired).
I mean sometimes the sponsorships make sense. The video about how to change your car's heating/vent fan, came with a link to a place to buy said fan (It was in line with other prices so I used it).
In the how to do things department Youtube is King. Even very obscure things. I had a hubbard squash and needed to open it... you tube had it. Not sure some of those methods where the best, but I found one that was effective.
There are a bunch of niche youtube channels that don't get a ton of views that seem to support via Patreon (or there just retired).
I mean sometimes the sponsorships make sense. The video about how to change your car's heating/vent fan, came with a link to a place to buy said fan (It was in line with other prices so I used it).
In the how to do things department Youtube is King. Even very obscure things. I had a hubbard squash and needed to open it... you tube had it. Not sure some of those methods where the best, but I found one that was effective.
> If you only ever look at the front page of Reddit, you're going to be fed memes and outrage. If you go and subscribe to a few small, focused subreddits, you're going to see things that are relevant to you.
So it is still impossible to decide today that I want to see good reviews of some technology category, whereas I am usually interested in something completely different.
Google, and I assume Youtube as well, tries really hard to connect all my different accounts and identities on different devices, browsers. That closes the escape hatch that I could have one browser identity focused on topic A and another on topic B. All in all we have to be honest here. Youtube only interest is to serve us content that will make us watch more content. They have absolutely no incentive to show me content, that is relevant to me.
So it is still impossible to decide today that I want to see good reviews of some technology category, whereas I am usually interested in something completely different.
Google, and I assume Youtube as well, tries really hard to connect all my different accounts and identities on different devices, browsers. That closes the escape hatch that I could have one browser identity focused on topic A and another on topic B. All in all we have to be honest here. Youtube only interest is to serve us content that will make us watch more content. They have absolutely no incentive to show me content, that is relevant to me.
> When I see recommendations I don't like, I flag them with "not interested" or "don't recommend channel".
Recommendation engines like YouTube are way too confident in their own abilities, to the point that they hide first-class operations like these behind the little three-dot menu on videos. They support negative feedback reluctantly, to the detriment of society.
I bet you their reasoning is "well, not many people use it so it doesn't need to be up front", but the problem is that it must be used in order to tailor the feed correctly, and now many people don't even know it's an option because it's hidden.
Recommendation engines like YouTube are way too confident in their own abilities, to the point that they hide first-class operations like these behind the little three-dot menu on videos. They support negative feedback reluctantly, to the detriment of society.
I bet you their reasoning is "well, not many people use it so it doesn't need to be up front", but the problem is that it must be used in order to tailor the feed correctly, and now many people don't even know it's an option because it's hidden.
Maybe in some areas (software) but I'm finding YouTube a goldmine for my current interest - learning to drive in the UK
When I was 17 I started learning for about 8 months but then stopped due to various reasons. I'm 35 now and picking it back up again and the most mind blowing aspect of it is how much content there is on YouTube to help learner drivers, compared to back then!
There are loads of creators (usually driving instructors) creating really good instructional videos with helpful visuals for everything you could think of for driving in the UK and how to pass the high bar of the UK practical test.
It's been an invaluable resource and new content seems to come out everyday exploring different topics. Yes some of the channels are sponsored, usually by car insurance companies, but it's not intrusive
When I was 17 I started learning for about 8 months but then stopped due to various reasons. I'm 35 now and picking it back up again and the most mind blowing aspect of it is how much content there is on YouTube to help learner drivers, compared to back then!
There are loads of creators (usually driving instructors) creating really good instructional videos with helpful visuals for everything you could think of for driving in the UK and how to pass the high bar of the UK practical test.
It's been an invaluable resource and new content seems to come out everyday exploring different topics. Yes some of the channels are sponsored, usually by car insurance companies, but it's not intrusive
> I'm finding YouTube a goldmine for my current interest
Same here. I exercise daily at home. A few months ago, on a whim, I bought some kettlebells, which I used to see in the gym but had never used before. Once I started searching for and watching kettlebell instruction videos on YouTube, I started getting more such videos as recommendations. Some of the videos were really good, and they helped me learn how to exercise with kettlebells safely and effectively.
Among the recommendations were also some videos about maces, or macebells, which I had never even heard of. Intrigued, I ordered a couple, and now I have added them to my daily workout, too. I never would have discovered them, or learned how to use them, if it weren’t for YouTube.
Occasionally I dip into YouTube rabbit holes for subjects I was interested in when I was young (I’m sixty-five now), things like music theory or woodcraft or typography. I am always impressed at how much easier it is to learn such things on one’s own now than it was fifty years ago. Instruction books and searches of the wider web are also useful, of course, but for learning anything with a visual and/or audio component YouTube is fantastic.
Same here. I exercise daily at home. A few months ago, on a whim, I bought some kettlebells, which I used to see in the gym but had never used before. Once I started searching for and watching kettlebell instruction videos on YouTube, I started getting more such videos as recommendations. Some of the videos were really good, and they helped me learn how to exercise with kettlebells safely and effectively.
Among the recommendations were also some videos about maces, or macebells, which I had never even heard of. Intrigued, I ordered a couple, and now I have added them to my daily workout, too. I never would have discovered them, or learned how to use them, if it weren’t for YouTube.
Occasionally I dip into YouTube rabbit holes for subjects I was interested in when I was young (I’m sixty-five now), things like music theory or woodcraft or typography. I am always impressed at how much easier it is to learn such things on one’s own now than it was fifty years ago. Instruction books and searches of the wider web are also useful, of course, but for learning anything with a visual and/or audio component YouTube is fantastic.
I went down a similar kettlebell rabbit hole, now it's one my favorite ways to exercise. I'd highly recommend the Mark Wildman videos on kettlebell technique if anyone else is interested in giving them a go.
I agree. The trick is not to search for your ${dayjob} related content. I no longer watch software or hardware, learning K8S or iToys reviews. I mean, how many iPhones, ThinkPads or MacBooks will I buy each year? Instead, I found small family vlogs much better. Also, stuff like repairing old watches, documentaries/vlogs about ships, aeroplanes, or manufacturing goods, offbeat travel or learning a new foreign language vlogs are good.
100% agree with this. I passed my test in 2018, but YouTube was a game changer. The UK driving test is pretty difficult, and everyone always tells you horror stories about it, so being able to watch test videos reduces anxiety so much.
When you face the facts, it's just two 45-50 minute tests and each has a 45% pass ratio, so it's nowhere near as bad as people make it sound. You can easily pass on the first or second attempt if you study enough.
Failing your test can cost you loads of money in extra lessons, car hire, testing. It's so useful to be able to see lessons online and get better. Financially, I think YouTube lessons and tests can save the average learner £500-1000.
When you face the facts, it's just two 45-50 minute tests and each has a 45% pass ratio, so it's nowhere near as bad as people make it sound. You can easily pass on the first or second attempt if you study enough.
Failing your test can cost you loads of money in extra lessons, car hire, testing. It's so useful to be able to see lessons online and get better. Financially, I think YouTube lessons and tests can save the average learner £500-1000.
I'm glad someone else has noticed this. There are tons of good vids showing mock driving exams with the faults highlighted and explained which I found really useful.
It's mostly good marketing for the instructors, I think - you get to know their personality and chops before you put down the quite large amount of money required for a full suite of lessons. And it's just good PR - adding value and all that...
It's mostly good marketing for the instructors, I think - you get to know their personality and chops before you put down the quite large amount of money required for a full suite of lessons. And it's just good PR - adding value and all that...
I know you're not telling this with bad faith, but not everything has to be done with a financial/economic objective. Some people likes to share their knowledge just for the sake of it and that's one of the things that made Internet great... Now it all has to be related with views, monetization and brand content...
If you're seeking a horrorshow of real life "don't do this" examples of questionable driving practices I recommend DashCamOwners:
UK: https://www.youtube.com/c/UKDashCameras/videos
AU: https://www.youtube.com/c/DashCamOwnersAustralia/videos
both drive on the same side.
UK: https://www.youtube.com/c/UKDashCameras/videos
AU: https://www.youtube.com/c/DashCamOwnersAustralia/videos
both drive on the same side.
DashCamOwnersAustralia has destroyed the productivity of too many of my work days.
"I'll just watch one while I eat lunch" is a slippery slope.
"I'll just watch one while I eat lunch" is a slippery slope.
I'm in the exact same situation but in Germany! The best content I found is a channel of a driving instructor who puts up long videos with barely any editing where he lets pupils drive the exact routes used in driving tests and explains what went wrong or what to watch out for.
Please share some channels that you found helpful
> When I was 17 I started learning for about 8 months but then stopped due to various reasons. I'm 35 now and picking it back up again and the most mind blowing aspect of it is how much content there is on YouTube to help learner drivers, compared to back then!
YouTube hadn't been founded when you were 17, so it isn't particularly surprising that it didn't have eLearning content back then.
YouTube hadn't been founded when you were 17, so it isn't particularly surprising that it didn't have eLearning content back then.
phrased that bit poorly, I meant "easilly accessible content for learning to drive" is leaps and bounds better than it was back then - with YouTube being the platform.
Back then the best you would have got was some onerous DVD-ROM software with low resolution videos and poor presentation, or at least very awkward. Like the training videos you get given at work...
Back then the best you would have got was some onerous DVD-ROM software with low resolution videos and poor presentation, or at least very awkward. Like the training videos you get given at work...
The drive for monetization certainly shows in the form of needlessly, absurdly long videos. I recently came across a "How to Make the Windows 11 Taskbar Completely Transparent" tutorial (I had a whim to do just that). The whole content boils down to "install such-and-such app". Length of the video? 5:50 :) (And the narrator calls it a "real quick video" by the way, so apparently that passes for being rather brief).
