YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down(engadget.com)
engadget.com
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down
https://www.engadget.com/youtube-ceo-susan-wojcicki-is-stepping-down-172115390.html
549 comments
Nowadays the comment section on several channels I watch is full of spam, oftentimes 50+ fake accounts responding to each other in threads.
Yeah I've seen the multi-account spam scripts way more lately, e.g. one person replies to someone with a vague bit of text with "By the way, does anyone know where I can download free movies and TV shows?" and then a confederate replies linking to some shitware site, then another replies to that person thanking them and reiterating the URL.
I've seen crypto/trading scams as the top comment on every single CNBC clip I watch. It follows the same pattern you describe with a vague opener that almost sounds legitimate (but not quite) and then the spam following in response.
It's so reliable on CNBC clips that I almost think those videos comment sections could be used as a training set for spam prevention.
It's so reliable on CNBC clips that I almost think those videos comment sections could be used as a training set for spam prevention.
I don't see that on the videos I watch. For example, this section from a song I recently listened to. Very nice comments.
The Beatles - Within You Without You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsffxGyY4ck
Do you see a bunch of spam comments? Maybe my ad blocker is blocking them?
The Beatles - Within You Without You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsffxGyY4ck
Do you see a bunch of spam comments? Maybe my ad blocker is blocking them?
I don't think music videos are the top target for spammers.
Most finance videos (like general technical analysis, I don't watch crypto content) I watch are full of Whatsapp or Telegram scammers. Even a history channel I follow had to warn that the creator would never solicit money through Whatsapp or Telegram.
Most finance videos (like general technical analysis, I don't watch crypto content) I watch are full of Whatsapp or Telegram scammers. Even a history channel I follow had to warn that the creator would never solicit money through Whatsapp or Telegram.
I think the targets for the spammers are are generally influencers/solo creators. The spammers create imposter profiles to announce phony giveaways, or otherwise appeal to the creators' fan base.
Yup, I watch a lot of critic channels and gaming playthroughs and it's gotten obnoxious. I try to report a dozen but it's surprising they stay up to begin with. That seems like anti-spam 101, don't paste the same message with a suspicious link everywhere (even if it's using 70 burner accounts).
Some even try to impersonate the creator, using some weird V to pretend to be a checkmark.
Some even try to impersonate the creator, using some weird V to pretend to be a checkmark.
I see it on sports content too and not just solo. Feel like not long ago I saw the garbage on ESPN video comments but I don't pay much attention of late so maybe they went away?
I see "Video unavailable" + "Comments are turned off"
Very strange. Yours must be from a different cache.
Probably referring to the spam accounts that Marques Brownlee called out many months ago[0] tl;dw It's the fake accounts that impersonate the content creator and request users to privately message them.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw-vODp-8Y
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw-vODp-8Y
And last time I looked (few months ago? and it had been so previous times I looked for at least the year before that) it was mostly trivially obvious spam, following simple patterns that will yield no false positives. This tells me that they don’t care at all: either they’re not doing any actual blacklist filtering based on content patterns (that is, unconditional removal or rejection, rather than merely flagging as probable spam for the channel owner to take action on), or their filters are unmaintained.
[deleted]
> Everyone used to use YouTube comments as an example of a comment section dumpster fire, but they fixed it.
What do you like about it? Ever since they made comments a signal for discovery and openly communicated that, every creator and their dog will include call to actions to get viewers to comment some mindless nonsense, and users will happily oblige ("for the algorithm"). At least half the comments I see are completely useless.
Then there's the censorship issue where they hide comments but do not adjust the count, so it'll say "2 replies", but none will show up because they're hidden.
And last but not least ... it's has no useful nesting, just top comment and then everything else below it. With large audiences come hundreds or thousands of comments. Yet there's no structure. And you can't search in comments.
So I'm really surprised that you think they've been improved much and are on a good level. What exactly do you like about them?
What do you like about it? Ever since they made comments a signal for discovery and openly communicated that, every creator and their dog will include call to actions to get viewers to comment some mindless nonsense, and users will happily oblige ("for the algorithm"). At least half the comments I see are completely useless.
Then there's the censorship issue where they hide comments but do not adjust the count, so it'll say "2 replies", but none will show up because they're hidden.
And last but not least ... it's has no useful nesting, just top comment and then everything else below it. With large audiences come hundreds or thousands of comments. Yet there's no structure. And you can't search in comments.
So I'm really surprised that you think they've been improved much and are on a good level. What exactly do you like about them?
I'm older and tend to have tastes that aren't current or worth marketing to. Maybe that's a good thing.
It’s weird. I can’t relate to what you’re saying in the slightest.
Recommendations have gone from bad, to bad, then to bad again, to me.
More and more the comments section strikes me as inauthentic and phony, at least earlier I’d get a chuckle out of some random comment now it’s only cringe.
YouTube under Woncicki has been grossly inadequate when it comes to its sliding rules and random choices to ban things, unban other, changing rules on the fly and in other cases completely selling out both users and advertisers for god only knows whose agenda.
YouTube had a real chance of being the true replacement for TV MSM, now it’s almost the same. The encouraged content is long, useless, and inauthentic, just like normal TV. You can find some interesting stuff from time to time but the opportunity they had was way larger, and they let it go because Woncicki wanted to provide as much and advertiser-friendly environment as possible, which in my opinion is short sighted. Advertising was going to come anyway as MSM is dying a slow death, all YouTube had to do is hold, but they buckled and sold short.
IMO, YouTube is going in the wrong direction on almost all fronts. I only hope that they actually realize that they need to spin it off into a separate company away from Google’s enterprise BS.
Ps to people downvoting: use your words.
Recommendations have gone from bad, to bad, then to bad again, to me.
More and more the comments section strikes me as inauthentic and phony, at least earlier I’d get a chuckle out of some random comment now it’s only cringe.
YouTube under Woncicki has been grossly inadequate when it comes to its sliding rules and random choices to ban things, unban other, changing rules on the fly and in other cases completely selling out both users and advertisers for god only knows whose agenda.
YouTube had a real chance of being the true replacement for TV MSM, now it’s almost the same. The encouraged content is long, useless, and inauthentic, just like normal TV. You can find some interesting stuff from time to time but the opportunity they had was way larger, and they let it go because Woncicki wanted to provide as much and advertiser-friendly environment as possible, which in my opinion is short sighted. Advertising was going to come anyway as MSM is dying a slow death, all YouTube had to do is hold, but they buckled and sold short.
IMO, YouTube is going in the wrong direction on almost all fronts. I only hope that they actually realize that they need to spin it off into a separate company away from Google’s enterprise BS.
Ps to people downvoting: use your words.
They're 'better' in tone, but for many videos the comments come across as very sycophantic which is a bit tiresome. That's not always the case though, so probably depends to some extent on the channel's community.
Yes, this. I’m sure many creators are happy to get a pile of praise, but it’s completely useless to me to pull up the comments on a video and see 90% “Wow, ur amazing. This is true talent!”
The video often is amazing! The talent is many times top-notch! But I pine for the days of Slashdot, with their categorized moderation. You could hide all the “+5 funny” comments and only see the interesting or insightful ones.
In the case of machining videos, I want to see how others solved an issue the video dealt with. Or alternative tools that could do the same thing cheaper. These comments do exist, but are often buried. And Google only lets you see additional comments in little dribbles.
The video often is amazing! The talent is many times top-notch! But I pine for the days of Slashdot, with their categorized moderation. You could hide all the “+5 funny” comments and only see the interesting or insightful ones.
In the case of machining videos, I want to see how others solved an issue the video dealt with. Or alternative tools that could do the same thing cheaper. These comments do exist, but are often buried. And Google only lets you see additional comments in little dribbles.
Yes. They’ve explicitly downranked criticism (they posted about it on Twitter maybe a year ago) and with the removal of downvotes, it’s much harder to quickly figure out how good is the video.