YT, or even videos in general, don't have a monopoly for that though. Eg. in my country some Sundays are shopping, some are not. Every now and then I need to google it out to find out if the shops are open next Sunday, and inevitably at the top of search results will sit a 4 screens long blog post starting with an 'immersive' story to the tune of "Imagine you wake up on Sunday morning, and your fridge is empty. That's a bummer, huh?", followed by paragraphs and paragraphs of such fluff with the only information any sane person could care about buried somewhere near the end : )
YT, or even videos in general, don't have a monopoly for that though. Eg. in my country some Sundays are shopping, some are not. Every now and then I need to google it out to find out if the shops are open next Sunday, and inevitably at the top of search results will sit a 4 screens long blog post starting with an 'immersive' story to the tune of "Imagine you wake up on Sunday morning, and your fridge is empty. That's a bummer, huh?", followed by paragraphs and paragraphs of such fluff with the only information any sane person could care about buried somewhere near the end : )
> 4 screens long blog post
Or blog posts that explain every little thing related to a topic before the information you searched for. In your case, for the article "Shops that are open on Sunday in 2022", <h2> titles would be:
"What is Sunday?"
"What is shopping?"
"Why you should prefer to shop on Sundays?"
"Is the distance to the shop important?"
"Remember to carry money"
etc...
Or blog posts that explain every little thing related to a topic before the information you searched for. In your case, for the article "Shops that are open on Sunday in 2022", <h2> titles would be:
"What is Sunday?"
"What is shopping?"
"Why you should prefer to shop on Sundays?"
"Is the distance to the shop important?"
"Remember to carry money"
etc...
There's a whole website seemingly built around this concept - WikiHow : )
It bursts at seams with brilliant "do not say!" type of tutorials - one my favorites is "How to Survive a Coup". Here's some of the advice given by the expert authors (who clearly must have survived a few coups back in the day):
"The most important thing to do during a coup is to stay out of range of gunfire [...] Stay tuned into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to get regular updates on what is happening [...] If you have television, then you can also try watching your local news channel for updates [...] Leave the country or go to a safer region if the conflict continues"
So remember, try staying out of range of gunfire and don't forget to subscribe, everyone
It bursts at seams with brilliant "do not say!" type of tutorials - one my favorites is "How to Survive a Coup". Here's some of the advice given by the expert authors (who clearly must have survived a few coups back in the day):
"The most important thing to do during a coup is to stay out of range of gunfire [...] Stay tuned into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to get regular updates on what is happening [...] If you have television, then you can also try watching your local news channel for updates [...] Leave the country or go to a safer region if the conflict continues"
So remember, try staying out of range of gunfire and don't forget to subscribe, everyone
There's a variety of youtube "creators" that I follow as I have the same interests or hobbies, okay, I'm an aviation nerd, and the videos from the same creators have over time morphed from ad-hoc, homemade, quicky explainers into very professional looking videos clearly put together by a team. And they are longer. And they are selling their merch. And they are all cross-promoting each other. And they are all advertising the same vpns.
And it's become so professional, so impersonal, that watching now feels much more like a chore
And it's become so professional, so impersonal, that watching now feels much more like a chore
That's the problem. And it is said that internet has shortened our attention span - probably true. But the common wisdom is that it did so by being brief and to the point. But it's the opposite. Modern internet does that by drowning us in so much fluff (subscribe to our newsletter, or do you want to see our useless chatbot utterly fail to help you) that we've all developed our personal "skip intro" heuristics.
And we now have this knee-jerk reaction to aggressively cut through fluff even when there's actually no fluff.
Back in the day the list of shopping Sundays would be printed in my pocketbook calendar that I'd buy in early January. And it would be a simple list without all the "...shopping for goods is such an important part of life, you need to eat after all (sometimes too much, am I right!). But did you know that on some days..." BS. Because paper is an actual commodity, and no editor would publish a pocketbook calendar the size of a brick. Unlike paper though, kilobytes cost nothing, so there you go.
And we now have this knee-jerk reaction to aggressively cut through fluff even when there's actually no fluff.
Back in the day the list of shopping Sundays would be printed in my pocketbook calendar that I'd buy in early January. And it would be a simple list without all the "...shopping for goods is such an important part of life, you need to eat after all (sometimes too much, am I right!). But did you know that on some days..." BS. Because paper is an actual commodity, and no editor would publish a pocketbook calendar the size of a brick. Unlike paper though, kilobytes cost nothing, so there you go.
When channels start cross-promotions it usually foesn't take long for me to un-subscribe. Dead sure sign the main focus is switching to impressions and monetization. As are reaction videos, or worse reaction videos together with other youtube channels...
The 'SponsorBlock' browser plugin helps a lot to shorten these long videos by skipping sponsored sections, intros, promotions, credits, etc. 'uBlock Origin' also helps by removing the ads.
For avoiding channels that are effectively spam, 'Channel Blocker' is helpful by adding an 'x' button you can click to block videos from that channel from being displayed. Another one, 'BlockTube' is good too which lets you auto-block videos based on keywords in video titles.
For avoiding channels that are effectively spam, 'Channel Blocker' is helpful by adding an 'x' button you can click to block videos from that channel from being displayed. Another one, 'BlockTube' is good too which lets you auto-block videos based on keywords in video titles.
The whole Internet hat peaked due to monetization. Very little content is created because somebody is passionate about something and wants to share. Almost all content is created to either directly make money or to collect enough followers to eventually start making money. Everything is fake and optimized to grab attention. What organic content remains is drowned out by the firehose of monetized content.
Everyone saying the Internet is money-driven is correct, but this is not unique to the Internet. It is also true for TV and movies. And for magazines and other publications. And radio.
There are exceptions in every type of media where some people are still putting out content for reasons other than money. The key difference to the Internet is that the cost of content creation remains low. That isn't true of TV, Movies, or radio.
So rather than just saying "It has peaked", I encourage people to take action - put out good content, stop looking at bad content, and stop making the first question when people create something online, "How are you going to monetize this?"
There are exceptions in every type of media where some people are still putting out content for reasons other than money. The key difference to the Internet is that the cost of content creation remains low. That isn't true of TV, Movies, or radio.
So rather than just saying "It has peaked", I encourage people to take action - put out good content, stop looking at bad content, and stop making the first question when people create something online, "How are you going to monetize this?"
My youtube feed is heavily curated. Every once in a while Youtube tries to slip in some of those monetization channels (e.g. reaction videos, videos recycling snippets from films,...). Also, once in a while, I start exploring, trying to find some new stuff that inteigues me. This seems to kick the algorithm into over drive... It's two weeks now that I kick out channels and content after I watched some Goodwood Racing clips and stupid me clicked on one or two of youtubes recommendations below those...
I wonder if there's any service/search engine that could help find authentic, non-monetized content? Ideally results would be filtered out if they had any ads at all or affiliate links anywhere on the domain. Perhaps it'd also be valuable to exclude analytics platforms?
I feel like a decade ago discoverability of those little corners of the internet where someone is passionate about something and writes a blog about it was better. Trying to search for reviews has always been tough, but it's impossible to find anything that's not monetized to the hell and back for something like "best tent for camping" or "tent reviews 2022".
The closest I've found is millionshort.com, which does have some nice filters (e.g. "remove sites with live chat"), but that still doesn't quite get there.
https://millionshort.com/search?keywords=Best%20tent%202022&...
I feel like a decade ago discoverability of those little corners of the internet where someone is passionate about something and writes a blog about it was better. Trying to search for reviews has always been tough, but it's impossible to find anything that's not monetized to the hell and back for something like "best tent for camping" or "tent reviews 2022".
The closest I've found is millionshort.com, which does have some nice filters (e.g. "remove sites with live chat"), but that still doesn't quite get there.
https://millionshort.com/search?keywords=Best%20tent%202022&...
To be fair, even a passion project will use analytics because it’s nice to know one doesn’t produce passionately for the void.
What's the problem with the drive for monetization? Out in the physical world you also rarely get services and content for free. Also monetization here mostly means possibilites for donation and paying for extra content, usually most of a creator's content is still free. As for money-grabber content: a good platform should have an efficient and honest rating mechanism.
When I first started using the Internet it was like going to a pub and striking up a conversation with a stranger about a topic of mutual interest, or going to the park and watching people do things they enjoy. There was no competition to maximize my engagement in order to have me watch ads that create desires for things that I don't need. It was just some dudes who really liked talking about crop circles or model trains or semiconductors. Imo it's the difference between doing things in order to make money and making money in order to do things.
>What's the problem with the drive for monetization? Out in the physical world you also rarely get services and content for free.
It's just as screwed up in the real world, the difference is that the internet at least temporarily offered an escape hatch to our screwed up economic system because at least the same logic of scarcity didn't apply. Now we've bolted the same crap on top of our digital lives.
It's just as screwed up in the real world, the difference is that the internet at least temporarily offered an escape hatch to our screwed up economic system because at least the same logic of scarcity didn't apply. Now we've bolted the same crap on top of our digital lives.
At some point we will have to start building a "second internet" that is governed through a network of trust rather than through an economy of attention grabbing.
Wasn't there a a push for micropayments at some point? I think advertisements won out by being more accessible. It is hard to say if the internet would be better or not with micropayments instead of ads.
Then there is a tiktok, which I refuse to install because it's massive spyware AND until you build enough data for the algorithm it's all just inapropriately dancing kids
More content is created because somebody is passionate and wants to share than ever before. There is a tremendous amount of monetized content, sure, so perhaps the ratio of passion content to monetized content is lower today. But instagram and tiktok have made the barrier for content creation basically zero and mountains and mountains of content by people who are just having fun is created daily.
That's why many people have migrated to discord communities or private forums. For me they are the only "places" left to find some human discussion that is not directly trying to sell you something
> What organic content remains is drowned out by the firehose of monetized content.
When r/gonewild (NSFW!) is about the only source of genuinely non-monetized content on the Internet remaining... sigh
When r/gonewild (NSFW!) is about the only source of genuinely non-monetized content on the Internet remaining... sigh
Or all the growth and actual engagement is going to TikTok
I'd say that the quality of the best content on YouTube is still fantastic, and those creators are often able to bring in more and more money, allowing even more improvements.
Looking at the sorts of channels represented by Standard, they're at the top of their game and doing better than ever. - https://standard.tv/
Yes there's a ton of crap too, but I think this is just a symptom of YouTube being truly mainstream now. There are areas that do better and worse on this. I'd agree that programming tutorials aren't good, but I've never found YouTube to be good for programming tutorials. Conference talks tend to be much better.
Looking at the sorts of channels represented by Standard, they're at the top of their game and doing better than ever. - https://standard.tv/
Yes there's a ton of crap too, but I think this is just a symptom of YouTube being truly mainstream now. There are areas that do better and worse on this. I'd agree that programming tutorials aren't good, but I've never found YouTube to be good for programming tutorials. Conference talks tend to be much better.
I'm split between agreeing with you, and that Youtube is no longer a thing for me.
Probably it's my forties talking here, but I am under the impression that the content and the format (including the length) is being leaned towards the 15-25 years old range.
For (our) work stuff, it's all 30 minutes "learning tutorials", for a kid getting hands on a programming language or tool, or the couch-video-watcher-curious.
I honestly don't have the time to look for tutorials of work stuff on YouTube (I don't even have audio on my work PC). If I must, I prefer to watch a lecture from a professor in some university. Text-format tutorials are always welcome.
What it leads me to my next point: everything in YT is entertaiment. No matter what, the main scope of all those video is to entertain people first, and teach later.
And for the entertainment PoV: for example last night I watched "What Makes This Song Great?" from a "Rick Beato". It's a musician that does an analysis about a song. Other than leaving me with a sense of "emptiness" the guy never REALLY explained "What Makes This Song Great". Perhaps a 25 yo sees this guy as an authority, or doesn't care wasting time, but I personally felt scammed.
I'll keep using YouTube to occasionally watch a trailer or an old music video clip or a live performance.
Probably it's my forties talking here, but I am under the impression that the content and the format (including the length) is being leaned towards the 15-25 years old range.
For (our) work stuff, it's all 30 minutes "learning tutorials", for a kid getting hands on a programming language or tool, or the couch-video-watcher-curious.
I honestly don't have the time to look for tutorials of work stuff on YouTube (I don't even have audio on my work PC). If I must, I prefer to watch a lecture from a professor in some university. Text-format tutorials are always welcome.
What it leads me to my next point: everything in YT is entertaiment. No matter what, the main scope of all those video is to entertain people first, and teach later.
And for the entertainment PoV: for example last night I watched "What Makes This Song Great?" from a "Rick Beato". It's a musician that does an analysis about a song. Other than leaving me with a sense of "emptiness" the guy never REALLY explained "What Makes This Song Great". Perhaps a 25 yo sees this guy as an authority, or doesn't care wasting time, but I personally felt scammed.
I'll keep using YouTube to occasionally watch a trailer or an old music video clip or a live performance.
Re: Rick Beato, I agree. Especially his “lessons”.
Check out Pat Finnerty, he does a series called “Why does this songs stink” and he really has an axe to grind with Beato: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWfMI4CVFI
Check out Pat Finnerty, he does a series called “Why does this songs stink” and he really has an axe to grind with Beato: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWfMI4CVFI
Not to knock Pat Finnerty (his content might be comparatively good) but I thought this was a satirical recommendation. Between the fluff, 8 minute intro, and unrelated sponsorships (for hot sauce too! which was also called out in the thread) he's quite the Youtuber.
Unlike Beato, 8-Bit Music Theory is actually insightful. Every time I watch his analysis video I see something that I want to apply and use.
It's really awful. The worst are those short vertical videos with a robot voice and dramatic music laid over a short clip from another video. It must be what a lobotomy feels like.
Tip for other people: Never ever click on such short (reel) when logged in. If you watch them, YouTube will push more down your throat. If you ignore them, they disappear from your suggestions.
Unless you decline tracking cookies or outright disable cookies, in which case YouTube will push even more crap content down your throat because I guess that's what the average person wants.
The shorts "shelf" as they call it has an X in the top right that hides them entirely.
I think that the monetization on youtubes (not individual creators) side is slowly destroying youtube.
Just a few years ago, you could search for anything, even current-political, and find a bunch of videos from a bunch of people, from "best trump insults" to "why xyz is bad?" .... but now, all the top search results about anything remotely current (be it politics, covid, russia/ukraine, crime, heatwaves,...), all you get is mainstream media (cnn, msnbc,....). If I wanted to watch CNN, I'd watch CNN, not youtube.
Add to this all the blatant demonetization of anything remotely non-politically-correct, discussing anything current, or even using a bad word.
For me, youtube has become in 90% just one more "cable tv" channel... mainstream media, and a few large media houses pushing their shitty videos. There are only a few channels left that I actually enjoy, and even those are producing less and less content every year.
Just a few years ago, you could search for anything, even current-political, and find a bunch of videos from a bunch of people, from "best trump insults" to "why xyz is bad?" .... but now, all the top search results about anything remotely current (be it politics, covid, russia/ukraine, crime, heatwaves,...), all you get is mainstream media (cnn, msnbc,....). If I wanted to watch CNN, I'd watch CNN, not youtube.
Add to this all the blatant demonetization of anything remotely non-politically-correct, discussing anything current, or even using a bad word.
For me, youtube has become in 90% just one more "cable tv" channel... mainstream media, and a few large media houses pushing their shitty videos. There are only a few channels left that I actually enjoy, and even those are producing less and less content every year.
> but now, all the top search results about anything remotely current (be it politics, covid, russia/ukraine, crime, heatwaves,...), all you get is mainstream media (cnn, msnbc,....). If I wanted to watch CNN, I'd watch CNN, not youtube.
I think this has nothing to do with monetization per se, it was an explicit decision taken by YT and hard-coded into the search and recommendations algorithms in light of the craze about "fake news".
It's very funny to notice when looking at videos from new media creators - even though I am subscribed, Like most videos I watch, watch them till the end etc, I will almost always get "redirected" to a mainstream news video if Auto-play is on, at least after 2-3 videos.
I think this has nothing to do with monetization per se, it was an explicit decision taken by YT and hard-coded into the search and recommendations algorithms in light of the craze about "fake news".
It's very funny to notice when looking at videos from new media creators - even though I am subscribed, Like most videos I watch, watch them till the end etc, I will almost always get "redirected" to a mainstream news video if Auto-play is on, at least after 2-3 videos.
I've only just got into it and I found lots of good creators. It's not difficult to find them - avoid clickbaity titles/thumbnails, look for people funded by patreon, look for creators who publish longer videos (20-40 minutes) infrequently. Subscribe to those people and ignore the rest.
Same principle as reddit really - if content is being pushed into your face, it's probably worth avoiding. Seek out the high quality, less marketed content, subscribe to that and ignore what the algorithms send your way.
Same principle as reddit really - if content is being pushed into your face, it's probably worth avoiding. Seek out the high quality, less marketed content, subscribe to that and ignore what the algorithms send your way.
I have worked very hard to stop my addiction to Youtube. I watched a lot of "lifestyle instructional" videos (ToT, Ave, Fireball Tools, LPL, Tom Lipton, Matt's Recovery, etc), but after you've had your "inspiration moment" with these, you're not learning much and are essentially spending your life watching someone else's.
That brings me on to my second point - video is a HORRIBLE format for most forms of instruction (for me). Practically every time I decide to try watching one to learn something, it could easily have been communicated in text form. Coding is a great example - I really hate having to skip through a 10-minute video that boils down to a single screen's worth of basic code.
Saying that, I've saved myself a bunch of money watching youtubers who very generously give away their time and experience for free to show me how to disassemble and re-assemble electronics and cars.
That brings me on to my second point - video is a HORRIBLE format for most forms of instruction (for me). Practically every time I decide to try watching one to learn something, it could easily have been communicated in text form. Coding is a great example - I really hate having to skip through a 10-minute video that boils down to a single screen's worth of basic code.
Saying that, I've saved myself a bunch of money watching youtubers who very generously give away their time and experience for free to show me how to disassemble and re-assemble electronics and cars.
Firstly, I don't know about "peaked". But I do know about "useful" (for me, as creator).
As someone who uploads music (videos) of my own creation, youtube (still) works fine to connect with an audience that I would have no chance of reaching otherwise.
I'm far from being flagged to monetize, so I don't have any incentive to put out something that I do for the money and not because I want to put it up.
As a niche musician (didgeridoo), I'm glad that I have access to a global community and a non-zero chance of someone searching for e.g. 'didgeridoo music' finding me.
Shorts may annoy people but I see it as an interesting challenge to make great 60s didgeridoo solos. Maybe my view will change if I'm ever sniffing the chance of being monetarily successful on this platform but until then, I'm doing whatever the hell I want and it's great.