Agreed on the copyright issues! I got a strike for a short screen cast / video I made to demo a new feature I built to my boss -- it wasn't public, you had to have the link but I happened to feature some music (maybe 45-60 seconds) and it got taken down.
Similarly I see YT content creators asking people to turn off their FM radios lest they end up with copyrighted music in their videos. Surely both of these cases are fair use?
Similarly I see YT content creators asking people to turn off their FM radios lest they end up with copyrighted music in their videos. Surely both of these cases are fair use?
They are but YouTube applies their own logic that is stricter than actual copyright law in most cases, just to avoid being sued into oblivion by media producers.
> I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been. Again, for me.
Teach me your secret to receiving good recos.
The bad quality of recos is the total downturner for me.
Nothing, absolutely nothing interesting for months.
All that's being recommended is totally generic high view stuff, not at all related to my channels or content. Just a global dump of "what's being watched".
No topical clustered recommendations of channels I haven't watched in the past or am not subscribed to.
Good lord they have so much data. In my experience well over a year now, they fail miserably at recommendations.
Teach me your secret to receiving good recos.
The bad quality of recos is the total downturner for me.
Nothing, absolutely nothing interesting for months.
All that's being recommended is totally generic high view stuff, not at all related to my channels or content. Just a global dump of "what's being watched".
No topical clustered recommendations of channels I haven't watched in the past or am not subscribed to.
Good lord they have so much data. In my experience well over a year now, they fail miserably at recommendations.
You can train the algorithm by saying you are not interested in videos or channels. I have told the algorithm to not recommend garbage channels with top 10 videos and my feed is much better now
To my knowledge no one outside of YouTube has ever sat down to analyze the recommendation engine and figure out how to use it better. I mark things as "not interested" a lot. I also "like" videos. Maybe that's the difference.
Maybe you’ve got some garbage in your YT history? I’ve found recommendations to get insanely good in the last year. I’ve gotten a ton of channels whose views number <10,000 per video and they make chill or super interesting content.
Start liking videos more and using the “don’t recommend channel” feature. I went hard on that feature for a day or two and I think it helped.
It might be interesting to start a fresh account and figure out how to game the recommendations for specific types of content. I might do that this weekend.
Start liking videos more and using the “don’t recommend channel” feature. I went hard on that feature for a day or two and I think it helped.
It might be interesting to start a fresh account and figure out how to game the recommendations for specific types of content. I might do that this weekend.
This Mitchell & Webb sketch is a pretty good summation of many of my recent Youtube recommendations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MusyO7J2inM?t=55
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MusyO7J2inM?t=55
> YouTube for the things I enjoy has improved dramatically because the comment section is vastly improved. Everyone used to use YouTube comments as an example of a comment section dumpster fire, but they fixed it.
I wonder if there some empirical evidence to support this because I'd argue it's much worse now. It went from "first" sort of harmless meme spam to real problems like encouraging conspiracy theories and criminal activities and toxic hate etc. Isn't that were most conspiracies like flat earth and covid crazies start?
Not to mention the absurd amount of spam. Leave a comment on any tech video and you'll very soon find out "you won an iPhone!" sent by someone with the exact same image/name as the channel of the video.
I wonder if there some empirical evidence to support this because I'd argue it's much worse now. It went from "first" sort of harmless meme spam to real problems like encouraging conspiracy theories and criminal activities and toxic hate etc. Isn't that were most conspiracies like flat earth and covid crazies start?
Not to mention the absurd amount of spam. Leave a comment on any tech video and you'll very soon find out "you won an iPhone!" sent by someone with the exact same image/name as the channel of the video.
>I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been.
It is a completely horrible experience for me, bunch of same videos over and over again, often completely unrelated to what I'm watching now. I don't want a recommendation for some dumb shit when I'm watching a programming tutorial.
I've spend over a year clicking "Not Interested" or "Block channel" over various topics only for them to suddenly come back and dominate the recommendation feed again. I've once visited a profile of a youtuber that hadn't uploaded in a decade only for ALL of his videos to suddenly start popping up in my recommended feed, even though I've seen them dozens of times already. Why did it assume I am interested even though I just briefly clicked on a bunch of videos? Is the top data-hoarding company in the world unable to tell causal browsing form an actual engagement?
I still shudder when I think about the time I clicked a bunch of trashy meme videos and how they poisoned my recommended feeds for months. Once the algorithm decides you like something there's no way to stop it.
I've asked for possible solutions and people were like "well go to your history and delete everything that might be causing this". Like really? I am supposed to dedicate time to curating my own browsing history for a chance of a non-shitty recommendation? I have no idea how this algorithm works in the first place, so why would I dedicate my time doing that? Isn't a browsing history supposed to reflect - well - the history of browsing rather than being a dataset for a ML model where the only metric that matters is a video click? Why can't I have a browsing history and get recommendations relevant to what I'm watching? Why does it all needs to be bundled together into an uncontrollable, non-customizable mess where no one knows how it works?
I don't remember it being that bad in the 2010s and I won't even consider paying anything for anything related to YouTube until they make it good.
It is a completely horrible experience for me, bunch of same videos over and over again, often completely unrelated to what I'm watching now. I don't want a recommendation for some dumb shit when I'm watching a programming tutorial.
I've spend over a year clicking "Not Interested" or "Block channel" over various topics only for them to suddenly come back and dominate the recommendation feed again. I've once visited a profile of a youtuber that hadn't uploaded in a decade only for ALL of his videos to suddenly start popping up in my recommended feed, even though I've seen them dozens of times already. Why did it assume I am interested even though I just briefly clicked on a bunch of videos? Is the top data-hoarding company in the world unable to tell causal browsing form an actual engagement?
I still shudder when I think about the time I clicked a bunch of trashy meme videos and how they poisoned my recommended feeds for months. Once the algorithm decides you like something there's no way to stop it.
I've asked for possible solutions and people were like "well go to your history and delete everything that might be causing this". Like really? I am supposed to dedicate time to curating my own browsing history for a chance of a non-shitty recommendation? I have no idea how this algorithm works in the first place, so why would I dedicate my time doing that? Isn't a browsing history supposed to reflect - well - the history of browsing rather than being a dataset for a ML model where the only metric that matters is a video click? Why can't I have a browsing history and get recommendations relevant to what I'm watching? Why does it all needs to be bundled together into an uncontrollable, non-customizable mess where no one knows how it works?
I don't remember it being that bad in the 2010s and I won't even consider paying anything for anything related to YouTube until they make it good.
A YouTube account disabled for copyright strikes just loses the ability to upload videos. You get to keep your Gmail.
My biggest issue is algorithm that gets used for the user's landing page, a quarter to a third of that is things Ive seen before (with red bar at the bottom and not music), then at some point at the bottom of the page it just fills in another 2-3 rows with just a bunch from the same channel. There should be a consistent and easy way to watch things outside of your "bubble", e.g. they can fill that bottom section to show random "new" videos..
Can’t really say if the YT comments section is fixed.
I follow some stand up comics in India. In one glance you can make out that most of the top comments are fake.
I follow some stand up comics in India. In one glance you can make out that most of the top comments are fake.
If you're feeling nostalgic, you can get back the old dumpster fire comment section by changing the "Sort by" to "Newest first".
Are you a real person? Because everyone in my circles have the exact opposite impression.
Are you also of the opinion that Google search improved?
It got so bad that I have essentially stopped reading the comments. Ever.
Make sure your clips are under 25 seconds and you won't get a strike.
comment sections are filled with spam. amzcoin & ccp bots to be more specific
D-
I'm nervous about this. YouTube Premium is my favorite and most-used product. As long as ads stay gone and my grandfathered price doesn't change, I'm a very happy user.
Same, huge youtube premium fanboy. YouTube has pretty much replaced Netflix and all the other streaming platforms for me, the content it has is more varied and interesting than yet another generic new IP play. Although it doesn't have classic time-tested movies, so that still requires a subscription somewhere.
Premium moved me from being a consumer of a content made by big companies (including movies, and most of the shows) towards more independent content creators. I couldn't be more happy about it.