As someone who uploads music (videos) of my own creation, youtube (still) works fine to connect with an audience that I would have no chance of reaching otherwise.
I'm far from being flagged to monetize, so I don't have any incentive to put out something that I do for the money and not because I want to put it up.
As a niche musician (didgeridoo), I'm glad that I have access to a global community and a non-zero chance of someone searching for e.g. 'didgeridoo music' finding me.
Shorts may annoy people but I see it as an interesting challenge to make great 60s didgeridoo solos. Maybe my view will change if I'm ever sniffing the chance of being monetarily successful on this platform but until then, I'm doing whatever the hell I want and it's great.
It's been that way for years, as long as I can remember probably. But I still watch Youtube for probably ~50% of my content. I'd probably like podcasts but I never know how to play them. I just want educational content and, to my knowledge, Youtube has the best collection. I like hearing an expert in a field talk about a subject. Even Khan Academy has their content up on Youtube.
I signed up for Nebula and I barely use it. It's poorly curated, there's seemingly no recommendations so I'm just in a wash of content with no direction.
I think that it's probably worse the more you use it. The more I subscribe the more garbage I get recommended I think. I watched the raw footage of some of the Heard v Depp trial (as in - uncut, direct footage) and I don't know if my algorithmic output will ever recover - the shit I get recommended now is of zero interest to me. Similarly, I looked up a few 'how tos' for some games, and now I get tons of 'gamer' content. The other day Youtube recommended Ben Shapiro to me lol
But that's just the main page. If I'm already on a good video the sidebar recommendations are decent.
If there's something better please let me know, I hate Youtube as a construct and I think that the monetization of horribly low content is damaging in ways I can't even predict, but also I gotsta have my "expert on topic talks to me about interesting thing" content.
I signed up for Nebula and I barely use it. It's poorly curated, there's seemingly no recommendations so I'm just in a wash of content with no direction.
I think that it's probably worse the more you use it. The more I subscribe the more garbage I get recommended I think. I watched the raw footage of some of the Heard v Depp trial (as in - uncut, direct footage) and I don't know if my algorithmic output will ever recover - the shit I get recommended now is of zero interest to me. Similarly, I looked up a few 'how tos' for some games, and now I get tons of 'gamer' content. The other day Youtube recommended Ben Shapiro to me lol
But that's just the main page. If I'm already on a good video the sidebar recommendations are decent.
If there's something better please let me know, I hate Youtube as a construct and I think that the monetization of horribly low content is damaging in ways I can't even predict, but also I gotsta have my "expert on topic talks to me about interesting thing" content.
Based on:
>but also I gotta have my "expert on topic talks to me about interesting thing" content.
You should absolutely be listening to podcasts. This is literally the main strength of the format. What do you mean you "never know how to play them" ?
Whichever phone you have there will be abundant free podcast players in the app store, you can look up and subscribe to their feeds and listen through that. Longform interviews or conversations on every topic imaginable.
>but also I gotta have my "expert on topic talks to me about interesting thing" content.
You should absolutely be listening to podcasts. This is literally the main strength of the format. What do you mean you "never know how to play them" ?
Whichever phone you have there will be abundant free podcast players in the app store, you can look up and subscribe to their feeds and listen through that. Longform interviews or conversations on every topic imaginable.
I've just never "gotten into" them. Like is there a site I can just use? I don't really like apps I guess, but I'm open to using one.
Since each podcast independently chooses where/who their files are hosted on/with, no not really. AFAIK podcast apps are just a directory of RSS feeds, so you could in theory subscribe to one of those feeds directly but I have no idea for sure.
If the goal is to listen on your computer instead of your phone you could probably use spotify or apple podcasts or whatever.
Personally one of the strengths of podcasts is that its audio-only, so I can listen while on the go/doing non-cognitive work. Perfect use-case for a phone, but to each their own.
If the goal is to listen on your computer instead of your phone you could probably use spotify or apple podcasts or whatever.
Personally one of the strengths of podcasts is that its audio-only, so I can listen while on the go/doing non-cognitive work. Perfect use-case for a phone, but to each their own.
Yt is a pile of bs with many hidden gems. There are great channels with awesome content. But they are not easy to find in the sea of bs.
Yes it has. It seems like the downturn was a few years ago when they made their monetization system pay less to the content creators and introduced a high barrier to entry for monetization (1k subscribers).
Add in the algorithm preferring new content and channels that publish new videos frequently (weekly or more), making it essentially a full time job staying relevant.
Youtube money is not enough to pay for living in high cost of living countries any more. Almost every popular channel I follow is mostly funded by Patreon etc these days.
The people who made a living on YouTube started in the early 2010s or so. And I have understood that most of them aren't primarily funded by tube moneys any more.
There is some interesting stuff coming from low cost of living countries like India, Bangladesh and in particular Vietnam. Not enough to offset the loss of creators from western countries.
I have not seen a new and interesting channel by anyone living in America or Europe in many years.
Add in the algorithm preferring new content and channels that publish new videos frequently (weekly or more), making it essentially a full time job staying relevant.
Youtube money is not enough to pay for living in high cost of living countries any more. Almost every popular channel I follow is mostly funded by Patreon etc these days.
The people who made a living on YouTube started in the early 2010s or so. And I have understood that most of them aren't primarily funded by tube moneys any more.
There is some interesting stuff coming from low cost of living countries like India, Bangladesh and in particular Vietnam. Not enough to offset the loss of creators from western countries.
I have not seen a new and interesting channel by anyone living in America or Europe in many years.
> Yes it has. It seems like the downturn was a few years ago when they made their monetization system pay less to the content creators
Do you have a source for that? As far as I know, the YT revenue share has been stable (at 55% to the creator) for like 15 years.
Do you have a source for that? As far as I know, the YT revenue share has been stable (at 55% to the creator) for like 15 years.
Not right away and I don't have the time to search for it. Youtube is notoriously secretive about their contracts. There was a big outrage among the creators about the changes in 2017 or so.
The revenue split may have stayed the same but the revenue total has gone down, despite the huge increase in the number of ads.
E.g. Mathias Wandel has discussed the financial side of running YouTube if you want to dig deeper.
The revenue split may have stayed the same but the revenue total has gone down, despite the huge increase in the number of ads.
E.g. Mathias Wandel has discussed the financial side of running YouTube if you want to dig deeper.
Where are the content creators moving?
The ones I follow are mostly getting paid by Patreon subscriptions. Some are doing content for niche platforms specific to the hobby they dabble in. Some use YouTube for free previews of paid content available elsewhere.
But a lot of creators just quit.
There is no platform that is sucking creators out of youtube, there just isn't enough money from ad funded free content to keep it up.
But a lot of creators just quit.
There is no platform that is sucking creators out of youtube, there just isn't enough money from ad funded free content to keep it up.
I subscribed to Linkedin Learning a few months ago, mainly because I wanted to push myself to complete at least one tutorial per month. It's not cheap (about £30 pm) but the content is of very good quality. Tutorials are split into lessons and chapters. They all have transcripts added by the author. No flashy fillers, no talking heads, no wasted time. Just pure content made by known and respectable professionals in the domain. For example the 'Async Python Foundations' course has already helped me at work.
Edit: I now realise this post sounds like an advertisement, but I assure you that was not the intention. It really is a breath of fresh air among video platforms. It feels like the content creators would rather starve than promote the latest VPN software mid-lesson.
Edit: I now realise this post sounds like an advertisement, but I assure you that was not the intention. It really is a breath of fresh air among video platforms. It feels like the content creators would rather starve than promote the latest VPN software mid-lesson.
I don't think YouTube has peaked. It is as popular today as it as ever been. It's not surprising monetisation is more prevalent when channels grow. I remain impressed that among the staggering quantity of content there is plently to watch and find. I rarely watch the most popular tech channels.
The trend I dislike is 'shorts' which are encouraged by YouTube. An obvious nod to TikTok, which ironically now allows longer videos - a maximum of 10 minutes.
So to sum up: yes, there is lots of rubbish on YouTube (as to be expected), but there is also plenty of watchable content - whether it's silly, informative, education, music or a myriad of other types. Is it unhealthy to consume too much? I guess that's a question for a different discussion.
The trend I dislike is 'shorts' which are encouraged by YouTube. An obvious nod to TikTok, which ironically now allows longer videos - a maximum of 10 minutes.
So to sum up: yes, there is lots of rubbish on YouTube (as to be expected), but there is also plenty of watchable content - whether it's silly, informative, education, music or a myriad of other types. Is it unhealthy to consume too much? I guess that's a question for a different discussion.
In absolute terms, there's no rubbish, but yes, it hasn't peaked. In relative terms, the rubbish is about the same. There are simply way more videos than ever before.
I still find youtube invaluable for tech related demos and tutorials. In fact, I've probably learned more in the last 5 years from youtube than any other source, books included.
There's little better than watching someone walk you through something new, especially when there's a good bit of exact configuration to get right.
As for other content, who knows. There's SO much stuff on youtube, stuff I wouldn't begin to know how to find. I'm sure most of it is of low value to most people, but I think some people just use it as a creative outlet, or a place to talk (with no viewers).
There's little better than watching someone walk you through something new, especially when there's a good bit of exact configuration to get right.
As for other content, who knows. There's SO much stuff on youtube, stuff I wouldn't begin to know how to find. I'm sure most of it is of low value to most people, but I think some people just use it as a creative outlet, or a place to talk (with no viewers).
When you ask this question, you need to ask: "what aspect?".