How do YouTube creators get paid from premium subscribers, is it fractions of a cent per minute watched or something?
The Spiffing Brit did a video on YT Premium revenue [0]. My understanding is all the money from all the premium subscribers is thrown into a big pool, of which YouTube takes 45% (or whatever their share is) right off the bat. Then, they take each Premium subscribers’ total watch time across all the channels they watched videos on, and split the remaining money based off of total premium subscriber watch time to each channel.
For example, imagine there are only three YouTube channels out there, The Spiffing Brit, Pewdiepie, and MrBeast. There’s $1,000,000 USD remaining in the pot for the month (or pay period, I’m not sure how regular the payouts are) after YouTube takes their cut. In sum total, YT Premium subscribers watched 100,000 minutes of content: 50,000 minutes to MrBeast, 40,000 minutes to Pewdiepie, and 10,000 minutes to The Spiffing Brit. The payouts would be calculated using:
revenue_share_ratio = sum_channel_premium_watch_time / sum_global_premium_watch_time
channel_premium_payout = global_premium_payout * revenue_share_ratio
So:
MrBeast: revenue_share_ratio = 0.50 = 50,000 / 100,000 channel_premium_payout = 500,000 = 0.50 * 1,000,000
Pewdiepie: revenue_share_ratio = 0.40 = 40,000 / 100,000 channel_premium_payout = 400,000 = 0.40 * 1,000,000
The spiffing brit: revenue_share_ratio = 0.10 = 10,000 / 100,000 channel_premium_payout = 100,000 = 0.10 * 1,000,000
A bit of a contrived and simplified explanation I’m sure, but as far as I am aware the formulae they use to divvy up the money between creators is as straight forward as it gets. Money out per creator = global money in total * (creator minutes total / global minutes total)
[0]: https://youtu.be/NLO5-IyS5pE
For example, imagine there are only three YouTube channels out there, The Spiffing Brit, Pewdiepie, and MrBeast. There’s $1,000,000 USD remaining in the pot for the month (or pay period, I’m not sure how regular the payouts are) after YouTube takes their cut. In sum total, YT Premium subscribers watched 100,000 minutes of content: 50,000 minutes to MrBeast, 40,000 minutes to Pewdiepie, and 10,000 minutes to The Spiffing Brit. The payouts would be calculated using:
revenue_share_ratio = sum_channel_premium_watch_time / sum_global_premium_watch_time
channel_premium_payout = global_premium_payout * revenue_share_ratio
So:
MrBeast: revenue_share_ratio = 0.50 = 50,000 / 100,000 channel_premium_payout = 500,000 = 0.50 * 1,000,000
Pewdiepie: revenue_share_ratio = 0.40 = 40,000 / 100,000 channel_premium_payout = 400,000 = 0.40 * 1,000,000
The spiffing brit: revenue_share_ratio = 0.10 = 10,000 / 100,000 channel_premium_payout = 100,000 = 0.10 * 1,000,000
A bit of a contrived and simplified explanation I’m sure, but as far as I am aware the formulae they use to divvy up the money between creators is as straight forward as it gets. Money out per creator = global money in total * (creator minutes total / global minutes total)
[0]: https://youtu.be/NLO5-IyS5pE
There is a pot of money that is split between creators based off relative watch time by people with YouTube premium.
Yes they get a separate stream from premium
Agreed re: movies, though some have been cropping up there recently, and in really good resolution too. I watched "Glengary Glen Ross" for the first time in my life last weekend on Youtube.
It also doesn't have TV shows like Game of Thrones, House, The Wire, Breaking Bad, etc etc
It did, but it wasn't a huge success. Cobra Kai was actually a YT OG, it was a gem among a lot of duds.
Ryan Hanson Solves Crimes on Television* was also an unappreciated stone-cold masterpiece.
(The * was because it was on YouTube, not TV)
(The * was because it was on YouTube, not TV)
Agreed. I am a massive fan of YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. While I am a bit nervous because major change like this could lead to those products getting worse, I'm also hopeful that it could lead to them getting better! So in general I'm just eager to see what happens next, come what may.
YT Premium, definitely yes. However, YT Music is hot garbage. The UI is utter crap and the mixing of video and music is awful, especially playlists. Why the hell would I want my regular YT and music playlists mixed up together anyway? It gets worse with kids, as some video-songs (randomly!) trigger the inability to play in the background.
If you haven't already:
Disable Settings > Recommendations > Show your liked music from Youtube
Enable Settings > Data saving > Don't play music videos
Disable Settings > Recommendations > Show your liked music from Youtube
Enable Settings > Data saving > Don't play music videos
That first one only appears in YT music. My regular YouTube still has my music playlists.
Thanks though. Maybe some day they'll put in some effort.
Thanks though. Maybe some day they'll put in some effort.
I liked Google Play Music when it first came out. But development was basically stopped and they replaced it with the crappy YT Music App. Unless they majorly change YouTube music I'll stay with Spotify.
Dev wasn't just stopped. The whole product was sunset and if you wanted to keep a semblance of what you had, you were forced to migrate to YouTube music. I saw the end of that crap rainbow and finally moved over to koel which has done just as much as I ever cared to use in Google music, but now I don't fear Google getting bored and killing the product in some future.
One big upside of having access to video in your music collection is all the independently-uploaded songs and song versions that have not officially found their way to streaming.
If your tastes are more eclectic this can be a really big thing actually -- the music streaming services are largely similar in what they do and don't have, which leaves out a LOT of stuff, and finally things vanish off of streaming all the time. Individually-uploaded youtube music-in-a-video on the other hand is astonishingly durable.
Totally agree about the UI though, and they also suck on royalty payouts -- only Spotify is worse.
If your tastes are more eclectic this can be a really big thing actually -- the music streaming services are largely similar in what they do and don't have, which leaves out a LOT of stuff, and finally things vanish off of streaming all the time. Individually-uploaded youtube music-in-a-video on the other hand is astonishingly durable.
Totally agree about the UI though, and they also suck on royalty payouts -- only Spotify is worse.
can you sell it to a current spotify user?
I pay for youtube premium for ad-free youtube and to support creators automatically.
Youtube music is not great, but its "free" to me.
Youtube music is not great, but its "free" to me.
That’s literally it.
It’s probably inferior to both Spotify and Apple Music, but if you’re going to pay for YouTube premium anyway and are able to endure the weird UI… Then it might save you a small monthly fee you’d otherwise pay to competing services.
It’d never survive in the market as it’s own service, and it’s clearly inferior even to its own predecessor Google Music.
I have no idea who decided this thing was a good idea.
It’s probably inferior to both Spotify and Apple Music, but if you’re going to pay for YouTube premium anyway and are able to endure the weird UI… Then it might save you a small monthly fee you’d otherwise pay to competing services.
It’d never survive in the market as it’s own service, and it’s clearly inferior even to its own predecessor Google Music.
I have no idea who decided this thing was a good idea.
Not sure about inferior to spotify though. Lots of things (for me at least) aren't available on spotify, even with subscription. More often than not quality is actually better on YT music. Major thing is also asking in car for 'yo google play me this and that' and spotify just returns some nonsense or cover where YT Music always returns the right thing. Apple music is absolute crap, quality of sound was enough that I didn't even bother extending trial into anything more and UI is atrocious.
YT music, for me at least, not perfect but better than the two by far. I still keep spotify sub because sometimes we share playlists in office etc.. not sure I'll extend to be honest. YT Music on the other hand, especially in car is essential.
YT music, for me at least, not perfect but better than the two by far. I still keep spotify sub because sometimes we share playlists in office etc.. not sure I'll extend to be honest. YT Music on the other hand, especially in car is essential.
> Apple music is absolute crap, quality of sound was enough that I didn't even bother extending trial
Sound quality not good enough? You know Apple Music supports lossless up to 24-bit 192kHz, at no cost, right?
Just what are you talking about?
Sound quality not good enough? You know Apple Music supports lossless up to 24-bit 192kHz, at no cost, right?
Just what are you talking about?
No, I don't know that since I never got to experience it through web nor app. Maybe I need to own an iphone? Googling for it turned a ton of questions about poor audio quality and some hacks as potential solutions, not to mention often blaming user's hardware setup for it. YT Music is no shenanigans just works, and works great, solution.
I must have extremely unsophisticated music needs, I've never had any complaints using the interface or finding any music that I want.
I remember Google Music being pretty good, but YouTube Music seems good enough
I remember Google Music being pretty good, but YouTube Music seems good enough
Same. I am always a little surprised to read these comments. Moved from Spotify to Google Play Music to YouTube Music and never really had many issues...
YouTube's music library feels richer than Spotify. A few years ago I was contemplating a switch from YT Music to Spotify (I like Spotify's UX), but a lot of stuff I enjoy listening to was missing. But I might just have a weird taste in music.
I use both, spotify for my main listening and yt music for mixes, live shows, and lots of content that plainly isn't on spotify.
Yt music also supports tapping the side of the screen to jump forwards or backwards in 10 second increments. Seems like a trivial feature, but holy shit I have needed it my entire life. The ability to both rapidly and finely adjust the time is huge when listing to things like live shows that are a 2 hour video.
Crazy but I don't think I have ever had a program or hardware player that could do both. Always either fast forward/rewind or trying to finely slide a slider.
Yt music also supports tapping the side of the screen to jump forwards or backwards in 10 second increments. Seems like a trivial feature, but holy shit I have needed it my entire life. The ability to both rapidly and finely adjust the time is huge when listing to things like live shows that are a 2 hour video.
Crazy but I don't think I have ever had a program or hardware player that could do both. Always either fast forward/rewind or trying to finely slide a slider.
Spotify's catalog for Indian languages is smaller than Youtube. Not only is YT Music's collection larger, the recommendation system works better for Indian languages too. I have been that the autoplay follows the mood/ type of the song better than Spotify.
When I first compared Spotify/YT Premium (Google Music at the time):
- Relatively similar offerings of music, at least when it came to my tastes. I have a wide variety and some weird stuff in there, but both worked for me to find whatever I thought of.
- Relatively similar price ($10 Spotify vs $12 YT), so I knew I needed at least some extra value from YT to justify
- YT Premium not only gives me YT Music, but also HASSLE FREE ad-free YT. What I mean is -- I don't have to manage extensions for web youtube and apps for Android or iOS or using NextDNS or a pihole or something just to get "ad free" from YT. It just works. Not having ads, and not having to CARE is a big value add for me. This alone is well worth $2 a month just in the time it saves me dealing with it.
- YT Premium USED to be Google Music, which I loved the UI of way more than Spotify. I am still VERY upset at YT Music since it's objectively worse than Google Music in every way, but it's still the same goddamn company
- AT THE TIME, I was having serious issues getting Spotify to play music from cache. Even if I cached, it would still default to streaming it as long as I had data. This resulted in huge data usage each month. I am SURE this is fixed by now. But this went into the calculus for me at the time.
Would I move over to Spotify? I think the things that would push me back would be an increase in YT price, a further degradation in YT Music UX, some new killer feature Spotify has/gets (podcasts aren't my thing)
This was a VERY long answer which can TLDR to "Having ad-free YouTube + Music all at once for $2 more was well worth not having to give a crap about all the infrastructure needed to block ads across all my devices forever."
- Relatively similar offerings of music, at least when it came to my tastes. I have a wide variety and some weird stuff in there, but both worked for me to find whatever I thought of.
- Relatively similar price ($10 Spotify vs $12 YT), so I knew I needed at least some extra value from YT to justify
- YT Premium not only gives me YT Music, but also HASSLE FREE ad-free YT. What I mean is -- I don't have to manage extensions for web youtube and apps for Android or iOS or using NextDNS or a pihole or something just to get "ad free" from YT. It just works. Not having ads, and not having to CARE is a big value add for me. This alone is well worth $2 a month just in the time it saves me dealing with it.
- YT Premium USED to be Google Music, which I loved the UI of way more than Spotify. I am still VERY upset at YT Music since it's objectively worse than Google Music in every way, but it's still the same goddamn company
- AT THE TIME, I was having serious issues getting Spotify to play music from cache. Even if I cached, it would still default to streaming it as long as I had data. This resulted in huge data usage each month. I am SURE this is fixed by now. But this went into the calculus for me at the time.
Would I move over to Spotify? I think the things that would push me back would be an increase in YT price, a further degradation in YT Music UX, some new killer feature Spotify has/gets (podcasts aren't my thing)
This was a VERY long answer which can TLDR to "Having ad-free YouTube + Music all at once for $2 more was well worth not having to give a crap about all the infrastructure needed to block ads across all my devices forever."
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is the recommendation engine is much better in YT Music than Spotify IMHO. I've found a surprisingly large number of new artists that I enjoy and it's solely due to YTM's recommendation engine. Really obscure stuff that I just wouldn't have found otherwise.
the sales pitch is that for $15 instead of $10, you get ad-free youtube as well as everything spotify gives you.
but the reality is that you're losing spotify radio and recommendations, and replacing it with youtube music's radio stations and recommendations. and for me, i found that spotify introduces me to a lot of new and interesting music that i wouldn't otherwise find, and youtube picks a dozen songs every month it wants to play, and regardless of what station i choose it plays those same songs.
for me, i'm currently paying for both because i like youtube premium, but the music offering doesn't replace spotify.
but the reality is that you're losing spotify radio and recommendations, and replacing it with youtube music's radio stations and recommendations. and for me, i found that spotify introduces me to a lot of new and interesting music that i wouldn't otherwise find, and youtube picks a dozen songs every month it wants to play, and regardless of what station i choose it plays those same songs.
for me, i'm currently paying for both because i like youtube premium, but the music offering doesn't replace spotify.
I like recommendation engine better. Also up to 5 people in family plan.
5 additional people, so 6 total
I guess most people forgot fast that Spotify platformed a major antivaxxer? I cancelled them immediately and can't even imagine subscribing to them any time. It was just a year ago...
Works like shit. No support for basic features such as crossfade. Recommendations are repetitive, uninsightful and low-quality. No desktop app, and the web app is as bug-complete as any other alphabet property. Enjoy losing access to your playlist and album collection when your google account gets randomly banned.
Not a spotify fan either, but there's practically no upside to switching.
Not a spotify fan either, but there's practically no upside to switching.
We are also on a grandfathered in family plan.
Converted my under 8$ dollar Google Play Music plan to 14$ family plan for my Wife, and they honored that 14$ cost when YTM rolled out.
While unlikely, I have been hoping for some sort of "we changed our mind" PR statement from Google on this before we switch to a family Spotify come April.
The price hike doesn't hurt on our monthly finances, but considering the 12 month cost vs features compared to Spotify... it does hurt. Why pay more for less.
Like others are saying, the no ads Youtube is fantastic. We do use adblockers on all of our devices, but it's hard to do on Google Homes, casting to Chromecasts, and Youtube Kids.
I am prepared to go Firefox + Ublock/Brave on my Android phone if I do go Spotify though....
Converted my under 8$ dollar Google Play Music plan to 14$ family plan for my Wife, and they honored that 14$ cost when YTM rolled out.
While unlikely, I have been hoping for some sort of "we changed our mind" PR statement from Google on this before we switch to a family Spotify come April.
The price hike doesn't hurt on our monthly finances, but considering the 12 month cost vs features compared to Spotify... it does hurt. Why pay more for less.
Like others are saying, the no ads Youtube is fantastic. We do use adblockers on all of our devices, but it's hard to do on Google Homes, casting to Chromecasts, and Youtube Kids.
I am prepared to go Firefox + Ublock/Brave on my Android phone if I do go Spotify though....
> Converted my under 8$ dollar Google Play Music plan to 14$ family plan for my Wife, and they honored that 14$ cost when YTM rolled out.