I primarily use YouTube for three particular tasks:
1. Watch lecture videos from Stanford, MIT, NYU classes.
2. Watch or listen to music videos.
3. Watch some channels like Vox, Veritasium, 3b1b, Lex Fridman Podcast, etc. That is, stuff from sources that I already know pretty well.
For me, YouTube is more than fine. I will not change anything.
Even ten years before, this much educational content weren’t available. And it is increasing every year. And more and more people from the US and the rest of the world are getting connected.
This aspect is far from being plateaued.
I primarily use YouTube for three particular tasks:
1. Watch lecture videos from Stanford, MIT, NYU classes.
2. Watch or listen to music videos.
3. Watch some channels like Vox, Veritasium, 3b1b, Lex Fridman Podcast, etc. That is, stuff from sources that I already know pretty well.
For me, YouTube is more than fine. I will not change anything.
Even ten years before, this much educational content weren’t available. And it is increasing every year. And more and more people from the US and the rest of the world are getting connected.
This aspect is far from being plateaued.
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It depends on the subject matter I think. For more popular subjects I definitely think that an obsession with monetization is having a negative effect. For more niche subjects, it's still very much like early YouTube - lots of organic well made content.
I watch a lot of videos related to two of my hobbies fly fishing/tying and ham radio. There is very little in the way of sponsorship or paid reviews and nearly all videos on these subjects feel rewarding to watch.
Technical content on the other hand is a whole different ball game. If I have to learn a new framework or library I used to head to YouTube first to view a few tutorials before diving in to the docs. The quality of these has declined because a lot of channels are just churning out tutorials without really understanding the subject matter. In some cases they are just video versions of the getting started tutorials on the libraries website. There are loads of channels where they churn out new low quality tutorials every day on a wide range of subjects - jack of all trades, master of none - but they are doing something right because YouTube places them high in the search results.
And as for the bigger channels on popular subjects such a gadgets, computers, food and gaming - yes I do feel like they are often feel like the content support the advertising as oppose the adverts supporting the content.
I think to get value from YouTube you just need to be a bit more choosy. There is still good organic content being made, but it sits behind all the stuff that is primarily designed to get high up in the search results and make money. Remember, the way YouTube ranks search results and places suggestions is designed to benefit them more than you.
I watch a lot of videos related to two of my hobbies fly fishing/tying and ham radio. There is very little in the way of sponsorship or paid reviews and nearly all videos on these subjects feel rewarding to watch.
Technical content on the other hand is a whole different ball game. If I have to learn a new framework or library I used to head to YouTube first to view a few tutorials before diving in to the docs. The quality of these has declined because a lot of channels are just churning out tutorials without really understanding the subject matter. In some cases they are just video versions of the getting started tutorials on the libraries website. There are loads of channels where they churn out new low quality tutorials every day on a wide range of subjects - jack of all trades, master of none - but they are doing something right because YouTube places them high in the search results.
And as for the bigger channels on popular subjects such a gadgets, computers, food and gaming - yes I do feel like they are often feel like the content support the advertising as oppose the adverts supporting the content.
I think to get value from YouTube you just need to be a bit more choosy. There is still good organic content being made, but it sits behind all the stuff that is primarily designed to get high up in the search results and make money. Remember, the way YouTube ranks search results and places suggestions is designed to benefit them more than you.
I totally agree, and what's annoying is that when YouTube runs an ad I have the feeling that the App on my LG TV is increasing the volume when showing an advertisement.
Since as you said most of the stuff has become marketing garbage, I am not willing to pay for an ad free experience because YouTube anyways can't guarantee that content creators are not doing secretly paid content in favor of their sponsors regardless of ehat they say.
Since as you said most of the stuff has become marketing garbage, I am not willing to pay for an ad free experience because YouTube anyways can't guarantee that content creators are not doing secretly paid content in favor of their sponsors regardless of ehat they say.
No, YouTube has not peaked, YouTube is only getting better. However, the only way to experience this is to DISCOVER CONTENT OUTSIDE OF YOUTUBE.
If you just click around YouTube you will get the content equivalent of Mountain Dew and Cheetos - unhealthy garbage that will make you worse off but will enrich the vendor. If you want to find the good stuff you have to know what you're looking for and seek it out.
If you just click around YouTube you will get the content equivalent of Mountain Dew and Cheetos - unhealthy garbage that will make you worse off but will enrich the vendor. If you want to find the good stuff you have to know what you're looking for and seek it out.
I use DDG to search for videos and find it much more useful.
Google sabotaged their own value proposition? Noooooo. No waaaaaaaaaaaay. They've never done that before! Why on earth would you think that?
At this point, TikTok is going to capture YouTube's entire demographic and then the US tech industry will wonder why on earth the youth are so corruptible! Its definitely the consumer's fault after all. Mmmm hmmm.
At this point, TikTok is going to capture YouTube's entire demographic and then the US tech industry will wonder why on earth the youth are so corruptible! Its definitely the consumer's fault after all. Mmmm hmmm.
> It feels like the majority of content is no longer organic or passion driven. It is now monetisation driven content.
Yes. There is a griftopia or mania around these platforms which early adopters, geeks, etc have used it for fun for a long time and the tech bros go and successfully hijack it for monetisation and this has been happening since the 2000s up until this point.
I think there is no going back from this and this form of grifting is here to stay and it will continue on another platform which will take YouTube's place because the content creators, shills, marketers will go where the money is.
Now the money is in TikTok and you will watch that get destroyed very soon and the so-called early users will get upset because the platform has changed to favour big business or much larger creators manipulating the algorithm to favour them.
So I'm afraid you will be very disappointed as nothing has changed.
Yes. There is a griftopia or mania around these platforms which early adopters, geeks, etc have used it for fun for a long time and the tech bros go and successfully hijack it for monetisation and this has been happening since the 2000s up until this point.
I think there is no going back from this and this form of grifting is here to stay and it will continue on another platform which will take YouTube's place because the content creators, shills, marketers will go where the money is.
Now the money is in TikTok and you will watch that get destroyed very soon and the so-called early users will get upset because the platform has changed to favour big business or much larger creators manipulating the algorithm to favour them.
So I'm afraid you will be very disappointed as nothing has changed.
I would say Twitch peaked and now is declining. People are moving from Twitch to YouTube because they can put as much effort and make much more revenue.
I don't know if YouTube is declining - it's definitely changed - but if you know where to look you can still find incredible videos and channel owners :)
There's been a lot of negative changes to algorithms recent years. Search seems to function more as an extension to the recommendation page at this point with little relation to the search terms used. Content moderation has also heavily sanitised some communities on the site, but I'm not sure how wide spread that is. I know certain kinds of "edgy" content or controversial political discussions aren't really possible on YouTube today like there were in the past though.
My main issue with monetisation isn't so much the content itself, but the content recommendations. It seems that a lot of the content recommendations today have a corporate bias which they didn't used to. If a tech review channel just wants to make market videos and post them to YouTube that's fine with me personally so long as the algorithms don't push me to that type of content (which it currently does). The authentic low-budget tech reviewer doesn't have a chance on YouTube today, and that's real the problem.
If you want authentic, low-budget user curated content YouTube isn't the place anymore. There was something special about those early years of YouTube when it was mostly just low-budget videos made by real people on 420p webcams or video cameras. Back then no one made YouTube videos to be rich or famous, they made videos simply because they enjoyed making them and wanted to share their content with the world.
I don't think YouTube has peaked as a business, but I think it peaked in terms of an web 2.0 platform about a decade ago. That's a common trend though. All web 2.0 sites have been trending towards corporatisation for years now. The dream of the internet being a place where individuals could make cool stuff that other people around the world could find and enjoy is dead imo. Search and recommendation algorithms across the web are increasingly pushing users towards the approved corporate content because that's where the money is. Unless you know where to look today authentic content is extremely hard to find.
My main issue with monetisation isn't so much the content itself, but the content recommendations. It seems that a lot of the content recommendations today have a corporate bias which they didn't used to. If a tech review channel just wants to make market videos and post them to YouTube that's fine with me personally so long as the algorithms don't push me to that type of content (which it currently does). The authentic low-budget tech reviewer doesn't have a chance on YouTube today, and that's real the problem.
If you want authentic, low-budget user curated content YouTube isn't the place anymore. There was something special about those early years of YouTube when it was mostly just low-budget videos made by real people on 420p webcams or video cameras. Back then no one made YouTube videos to be rich or famous, they made videos simply because they enjoyed making them and wanted to share their content with the world.
I don't think YouTube has peaked as a business, but I think it peaked in terms of an web 2.0 platform about a decade ago. That's a common trend though. All web 2.0 sites have been trending towards corporatisation for years now. The dream of the internet being a place where individuals could make cool stuff that other people around the world could find and enjoy is dead imo. Search and recommendation algorithms across the web are increasingly pushing users towards the approved corporate content because that's where the money is. Unless you know where to look today authentic content is extremely hard to find.
I feel like this is just the way the Google-owned web is going at the moment. Every Google search is filled with e-commerce and ads. It's all just selling you stuff.
Sorting the wheat from the chaff has become indeed harder and harder, I guess this is more because of the dominance of the platform. What is definitely clear is that popularity-driven content curation produces a draining race-to-the-bottom for what gets put in our feed. Maybe for monetisation, instead of the first 30 seconds having been watched, a further time point should be set. As a Youtube Premium customer I would like to be able to say: this video was exploitative and disingenuous, do not monetize my 31 wasted seconds...
> I searched for a software tutorial on Youtube and 90% of results are talking heads.