I'm currently still on the original $7.99 plan. Any tips on how to do the upgrade to the family plan for $14? I've wanted to do that for a while but not give up my grandfathered price. The price they show me for the family plan is $22.99.
I'm currently still on the original $7.99 plan. Any tips on how to do the upgrade to the family plan for $14? I've wanted to do that for a while but not give up my grandfathered price. The price they show me for the family plan is $22.99.
I agree, my wife and I use the YouTube Premium family plan - I don't want them to mess with it. I think it is the best deal of any monthly subscription with the possible exception of Apple+ family plan (I use Fitness+, Arcade, iCloud storage - so it is also a pretty good deal).
This is Google we're talking about, they'll randomly decide to retire Youtube completely out of the blue one day.
this wouldn't be as funny if it weren't somewhat plausible... :/
I'd happily pay for an ad-free Youtube if they weren't double dipping by stealing my data. When do consumers get a choice for stalker free content?
I am part of a “YouTube family” that shares the premium family plan. We collect payment every six months.
Makes the price low enough to beat the hassle of various ad blocking methods across many platforms and devices.
Makes the price low enough to beat the hassle of various ad blocking methods across many platforms and devices.
Youtube Vanced does a good job at blocking most ads, and the latest version has a feature that attempts to skip sponsored sections on videos. Well worth trying out.
I think it's important where possible for people to pay for the premium version, while it provides ad free value for money, though I don't begrudge people blocking ads in other ways if they truly can't afford it.
But I think it's short sighted and selfish to not pay for something like YouTube that you use and get value out of every day, when you can afford it. Either pay for it and support it or don't use it at all.
But I think it's short sighted and selfish to not pay for something like YouTube that you use and get value out of every day, when you can afford it. Either pay for it and support it or don't use it at all.
First, YouTube doesn't even offer Premium in my country.
Second, the features of YouTube revanced apps also just simply surpasses official app for me anyway:
- My phone has 1440p HDR display and YouTube official app just doesn't show me above 720p60 for 60fps videos while in the past it could. And it put me in an awkward situation: for under 60fps and for HDR 60fps videos, it can show up to 2160p and 2160p HDR 60 fps like normal. The only videos that cannot go over 720p60 fps are the normal 60fps ones. I don't know what the actual bug they are introducing there. YouTube revanced extended works flawflessly.
- I can hide the sections I don't like (news, shorts, suggestions for me, mix playlists, the ending overlay at the end of videos... and many other things).
- I can swipe on the screen for brightness and volume.
- I can add the copy buttons that copy the video link AND the timestamp quickly, really convenient for me.
- And many more that I'm lazy to type on phone.
Those small features (except the first one) look like something I would laugh at but one by one they surprisingly enhance my experience with YouTube app a lot.
Second, the features of YouTube revanced apps also just simply surpasses official app for me anyway:
- My phone has 1440p HDR display and YouTube official app just doesn't show me above 720p60 for 60fps videos while in the past it could. And it put me in an awkward situation: for under 60fps and for HDR 60fps videos, it can show up to 2160p and 2160p HDR 60 fps like normal. The only videos that cannot go over 720p60 fps are the normal 60fps ones. I don't know what the actual bug they are introducing there. YouTube revanced extended works flawflessly.
- I can hide the sections I don't like (news, shorts, suggestions for me, mix playlists, the ending overlay at the end of videos... and many other things).
- I can swipe on the screen for brightness and volume.
- I can add the copy buttons that copy the video link AND the timestamp quickly, really convenient for me.
- And many more that I'm lazy to type on phone.
Those small features (except the first one) look like something I would laugh at but one by one they surprisingly enhance my experience with YouTube app a lot.
You bring up a good point, that out of all the video players that exist on mobile devices, YouTube's is pretty weak. Maybe it's part of Google's philosophy to keep their UX simple and dumb for the widest possible audience. And everyone else has to deal with it.
If its that important that the multi-billion dollar corporation is supported, then you will have to pay for youtube or watch ads on my behalf.
I subscribed to YT premium when it was bundled with YT music. I hate that there is not a plan in the US that allows me to just get ad free YT videos. I do not use YT music and don't care to.
I hope whoever takes it over creates an ad free plan that doesn't bundle music into it. I hate that all of these tech companies are taking the cable route they all rallied agains and bundling everything.
I hope whoever takes it over creates an ad free plan that doesn't bundle music into it. I hate that all of these tech companies are taking the cable route they all rallied agains and bundling everything.
I don't have Premium, but I do have Music; it's an excellent service for obscure stuff, because everything ends up on YT.
I never click any ads, including the ad for Premium. So I still don't know how much it costs. Well, I can often go weeks without even opening Youtube so I guess the price would be unreasonably high for my usage. Or if I paid the viewing experience would be so much better, that I'd waste too much precious time on Youtube.
The tendency is for prices to go up and for services to get worse or more restricted. Usually, a service initially runs at a loss or some sub-optimum during a trial or rollout phase, and then after critical mass, it is degraded or costs are raised to some new optimum that maximizes profit at the cost of losing some users.
The ads haven’t stayed gone, though.
I would pay a substantial premium for an option to filter promotions out of videos. I would even pay to just never get promoted videos in my steam.
The option to pay for no ads doesn’t exist, today, although it would be easy to ad. Instead, you get to pay to remove one advertiser, and not all the others.
I would pay a substantial premium for an option to filter promotions out of videos. I would even pay to just never get promoted videos in my steam.
The option to pay for no ads doesn’t exist, today, although it would be easy to ad. Instead, you get to pay to remove one advertiser, and not all the others.
A sponsorship in a video paid directly to the YouTuber is very different from a targeted ad that YouTube runs. It doesn't interrupt the content in unexpected ways (only ways planned by the creator), it's targeted based on content rather than data mining, and the creator usually tries to add a bit of personality to it. Not to mention you can skip them using the regular scrubbing controls rather than being forced to watch at least 5 seconds.
Yes. It is a somewhat-less-bad form of even more advertising. If you think paying to avoid some advertising is reasonable, why is paying more to avoid more advertising unreasonable?
It's unreasonable to expect YouTube Premium to filter out content inserted by the video creator when that's not the terms either you or the creator were given. I pay for Nebula and don't see any ads or sponsorships there, but I don't begrudge the sponsorships on regular YouTube.
If the sponsorships bug you that much, use sponsorblock.
If the sponsorships bug you that much, use sponsorblock.
It's totally reasonable: users would be happier, YouTube can charge more for it (YT Premium+?), and YT analytics can detect when a sponsor segment (which many videos already label, and which are known to be about 60s long) is skipped and pass those metrics on to the content creator so the sponsor isn't being cheated.
Everybody wins. (Yes this doesn't work for heavily integrated sponsorships but it'd still get most of them.)
Everybody wins. (Yes this doesn't work for heavily integrated sponsorships but it'd still get most of them.)
Yes, I agree that it is unreasonable to expect this of Youtube Premium, as that is not the value proposition of that product.
The original comment was proposing a new product, at a higher price point to reflect its higher costs, that /does/ cater to this expectation.
The original comment was proposing a new product, at a higher price point to reflect its higher costs, that /does/ cater to this expectation.
Frequently you can pay more to individual YouTubers for that service, many have Patreon or other methods of providing early ad free versions of their content.
Yes. This is a very, very good answer when it's available as an option.
I do think, though, that if the best answer to "YouTube doesn't let me do <x>" is "pay an alternate service provider instead," it might suggest a market opportunity for YouTube to provide the same service with much less friction.
I do think, though, that if the best answer to "YouTube doesn't let me do <x>" is "pay an alternate service provider instead," it might suggest a market opportunity for YouTube to provide the same service with much less friction.
[deleted]
Sponsorblock is a thing that exists if in-video ads annoy you.
I don’t believe there’s a way to run it on AppleTV, though I would love to be wrong.
What? I don't see any ads unless they're embedded in the video by the creator...?
Those are still ads and there are solutions to filter them out that Youtube could be more proactive about surfacing to premium users.
I think you're being ridiculous. Like, would you want YouTube to skip over this entire scene in the Wayne's World movie?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lgLYGBbDNs
Should it not let me see a product review if it was sponsored by the company that makes the product? Or only if the reviewers didn't have full editorial control?
Wherever you would want to draw the line, someone else would tell you that you drew it wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lgLYGBbDNs
Should it not let me see a product review if it was sponsored by the company that makes the product? Or only if the reviewers didn't have full editorial control?
Wherever you would want to draw the line, someone else would tell you that you drew it wrong.
I think you're being unnecessarily adversarial here.
Sponsored ads in videos are everywhere, and well delineated. Third party tools exist to skip them already -- and YouTube already has the data on where they start and end. They even show them on the timeline, although they call "end of sponsored advertisement" "most replayed"… presumedly because of everyone skipping the ad, losing their place, and then having to step back to try to find where the content begins again.
Here's how this could work. I would pay an additional $10/month for YouTube Scarlet. Content creators would have three options -- declare that their videos have no sources of revenue outside of YouTube revenue; provide start and end time stamps for any external-revenue-generating segments; or do nothing.
For my $10/month, videos in the second category would skip their promotion. In exchange, some portion of my $10/month would go to the video creator, just like ad/Premium revenue does today, and the metrics on number of videos where this segment was skipped would be made available in analytics for sharing with sponsors. Finally, I'd have access to a user preference to suppress videos in the third category for appearing in recommendations, ever.
Does this deal with every case? No. Would it make YouTube more pleasant for me and potentially others who share my values, without impacting current regular and Premium users, and with a neutral or positive impact on content creators? I assert yes.
Sponsored ads in videos are everywhere, and well delineated. Third party tools exist to skip them already -- and YouTube already has the data on where they start and end. They even show them on the timeline, although they call "end of sponsored advertisement" "most replayed"… presumedly because of everyone skipping the ad, losing their place, and then having to step back to try to find where the content begins again.
Here's how this could work. I would pay an additional $10/month for YouTube Scarlet. Content creators would have three options -- declare that their videos have no sources of revenue outside of YouTube revenue; provide start and end time stamps for any external-revenue-generating segments; or do nothing.
For my $10/month, videos in the second category would skip their promotion. In exchange, some portion of my $10/month would go to the video creator, just like ad/Premium revenue does today, and the metrics on number of videos where this segment was skipped would be made available in analytics for sharing with sponsors. Finally, I'd have access to a user preference to suppress videos in the third category for appearing in recommendations, ever.
Does this deal with every case? No. Would it make YouTube more pleasant for me and potentially others who share my values, without impacting current regular and Premium users, and with a neutral or positive impact on content creators? I assert yes.
Would it have a negative impact on the businesses who promote those videos?
Yes.
If it's a negative impact on the businesses who promote videos, how can you say your idea doesn't impact content creators?
Yes.
If it's a negative impact on the businesses who promote videos, how can you say your idea doesn't impact content creators?
Why would it have a negative impact on either the promoted businesses or the content creators?
Promoted businesses currently pay based on (an estimate of) the number of views that the video will get. This would trivially adjust to paying based on the number of views that the sponsorship within the video gets -- that's why I mentioned the requirement to make this available through analytics. If the cost per view stays the same for sponsors, they're now paying for a self-selecting audience of people who are not actively bothered by their ads. (I doubt I'm the only person who, if I as going to pay money for a VPN, would choose literally anything other than Nord VPN just as petty "revenge" for how much of my life they've wasted.) If this slightly-reduced audience does not sufficiently eat their marketing budget, they can find new creators to sponsor.
For the content creators, presumedly the target amount paid directly per skipped ad would be chosen to slightly exceed the expected payout of showing the ad. This is the same conceptual model Premium uses today. So even though the sponsor may be paying them for a 9.5 M view video instead of a 10 M view video -- the payout should more than cover the difference.
I agree that these marginal wins run into systematic concerns if more than, say, 5% or so of users start opting out of embedded advertising this way. But besides being incredibly unlikely -- what would it say about the business model of embedded advertising if 5% of YouTube customers were willing to pay to avoid it!?
Promoted businesses currently pay based on (an estimate of) the number of views that the video will get. This would trivially adjust to paying based on the number of views that the sponsorship within the video gets -- that's why I mentioned the requirement to make this available through analytics. If the cost per view stays the same for sponsors, they're now paying for a self-selecting audience of people who are not actively bothered by their ads. (I doubt I'm the only person who, if I as going to pay money for a VPN, would choose literally anything other than Nord VPN just as petty "revenge" for how much of my life they've wasted.) If this slightly-reduced audience does not sufficiently eat their marketing budget, they can find new creators to sponsor.
For the content creators, presumedly the target amount paid directly per skipped ad would be chosen to slightly exceed the expected payout of showing the ad. This is the same conceptual model Premium uses today. So even though the sponsor may be paying them for a 9.5 M view video instead of a 10 M view video -- the payout should more than cover the difference.
I agree that these marginal wins run into systematic concerns if more than, say, 5% or so of users start opting out of embedded advertising this way. But besides being incredibly unlikely -- what would it say about the business model of embedded advertising if 5% of YouTube customers were willing to pay to avoid it!?
So, you appear to dismiss my concerns completely, demand a feature, and then insist... that hardly anyone will use it? And that because hardly anyone will use it, that means promoters are safe... unless they're not, in which case, they had it coming?
A sponsor pays $10,000 to a content creator.
And then, they get zero views of their embedded ad in the video.
They got literally nothing for their $10,000 investment.
And let's say, for the sake of argument, that YouTube does not pay $10,000 for the same video, or ones like it.
Now, the content creator gets less money than they would have before.
It's almost like content creators have already done this calculus, and concluded that the best way to create content is to promote things.
It's funny to me when someone is like, "Why doesn't YouTube do X," and then they answer their own question, but then they still act like it's weird that YouTube doesn't do that thing.
A sponsor pays $10,000 to a content creator.
And then, they get zero views of their embedded ad in the video.
They got literally nothing for their $10,000 investment.
And let's say, for the sake of argument, that YouTube does not pay $10,000 for the same video, or ones like it.
Now, the content creator gets less money than they would have before.
It's almost like content creators have already done this calculus, and concluded that the best way to create content is to promote things.
It's funny to me when someone is like, "Why doesn't YouTube do X," and then they answer their own question, but then they still act like it's weird that YouTube doesn't do that thing.
Sponsors don't pay a fixed amount to creators. They pay for (estimated) views.
What I'm proposing is exactly, 100% symmetric to how advertisers who pay Google for YouTube ad placement are already treated -- they pay for views, and YouTube can and does choose to not show those ads to some users, those who pay for Premium. Is that unfair for the ad buyers? Sure, if you squint right… but they're not being deprived something they paid for, they're just not being offered the option to put in ads in front of that particular market.
Before Youtube Premium, I would have said the same thing about blocking first-party ads in YouTube. It was weird they didn't do that thing. And then they did it. So now it's not weird I guess?
What I'm proposing is exactly, 100% symmetric to how advertisers who pay Google for YouTube ad placement are already treated -- they pay for views, and YouTube can and does choose to not show those ads to some users, those who pay for Premium. Is that unfair for the ad buyers? Sure, if you squint right… but they're not being deprived something they paid for, they're just not being offered the option to put in ads in front of that particular market.
Before Youtube Premium, I would have said the same thing about blocking first-party ads in YouTube. It was weird they didn't do that thing. And then they did it. So now it's not weird I guess?
> Sponsors don't pay a fixed amount to creators. They pay for (estimated) views.
This can't be right, I've seen many videos from creators that say the opposite, it is a fixed amount per contract which can be one or more videos. Maybe it is different with creators that have more than 1M subscribers.
This can't be right, I've seen many videos from creators that say the opposite, it is a fixed amount per contract which can be one or more videos. Maybe it is different with creators that have more than 1M subscribers.