What else did you want on a video site? You just think they should not include their faces in the videos?
What else did you want on a video site? You just think they should not include their faces in the videos?
Yes? Heads add no value to a technical video, they function as a distraction at best.
Nonverbal communication is still valuable, I really don't mind to see who's talking compared to staring at an IDE for 3 minutes before they start.
Having a headshot for the introduction to the concepts is, to me, more useful than narration over a blank IDE.
> Heads add no value to a technical video
Body language. Expression.
Body language. Expression.
None of them is required for this, it just steals valuable time from the actual content.
For example when trying to find physical hardware reviews (basically the only reason I can think of where a video can be more preferable to something written). And yet it is incredible how many reviewers think you'll be happy to stare at their faces for the majority of the "review"; practically all this runtime is them advertising themselves.
For example when trying to find physical hardware reviews (basically the only reason I can think of where a video can be more preferable to something written). And yet it is incredible how many reviewers think you'll be happy to stare at their faces for the majority of the "review"; practically all this runtime is them advertising themselves.
I guess not everyone communicates like you do.
Is it the same if you do a video search on Google, DDG, Bing?
I'm subscribed to quite a few great channels^1 honestly. I can't say anything about them being born our of passion or something else, but I love the content they deliver. And this is most important.
>It used to be index of useful organic information,
To be honest - no. It became an index of useful information not so long ago. It used to be just a site for funny videos, homevideo often and things like that.
[^1]: To name a few:
https://www.youtube.com/c/athleanx
https://www.youtube.com/c/Strengthside
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA
https://www.youtube.com/c/LetThemTalkTV/
https://www.youtube.com/c/GreenredProductions
https://www.youtube.com/c/inanutshell
>It used to be index of useful organic information,
To be honest - no. It became an index of useful information not so long ago. It used to be just a site for funny videos, homevideo often and things like that.
[^1]: To name a few:
https://www.youtube.com/c/athleanx
https://www.youtube.com/c/Strengthside
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA
https://www.youtube.com/c/LetThemTalkTV/
https://www.youtube.com/c/GreenredProductions
https://www.youtube.com/c/inanutshell
As many others have said: YT these days is mostly entertainment, and, yes, driven by money.
There's the few goldmines in their niche topics, but you're not going to have much luck finding them. In particular, I personally find maker-related content to be of pretty good quality, if you follow the right channels.
For some topics, it's the best medium to stay on top of things, e.g. downhill mountain biking, you have the racers' own channels/vlogs, plus the smallish outlets putting out a ton of content during the racing season, plus the official RedBull stuff... There's just no other way to enjoy the sport to this extent.
And, of course, it's an endless library of howtos and tutorials, BUT it's also full of crap. So you have to somewhat know what you're doing in the first place, then find a howto for that very specific thing you need to do, e.g. I know my way around a car, mechanically, but I'd still search for a howto video on changing the accessory drive belt in my particular car, because there's probably an easier way that somebody already documented, and I don't want to spend 1h on what could be a 10m job.
For some topics, it's the best medium to stay on top of things, e.g. downhill mountain biking, you have the racers' own channels/vlogs, plus the smallish outlets putting out a ton of content during the racing season, plus the official RedBull stuff... There's just no other way to enjoy the sport to this extent.
And, of course, it's an endless library of howtos and tutorials, BUT it's also full of crap. So you have to somewhat know what you're doing in the first place, then find a howto for that very specific thing you need to do, e.g. I know my way around a car, mechanically, but I'd still search for a howto video on changing the accessory drive belt in my particular car, because there's probably an easier way that somebody already documented, and I don't want to spend 1h on what could be a 10m job.
Yes. It peaked in 2017. You can actually see this change with the quality & variety of content that existed in 2017 vs after that. Then Google shot itself in the face with monetization changes: https://www.quora.com/How-has-YouTube-monetization-changed-o...
I disagree. Youtube easily has the best recommendations out of all of the big social media/content sites.
Its entirely based in what you are watching. If you watch very little on the site then yes, obviously they will just throw random stuff at you that is popular. The recommendation algorithm has nothing to go on.
["Popular" in this case usually means trash since the videos that get the biggest on the platform ARE clickbait shallow garbage because the vast majority of watch time is from kids and teens.]
If you seek out creators and channels that you enjoy/find useful, actually engage with the algorithm by subscribing to quality channels, hitting "not interested" when the recommendations miss, suddenly you'll get better results.
One very recent (1 month maybe?) change that ive noticed is that Youtube tosses in WAY more tiny channels into the recommendations. I get recommended videos with ~1k or less views all the time. I've found some awesome stuff through that.
Its entirely based in what you are watching. If you watch very little on the site then yes, obviously they will just throw random stuff at you that is popular. The recommendation algorithm has nothing to go on.
["Popular" in this case usually means trash since the videos that get the biggest on the platform ARE clickbait shallow garbage because the vast majority of watch time is from kids and teens.]
If you seek out creators and channels that you enjoy/find useful, actually engage with the algorithm by subscribing to quality channels, hitting "not interested" when the recommendations miss, suddenly you'll get better results.
One very recent (1 month maybe?) change that ive noticed is that Youtube tosses in WAY more tiny channels into the recommendations. I get recommended videos with ~1k or less views all the time. I've found some awesome stuff through that.
Maybe I'm a hipster, but if I am recommended a video that's too popular by view count (say, 1M views or more), I don't want to watch it. Right click -> "Don't recommend channel" or "Not interested". I feel like the amount of gamesmanship and selling-out and wonky thumbnails and sponsorships you need to perform to attain that level of viewership is just not something I want to see. These aren't "real" people anymore.
My main page has steadily become more infected with popular content like this. On the other hand, the subscription page is too focused (doing exactly what it says on the tin with no unsubbed channels). I want some middle ground where I can see the stuff I've opted into and some budding creators in the same space.
I also realize this is negative feedback loop. If many people too are looking for "unpopular" videos, they become popular.
My main page has steadily become more infected with popular content like this. On the other hand, the subscription page is too focused (doing exactly what it says on the tin with no unsubbed channels). I want some middle ground where I can see the stuff I've opted into and some budding creators in the same space.
I also realize this is negative feedback loop. If many people too are looking for "unpopular" videos, they become popular.
You are implicitly saying that passion and monetization are at odds with one another. By finding ways to monetize their passion people are able to spend more time pursuing their passion rather than moonlighting. People who are able to create content full-time tend to create better content - the video production quality is better, the sound is better, the presentation is more interesting - it's all gotten more professional and more engaging.
I'm now watching YouTube more than any of my other streaming content. It's more interesting content than Big Entertainment is producing and I get a chance to learn something to boot!
What I don't do - I rarely watch IT-related videos. The videos I watch are related to my interests and hobbies. If I need anything IT-specific I first start with my company's training provider who provides self-paced content specific to whatever it is I need to learn.
I'm now watching YouTube more than any of my other streaming content. It's more interesting content than Big Entertainment is producing and I get a chance to learn something to boot!
What I don't do - I rarely watch IT-related videos. The videos I watch are related to my interests and hobbies. If I need anything IT-specific I first start with my company's training provider who provides self-paced content specific to whatever it is I need to learn.
I would say the YouTube content is better than ever, but YouTube itself is shittier than ever. Removing dislike button/count, demonetizing people without valid reason, censorship, copyright trolls without bounds, absolutely insane amount ads before, in the middle of and after the video etc.
Without adblocker YouTube would be unsable.
Without adblocker YouTube would be unsable.
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Yep, it is monetization driven, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. Making quality content costs money, and people have to get it back somehow.
Anyways, I think YouTube has peaked, or at least plateaued. One simple reason is that it has saturated its market. It can no longer expand without targeting other markets, like it did recently with "Shorts", which is an obvious attempt by Google to get into TikTok market. Previously, it tried attacking Netflix with YouTube Originals, without much success.
BTW, TikTok seem to still be in the organic / passion driven phase. It may not be what you are looking for, or you may not like "the algorithm" or the fact it is Chinese, but it is much closer in spirit to the early YouTube, with small time creators and regular people who just want to put videos on the internet.
Anyways, I think YouTube has peaked, or at least plateaued. One simple reason is that it has saturated its market. It can no longer expand without targeting other markets, like it did recently with "Shorts", which is an obvious attempt by Google to get into TikTok market. Previously, it tried attacking Netflix with YouTube Originals, without much success.
BTW, TikTok seem to still be in the organic / passion driven phase. It may not be what you are looking for, or you may not like "the algorithm" or the fact it is Chinese, but it is much closer in spirit to the early YouTube, with small time creators and regular people who just want to put videos on the internet.
While the majority of recommendations are bigger monetized channels, I still come across tiny channels with view numbers in the double or tripple digits quite regularly, but it does require searching for something specific. Youtube also changed the algorithm recently to no longer punish old content, so there is a lot of old stuff that keeps bubbling back to the top. It might still have peaked, but I think for most part it's doing fine, it's still the best source for video on the Internet.
On a side note, I find it interesting that TikTok today feels quite a lot like early Youtube, back when Youtube had much more personal content, video replies and a <10min limit for video. Seems like the market for that content is there, it just moved to another platform.
On a side note, I find it interesting that TikTok today feels quite a lot like early Youtube, back when Youtube had much more personal content, video replies and a <10min limit for video. Seems like the market for that content is there, it just moved to another platform.
Is this a question you can expect a good anecdotal answer for? In my experience YouTube still has more high quality content than I can consume, but there's so much content on YouTube that I can only be aware of a small fraction of it, so I can't say anything about the whole.