The estimation is on the front end of the contract, not the back end -- the amount offered to a creator whose videos average 10M views is 10x than what is offered to one whose videos average 1M views, in general. If you think about it from the advertiser's point of view, this is the only sane way to manage the risk of a video going viral and exceeding expected number of views, while still providing a reasonably constant valuation of a view event.
You're correct, for at least a large fraction of the sponsored videos I've ever seen.
I don’t mind the promotional/sponsorship content in the Youtube channels I follow. Some people make them funny, and others are smaller so I don’t mind supporting them. Also, they’re always 100% skippable simply by scrubbing forward past them (which isn’t always the case with Youtube-injected preroll ads). That said, I don’t know how offensive these are across the entire Youtube landscape, and I could see them being a nuisance.
Have you tried SponsorBlock? It basically allows auto-skipping of all that fluff.
That's why i'm happy with SmartTubeNext with Sponsorblock on Android TV.
I too am a fan of YouTube Premium, but the sponsored ads in videos are starting to devalue it. Some creators, especially those with longer videos, have sponsored ads that pop up every 10 minute; they are rather annoying, especially when you're specifically paying not see ads.
I started using the Sponserblock[1] chrome plugin, and it's been great. It automatically skips over all promotion segments, while giving you an easy option to still watch them ad-hoc if you prefer.
[1]https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-for-y...
[1]https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sponsorblock-for-y...
If you are on the family plan, they announced in October the price will increase for the US to $22.99 starting in April
They should ditch Youtube Original to cut cost and avoiding raises for a while.
> grandfathered price doesn't change
... and you get cost of living salary increases at the same time, right? Sadly a market oriented economy just doesn't work this way.
... and you get cost of living salary increases at the same time, right? Sadly a market oriented economy just doesn't work this way.
Why shouldn't your grandfathered price change? I know it's nice and all but do you not think Google has rising costs?
Enjoy the recent added queue feature as well. There's a few products add they could make to keep it a killer product.
The price just increased, and it was already insane compared to any streaming services (e.g. Netflix)
What is your grandfathered price?
If they're like me, I signed up for Google Play Music in the beta back in 2013 and am locked in at $7.99 USD, with full YT/YTM Premium.
It's the major reason why I'm still subscribed.
It's the major reason why I'm still subscribed.
Mine is $10.73
Same! Please do not change it!
Looks like youtube premium just gives you no ads and allows for video downloads. Which you already can get using ublock and youtube-dl if you're watching from a computer. People who are big fans of youtube premium is it because you're using youtube mostly on mobile device, or is there some other advantage here I'm missing?
It gives me no ads on mobile (both OSs), PC browser (without worrying about pre-roll or banner ads sneaking through a filter that breaks), Chromecast (without dealing with a pi-hole), and the knowledge that my spouse isn't having to deal with ads either (she wouldn't mind enough otherwise to deal with extensions), plus downloads on all those platforms, and background play without using an unofficial app. And it does that all while giving a bigger cut of money to people who make the videos than they would get even if I watched the ads.
Downloads and no ads on my mobile device (so I can listen while running) and on Roku on my TV. It also allows you to play videos with the phone screen off, which I don't think the free plan does.
A collage of corporate platforms that together limit what you can do to extract more value from you. Beautiful.
(I.e., you can't use uBlock Origin or youtube-dl on mobile devices and TVs easily, and that's the way they want it.)
(I.e., you can't use uBlock Origin or youtube-dl on mobile devices and TVs easily, and that's the way they want it.)
Having the YouTube on the TV without ads is my personal favorite feature.
I was big time addicted to youtube for a while starting around 2010, mostly bc the recommended videos were so good and content that was uploaded was more raw and silly then now. But at some point the recommendations got really bad, so much so that it made it a lot less enjoyable. I miss those days.
10 minute minimum length for monetization killed short good content. There's still good content, but it doesnt respect your time.
Now they're pushing shorts, which are (in my opinion) too short to convey all the relevant info. Not sure how monetization works with shorts, since I use an adblock, but 50%+ of my subscription feed is shorts on some days and it suck (for me personally)
if the adblock you're using is ublock origin then you can add this to your filters to block shorts on the homepage
www.youtube.com##.ytd-rich-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-rich-shelf-renderer.style-scope
there's probably more filters to block shorts in other places like the suggestions sidebar if you look for them, but i have the sidebar disabled completely so the above filter was enough for me
www.youtube.com##.ytd-rich-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-rich-shelf-renderer.style-scope
there's probably more filters to block shorts in other places like the suggestions sidebar if you look for them, but i have the sidebar disabled completely so the above filter was enough for me
Seriously. I've seen videos with two minutes of very interesting content and 8 minutes of fluff. It's so frustrating.
ironically enough Patreon brought it back a bit. At least for the biggest animators and short form creators. YT is a great advertising platform for certain channels and kinds of content.
YT shorts I guess is their solution to that... Still not a big fan and I hear the rates paid to yourubers is horrible.
YT shorts I guess is their solution to that... Still not a big fan and I hear the rates paid to yourubers is horrible.
Same here, it's really hard to get "lost" in YouTube nowadays
arguably, this is a good thing
In what way? Getting "lost" on youtube just meant following your interests until it strayed far away from the original video. Jumping video to video was fairly similar to "surfing" the web by jumping hyperlink to hyperlink.
Now it feels like Youtube controls the tide towards some fixed direction outside of the user control, which is frankly really boring. It's almost like the opposite of TickTock if comparing to other platforms.
Now it feels like Youtube controls the tide towards some fixed direction outside of the user control, which is frankly really boring. It's almost like the opposite of TickTock if comparing to other platforms.
What could the argument against seeing more things, and thus more ads, possibly be?
Same here. I assumed there was less good content being made on YT. Or is it that the recommendation engine has gotten worse?
I remember having good recommendations from various channels which I subscribed to. Now if I watch a new video for 5 minutes, my feed is flooded with those new contents and strangers.
For goodness's sake, I just want to view contents from my subscription, not taste changer.
For goodness's sake, I just want to view contents from my subscription, not taste changer.
Can I get my dislike button back now? Youtube has been a significantly worse place since that.
I've been using the Return YouTube Dislike extension[0] for a couple of weeks now and it seems to be working surprisingly well (due to the relatively large user base probably, surprised it hasn't been mentioned here). It uses a combination of dislike data of other users of the extension combined with data from older videos which still have dislike count accessible through the API.
And yeah, hiding the dislike count was an extremely weird/annoying move, given that it was a good quality indicator which is now completely gone. It doesn't matter if a video has 1M likes if it has 3M dislikes, in which case it probably sucks. Nor are you misled to believe a video with only 3k likes is bad if it doesn't have more than 22 dislikes.
As with everything you should keep context in mind. For example if you're watching a video on a political topic (or by a controversial character) then the ratio will be more even, even for high quality videos. But the point is: Give the user the information, don't assume they are dumb.
[0] Links for Chrome/Firefox/etc: https://returnyoutubedislike.com/install
And yeah, hiding the dislike count was an extremely weird/annoying move, given that it was a good quality indicator which is now completely gone. It doesn't matter if a video has 1M likes if it has 3M dislikes, in which case it probably sucks. Nor are you misled to believe a video with only 3k likes is bad if it doesn't have more than 22 dislikes.
As with everything you should keep context in mind. For example if you're watching a video on a political topic (or by a controversial character) then the ratio will be more even, even for high quality videos. But the point is: Give the user the information, don't assume they are dumb.
[0] Links for Chrome/Firefox/etc: https://returnyoutubedislike.com/install
Have you downloaded the extension that brings that back?
how is it worse? I had the same initial reaction to the announcement of the change but I can't say I've noticed a difference.
It makes scam videos virtually unidentifiable.
Example: https://youtu.be/XS-r2Vpkxas
Depend on how big of a fish you are for the ccp to fry, this can be a matter of life and death.
Example: https://youtu.be/XS-r2Vpkxas
Depend on how big of a fish you are for the ccp to fry, this can be a matter of life and death.