The feel is definitely different, though. You can clearly see the effects of monetization, both in the amount of YouTubers who are "just working a job" and in the production values. Everything has gotten more consistent, more streamlined. Videos are longer and have more of a coherent throughline. But about the content itself I cannot say much, other than that me and my peer group are still managing to find enough interesting stuff to satisfy our appetite.
The feel is definitely different, though. You can clearly see the effects of monetization, both in the amount of YouTubers who are "just working a job" and in the production values. Everything has gotten more consistent, more streamlined. Videos are longer and have more of a coherent throughline. But about the content itself I cannot say much, other than that me and my peer group are still managing to find enough interesting stuff to satisfy our appetite.
Its mostly product reviews and streamers. Probably the algorithm scores monetized content higher.
Installing sponsorblock and clickbait remover makes youtube a lot better experience. Sponsorblock skips all the annoying sponsors, subscribe reminders, intros and gives you option to skip straight to the meat of the content, it's highly customizable. It will also show a badge on video if it's obviously a shill video for company X's product. Clickbait remover, forces thumbnails to be from the actual video itself, it also has option to remove allcaps titles etc..
I don't like the shorts, I hate the UX and how it forces you to interact with these shorts and always found tiktok annoying anyways.
Installing sponsorblock and clickbait remover makes youtube a lot better experience. Sponsorblock skips all the annoying sponsors, subscribe reminders, intros and gives you option to skip straight to the meat of the content, it's highly customizable. It will also show a badge on video if it's obviously a shill video for company X's product. Clickbait remover, forces thumbnails to be from the actual video itself, it also has option to remove allcaps titles etc..
I don't like the shorts, I hate the UX and how it forces you to interact with these shorts and always found tiktok annoying anyways.
I wouldn't use the word "peaked". It may be hard to discover useful content; but if you know the channels that you are interested in, then youtube is fantastic compared to the alternatives (vimeo, odysee, rumble, peertube).
... assuming that these channels of interest are on Youtube and not on one of the other platform. I am using multiple platforms, just because the content is spread out now.
These questions pop up very often on HN and other circles - yet the answer is always the same. The algorithm(s) serve you content that makes money. If you manage to look past that, you'll still find plenty of honest, straight to the point material. Thing is - it's getting progressively harder year by year.
For example, YouTube recently crippled their search function severely - it displays batches of results completely irrelevant to your specific search term in-between actual results. Absolutely fucking retarded. And that's just one example.
For example, YouTube recently crippled their search function severely - it displays batches of results completely irrelevant to your specific search term in-between actual results. Absolutely fucking retarded. And that's just one example.
I found that TikTok provides better content since YouTube has become so saturated with 10+ minute videos where the first half is literally paraphrasing some other source. As an example, I recently been looking at trucks and found better, more personal content from creators on TikTok that I actually care about (like experience, driving, interesting angles). It's similar to when I search for something and add "reddit" at the end, I want to see real people say real reviews, not some blog articles where every link is a referral link.
Mainstream YouTube is absolute garbage (minmaxing views for revenue). The best part of YouTube is there is so much content that if you know how to dig/search you can really find some great content that might have a few hundred views.
I recently found a channel with hundreds of videos about a interest I had and I watch all of them. The highest view count a video had was 1k views. Very insightful and the guy didn't care about min/maxing views for money like 99% of the content YouTube.
I still think YouTube is by far the best resource for learning new things.
I recently found a channel with hundreds of videos about a interest I had and I watch all of them. The highest view count a video had was 1k views. Very insightful and the guy didn't care about min/maxing views for money like 99% of the content YouTube.
I still think YouTube is by far the best resource for learning new things.
All I know is that my search results have the same <20 people for any subject matter. It's like, where the heck are all the humans that exist? It's almost as bad as any mainstream filter.
I am being pissed of videos that should be a blog post. I also ack that great effort went into making a video but the substance could have been a 2 page text and a few specific pictures. I also ack the incentive to get video ads vs text ads(more expensive) but i don’t want to accept the fact that someone has a choice between publishing the script of the video as text or spending time, effort and money to make a video instead. I also accept that video is a better medium than text for certain topics.
Yup and the problem is its creating medicore content all for the sake of earning money.
I won't name and and shame but theres a YouTuber who obviously put in big effort in their editting...but it quickly went south when the person started teaching JavaScript. I've never been dissappointed.
I'm also getting sick and tired of the YouTube how to guides and the constant pressure to "smash the like button" and subscribe.
And removing the dislike button is complete and utter garbage. I cannot even understand it at all.
I won't name and and shame but theres a YouTuber who obviously put in big effort in their editting...but it quickly went south when the person started teaching JavaScript. I've never been dissappointed.
I'm also getting sick and tired of the YouTube how to guides and the constant pressure to "smash the like button" and subscribe.
And removing the dislike button is complete and utter garbage. I cannot even understand it at all.
You are right that it is harder those days to find good quality content on YouTube. Most of the content you get presented is just click bait and optimised for monetarisation.
However, the real issue here is the assumption that people need AI optimised personal content recommendations. The opposite is the case. Now we trained all those algorithms over the years and were teaching them to recommend us all this shitty content. Welcome to the future!
It's great for audio production and instruments, and music in general. Of course you have to be aware of the marketing and monetization aspect.
I see people raving about science or historian Youtubers etc, I see there's an audience and money to be made, but I'm not sure who has the time to watch all that?
For coding or tech in general I vastly prefer reading anyway.
Sometimes, a tech keynote at 1.5x in the background...
I see people raving about science or historian Youtubers etc, I see there's an audience and money to be made, but I'm not sure who has the time to watch all that?
For coding or tech in general I vastly prefer reading anyway.
Sometimes, a tech keynote at 1.5x in the background...
I feel like there needs to be a way to exclude videos with over 100k or 1 million views.
I'm having immense difficulty discovering new and interesting content, because the top 20-30 videos are always clickbaity shorts or irrelevant (but several million views)
Don't care about the downvotes too much. I can usually tell within 3-4 seconds if the video is what I'm looking for or not.
I'm having immense difficulty discovering new and interesting content, because the top 20-30 videos are always clickbaity shorts or irrelevant (but several million views)
Don't care about the downvotes too much. I can usually tell within 3-4 seconds if the video is what I'm looking for or not.
There is so much content on youtube, especially independent music, that it's often I find that I need to purposefully watch things I want to see more of instead of letting autoplay or autorecommend take over.
Purposeful searching and watching habits make youtube much more enjoyable for me.
Of course `Dead Internet Theory` might be true, or at least feel that way, if you let the algorithms drive.
Purposeful searching and watching habits make youtube much more enjoyable for me.
Of course `Dead Internet Theory` might be true, or at least feel that way, if you let the algorithms drive.
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Market segmentation, copyright trolls / bullies and extreme monetization have made Youtube lose most of its attractiveness. I created dozens of YT playlists over the years and copyright trolls ruined them, so nowadays I use Spotify instead. Youtube's future involves poaching Twitch streamers and targeting younger audiences.
There is still some quality content on youtube, but the ads I get are awful and repetitive... It's probably my own fault though as I turn personalisation off (so likely no frequency capping)
And there's something tragic about people making content in their homes and reading out a marketing script about some crap for a minute.
And there's something tragic about people making content in their homes and reading out a marketing script about some crap for a minute.
why are you not using ublock & sponsorblock? Ads are a choice you know?
Ads aren't a choice on mobile or SmartTV.
on mobile, newPipe (open source app) is great to get youtube content without ads, and/or listen to the music of a youtube video with the screen turned off.
Watch through the browser on your phone or use Newpipe.
YoutubeVanced and SmartTubeNext
pi-hole can still help with that, unless the client is running on android.
pihole.
It peaked in 2012-2014 and has gone downhill since the rise of recommendation algorithm optimization. The signs were there before, with the rise of let's players and the existence of things like Machinima, but there was a turning point when that became the vast majority of channels.
Interesting. For me, yt had peaked before influencers were a thing. Back befor google bought em.
Another change in recent years - erasing your history doesn't erase your history anymore. The recommendation algorithm clearly remembers stuff from before erasing the history and there's no way to fully reset it.
Who cares about the majority of content as long as you can still find what you want? Expecting the majority of anything that can make money to be "passion driven" is naive at best.
It feels kind of entitled to want free content that people can’t earn money from, for starters. I don’t understand why something can’t be passion driven or organic without also being money driven. Kind of reminds me of the music industry where people say a band sold out because they signed a deal with a label.
Anyway, the reason it’s harder to find good software tutorials is because software engineers can make a ton of money from anywhere in the world. This doesn’t even just affect YouTube. Try to go through the tech category on Audible without tripping over low-effort Python tutorials.
I don’t use TikTok atm but I bet you’ll find a similar problem there soon, if it’s not already prevalent.
The cause is humans trying to find the shortest path to money, not some YouTube algorithm.
Anyway, the reason it’s harder to find good software tutorials is because software engineers can make a ton of money from anywhere in the world. This doesn’t even just affect YouTube. Try to go through the tech category on Audible without tripping over low-effort Python tutorials.
I don’t use TikTok atm but I bet you’ll find a similar problem there soon, if it’s not already prevalent.
The cause is humans trying to find the shortest path to money, not some YouTube algorithm.
Search has never been good, and the algorithm seem to prioritize things that make YouTube money, but it is still where all the good passion generated stuff goes if you can find it.
Oh, they have content on there still? I thought it was just ads.
If you use browser plugins, it's still quite a nice experience.
* uBlock Origin (kills the ads)
* SponsorBlock (uses crowdsourcing to skip the sponsored, intros, self promotion, credits, etc. This cuts 10% to 20% from most videos, saving a lot of time)
* Channel Blocker (gives you a button to permanently block all videos from a channel)
* BlockTube (lets you block videos based on keywords in video titles)
* Unhook (removes recommended and suggested videos)
* Better Subscriptions for YouTube (lets you hide videos you've already watched from your subscriptions page and other pages)
Another popular YouTube plugin is 'Enhancer for YouTube', but personally I don't find this one very useful.
* uBlock Origin (kills the ads)
* SponsorBlock (uses crowdsourcing to skip the sponsored, intros, self promotion, credits, etc. This cuts 10% to 20% from most videos, saving a lot of time)
* Channel Blocker (gives you a button to permanently block all videos from a channel)
* BlockTube (lets you block videos based on keywords in video titles)
* Unhook (removes recommended and suggested videos)
* Better Subscriptions for YouTube (lets you hide videos you've already watched from your subscriptions page and other pages)
Another popular YouTube plugin is 'Enhancer for YouTube', but personally I don't find this one very useful.
It did so several years ago. It is now practically begging for a competition with deep pockets to end its journey. Toktok has taken a lot of the fun content away from it.
I hate the youtube search these days. You get back a very limited list off content you serached for and a lot off videos that are "related" to your search.
Have you tried searching for videos using Google, DDG, or Bing? I find it's better than YT's search. There is a browser plugin named "Unhook" that removes "related" search results.
Yea there is a lot of crap nowadays, but fear not! The algorithm still surprises me with amazing content, mostly related to electro music. Comedy is harder to find
Maybe free speech/creation spaces are moving away from massively capitalistic oriented spaces.
Because in the end, the search for maximization of profits may not be the best way to achieve creativity.
For a time, and I still think that somehow it's the case right now, a lot of creativity can be found on: TikTok, some Discord servers, etc. etc.
But clearly, Youtube feels like TV in a way: a bunch of "professional" people rehashing the same concepts over and over: over-produced fiction, gaming stuff, react-stuff, beauty stuff, etc.
The only thing that I currently value Youtube for is the access to science stuff: 3 blue 1 brown, Veritasium, etc. etc.
Oh also Youtube has become the home for the cancer of tutorial: the video tutorials. Why cancer? Because reading is faster, searchable, indexable, etc.
Because in the end, the search for maximization of profits may not be the best way to achieve creativity.
For a time, and I still think that somehow it's the case right now, a lot of creativity can be found on: TikTok, some Discord servers, etc. etc.
But clearly, Youtube feels like TV in a way: a bunch of "professional" people rehashing the same concepts over and over: over-produced fiction, gaming stuff, react-stuff, beauty stuff, etc.
The only thing that I currently value Youtube for is the access to science stuff: 3 blue 1 brown, Veritasium, etc. etc.
Oh also Youtube has become the home for the cancer of tutorial: the video tutorials. Why cancer? Because reading is faster, searchable, indexable, etc.
> Oh also Youtube has become the home for the cancer of tutorial: the video tutorials. Why cancer? Because reading is faster, searchable, indexable, etc.
Reading may be faster for a lot of things, but there are instances where nothing beats a video - one of them is any sort of tutorial for a GUI program like Photoshop, Premiere, IntelliJ or whatever. A written tutorial either assumes the user knows exactly what the "lasso tool" is and how to select it (and so is useless for novices) or it assumes "know nothing" and so is excessively verbose for people above the "barely novice" level.
With a well made video tutorial, both a complete novice and an expert can find value, simply because all the verbose description can be seen in action on the screen.
Reading may be faster for a lot of things, but there are instances where nothing beats a video - one of them is any sort of tutorial for a GUI program like Photoshop, Premiere, IntelliJ or whatever. A written tutorial either assumes the user knows exactly what the "lasso tool" is and how to select it (and so is useless for novices) or it assumes "know nothing" and so is excessively verbose for people above the "barely novice" level.
With a well made video tutorial, both a complete novice and an expert can find value, simply because all the verbose description can be seen in action on the screen.
Seriously - take a look a TikTok - I am amazed at what tech content can be squeezed into a 30 second clip.
No it has just started it's financial growth stage. As someone from a non western country youtube is the source for 99% news that is being censored or blocked in main stream media. Conservatives in the US have build a main stream media narrative which does a deservixe to someone from a country with a real autocratic/fascist regime blocking access to news.
I would say youtube peaked around 2012. Been downhill of a cliff ever since.
2012 is around when they rolled out personalization of your feed, which drastically increased hours spent on YouTube. So the data shows it was on an upward trajectory since then.
I'm talking about quality of content, not attention parasitism. Youtube peaked in quality in 2012, and probably hasn't peaked in attention parasitism yet.
Their recommendations are good but their search could use some work.
I feel YouTube is on the up and up in terms of high quality content, but the site is terrible at surfacing that content, because the ones that play the algorithm will always win the game of getting their content in front of more eyeballs. There are more channels than ever producing content that’s super interesting, informative, straight to the point, with at least bare minimum production values (i.e. they at least appear to be trying to do more than hit record on their phone/webcam, even if they have a long way to go on framing, lighting, editing, and all that). Some examples of channels that have risen into producing solid content in the tech space only very recently include Adrian’s Digital Basement, DankPods, and Dave’s Garage. I’m also fond of Tech Tangents and Cathode Ray Dude who aren’t as new but still have that smaller channel vibe.
The issue I feel is more to do with the algorithms that push content to you via homepage, related sidebar, and search, and the incentives this naturally pushes upon creators. Sometime recently Linus mentioned in a WAN Show that the goal of YouTube now seems to be entirely on having the algorithm figure out what you want to watch, rather than using straightforward signals such as the channel you’re currently watching, your subscriptions list, or the most relevant search results. You constantly hear creators complaining about videos being buried by the algorithm, which is why “click the bell” is part of everyone’s outros now. Loyalty from their follower base has become more important than ever so YouTube has all the positive signals to decide the video is worthy of being pushed outside of that small sphere - that is, it decides whether you’ll be allowed or denied growth on a video-by-video basis by pure luck you can’t control. This is an absolute shame, because creators who deserve views aren’t getting them even from their own subscribers, and those of us who really don’t give a care for the type of content that feeds the algorithm what it wants can’t escape it because the algorithm is begging us to please click on those videos. I noticed if you play any video in an incognito window, it will always display completely unrelated clickbait in every position of the related videos sidebar, probably because it hasn’t figured out your interests yet.
Plus, when VPNs and oddball mobile games see your success, they’re not going to snooze capitalising on it, and let’s be real, it’s hard for many people to say no to easy money for mindlessly reading a 30 second script. In some cases I’ve seen creators post about the business proposals they turn down and they can be absolute junk such as factories trying to move some random Amazon sludge. Luckily it seems these ones are being consistently turned down as just too far below any creator’s morals. I don’t enjoy it but I’ll sit through being introduced to Squarespace for the millionth time or a highly misleading VPN ad read that ticks me off if it means a creator of integrity can quit their job and work full-time on producing top quality content. But YouTube sure could help not make it so high-stakes to find where that sweet spot of quality vs profitability is, and should work out why so many SEO spam videos keep making it past the filters.
The issue I feel is more to do with the algorithms that push content to you via homepage, related sidebar, and search, and the incentives this naturally pushes upon creators. Sometime recently Linus mentioned in a WAN Show that the goal of YouTube now seems to be entirely on having the algorithm figure out what you want to watch, rather than using straightforward signals such as the channel you’re currently watching, your subscriptions list, or the most relevant search results. You constantly hear creators complaining about videos being buried by the algorithm, which is why “click the bell” is part of everyone’s outros now. Loyalty from their follower base has become more important than ever so YouTube has all the positive signals to decide the video is worthy of being pushed outside of that small sphere - that is, it decides whether you’ll be allowed or denied growth on a video-by-video basis by pure luck you can’t control. This is an absolute shame, because creators who deserve views aren’t getting them even from their own subscribers, and those of us who really don’t give a care for the type of content that feeds the algorithm what it wants can’t escape it because the algorithm is begging us to please click on those videos. I noticed if you play any video in an incognito window, it will always display completely unrelated clickbait in every position of the related videos sidebar, probably because it hasn’t figured out your interests yet.
Plus, when VPNs and oddball mobile games see your success, they’re not going to snooze capitalising on it, and let’s be real, it’s hard for many people to say no to easy money for mindlessly reading a 30 second script. In some cases I’ve seen creators post about the business proposals they turn down and they can be absolute junk such as factories trying to move some random Amazon sludge. Luckily it seems these ones are being consistently turned down as just too far below any creator’s morals. I don’t enjoy it but I’ll sit through being introduced to Squarespace for the millionth time or a highly misleading VPN ad read that ticks me off if it means a creator of integrity can quit their job and work full-time on producing top quality content. But YouTube sure could help not make it so high-stakes to find where that sweet spot of quality vs profitability is, and should work out why so many SEO spam videos keep making it past the filters.
YouTube is amazing, especially conference talks and music
YouTube is amazing. YouTube search is good but has some bad spots. Software is one of them, a lot of bad quality content. Luckily you can be creative with the filtering and sorting to cut out the low quality content by views
It's similar to Google. It used to be index of useful organic information, created for practical reasons (regardless of Google). Now it is just an index of adverts and spam created for Google monetisation.
Even some famous tech review channels just seem like marketing/pr product shills to me now.
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I searched for a software tutorial on Youtube and 90% of results are talking heads.