When people have an emotional fondness for a 'brand', that fondness can blind them to its faults. Cognitive dissonance makes it difficult for people to hold views such as "Roman Polanski is both a gross person and a brilliant director" or "Eminem's lyrics were witty, but their cultural influence was unhealthy" and so on.
People love Youtube because Youtube had the financial resources to store more video than any other service, and people love videos.
Youtube itself is a shitshow, famous for hosting the largest collection of low-quality comments on the planet – and Wojcicki has been okay with that. A better calibre of human being would have fixed Youtube – or resigned trying – years ago (eg: 2015, when Youtube became world's largest and most effective extremist recruitment service).
Wojcicki's best asset was perhaps an ability to keep her name out of the tech news cycle, and that's probably because 'Wojcicki' is difficult to spell more than any personal talent.
Youtube is great inasmuch as videos are great, but almost any other tech company would have been a better steward of humanity's video archive.
So my view is: Fantastic! I will not miss her – in fact I'll ride a wave of endorphins from this news all week.
People love Youtube because Youtube had the financial resources to store more video than any other service, and people love videos.
Youtube itself is a shitshow, famous for hosting the largest collection of low-quality comments on the planet – and Wojcicki has been okay with that. A better calibre of human being would have fixed Youtube – or resigned trying – years ago (eg: 2015, when Youtube became world's largest and most effective extremist recruitment service).
Wojcicki's best asset was perhaps an ability to keep her name out of the tech news cycle, and that's probably because 'Wojcicki' is difficult to spell more than any personal talent.
Youtube is great inasmuch as videos are great, but almost any other tech company would have been a better steward of humanity's video archive.
So my view is: Fantastic! I will not miss her – in fact I'll ride a wave of endorphins from this news all week.
Hopefully, the "stop showing me this ad" feature gets fixed. I'm tired of always being presented with an ad for the "Dixie Store". No, I don't want to shop for Confederate flags and other garbage.
Why not use an ad blocker? There's no incentive for them to fix it.
Ad blockers have never worked for me on YouTube.
Ad blockers work for youtube, try other ones.
I'm tired of the ads asking "Are you gay? Take this 10-minute quiz!"
Or alcohol ads when you have given up the juice.
Amazing reason to use an adblocker
Oooof. You may be able to disable that in googles ad choices setting. Assuming you have a google account.
To get there, when you see a youtube add, there should be some text in the bottom right, "Ad 1 of 2" and then an information icon, click that. and scroll down the popup and you should see "ad settings"
If you don't have an account then I'd really recommend an ad blocker in this circumstance.
To get there, when you see a youtube add, there should be some text in the bottom right, "Ad 1 of 2" and then an information icon, click that. and scroll down the popup and you should see "ad settings"
If you don't have an account then I'd really recommend an ad blocker in this circumstance.
Youtube ads in general are so bad. 25% of them are literal jumping off points for scams and there is no way to report them (there is kind of a way but its convoluted and stupid).
She is the last exec I expected to step down.
YouTube vastly improved in the recent years. If there's anyone who should step down, it's Sundar. What an uninspiring leader.
YouTube vastly improved in the recent years. If there's anyone who should step down, it's Sundar. What an uninspiring leader.
> YouTube vastly improved in the recent years.
Can you explain how?
From my perspective, the platform is still struggling to get the basics right : lots of spam in the comments, recommendation is meh at best, some videos are hard to find even when typing the exact title in the search bar and I can go on and on.
Can you explain how?
From my perspective, the platform is still struggling to get the basics right : lots of spam in the comments, recommendation is meh at best, some videos are hard to find even when typing the exact title in the search bar and I can go on and on.
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I really hate youtube shorts. Can I completely turn them off? And whose idea was that??
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I don't really mind that they added a new interface for viewing short videos. Buy what I don't like is that when I get linked to the new player it is lacking tons of features for no apparent upside (you can work around this by manually fixing the URL) and your can't play then via Chromecast (but old vertical videos not tagged #shorts work perfectly fine).
Sure, add a browser for short vertical videos. But don't ruin the existing experience for no reason.
Sure, add a browser for short vertical videos. But don't ruin the existing experience for no reason.
There are extensions which will convert shorts into the regular UI, you should be able to find one through Google.
+1
I pay a premium subscription to not see ads, and I wish were able to disable shorts as well.
I pay a premium subscription to not see ads, and I wish were able to disable shorts as well.
It was the idea of all the people that gave TikTok so much watch time.
Reading through the comments the audience seems very split between lovers and haters.
At the end Susan managed to have a product on the market that was number 1 in its category, created revenue and has survived for so long. I think she deserve a fair amount of respect and acknowledgement, ad I have not seen any other platform with that track record (yep no time for envy, just hard facts).
At the end Susan managed to have a product on the market that was number 1 in its category, created revenue and has survived for so long. I think she deserve a fair amount of respect and acknowledgement, ad I have not seen any other platform with that track record (yep no time for envy, just hard facts).
Maybe I need to read more, but I have yet to hear a positive comment, just neutral "nothing will really change" sorts of comments.
I subscribe to that thought. One CEO isn't doing as much damage to a product this big as people thought. The dislike feature isn't coming back nor any other engineering feature that affected users.
I subscribe to that thought. One CEO isn't doing as much damage to a product this big as people thought. The dislike feature isn't coming back nor any other engineering feature that affected users.
my suggestions:
1. make dislikes visible
2. no more covid warnings/disclaimers on content. Public health is important, but this beyond the scope or role of youtube. If the CDC, WHO etc. want to buy YouTube ads warning of covid misinformation, they can do so, and can afford to.
3. do more about accounts being hacked and repurposed for elon musk livestream scams
4. fewer ads, or no more 15 second ads. The max length should be 10 seconds, and no more than a single ad at a time, instead of having two ads back-to-back.
1. make dislikes visible
2. no more covid warnings/disclaimers on content. Public health is important, but this beyond the scope or role of youtube. If the CDC, WHO etc. want to buy YouTube ads warning of covid misinformation, they can do so, and can afford to.
3. do more about accounts being hacked and repurposed for elon musk livestream scams
4. fewer ads, or no more 15 second ads. The max length should be 10 seconds, and no more than a single ad at a time, instead of having two ads back-to-back.
Regarding warnings/disclaimers on content, I find genuinely helpful ones are far more palatable than censorship. I think Twitter's Community Notes is a great example of this.
From what I've seen, YouTubers are concerned about their videos getting censored or demonetized to a degree that indicates YouTube are being far too heavy handed.
From what I've seen, YouTubers are concerned about their videos getting censored or demonetized to a degree that indicates YouTube are being far too heavy handed.
I wonder if demonetization practices caused youtube to bleed creators.
There was so much drama around youtubers and how youtube treated them.
I guess Youtube must always obey its advertisers.
There was so much drama around youtubers and how youtube treated them.
I guess Youtube must always obey its advertisers.
Due to demonitization some types of videos (especially political, "current affairs", medical, anything (even comedy) using curse words, etc.) almost always get demonetized and many people have stopped such content since it's not worth it. During covid times it was so bad, that even mentioning "covid" in a video got some of them demonetized (even in non-medical context, eg. "shippments from china got delayed due to covid").
Yes, I wonder how we went from "9/11 never forget" to "Don't even mention the subject if you want to keep earning money for your effort in creating content" [1].
YouTube is weird when it comes to completely arbitrary demonetization (and the absolutely braindead idea of removing the downvote counter) because it's one of the rare plateform that get so much negative goodwill from content creator who depends on it to make some money.
[1] One famous french Youtubeur, "Joueur du Grenier" has to playfully bypass the subject by joking that "Nothing whatsoever happened between the 10th and the 12th September" while showing 2 plastic bottles being hit by paper airplane and then crumbling. He originally put real images of 9/11 while describing the early 00's zeitgeist, but had to do that instead since it caused the video to not be sent to subscribers (or demonetized to oblivion, I forgot which)
YouTube is weird when it comes to completely arbitrary demonetization (and the absolutely braindead idea of removing the downvote counter) because it's one of the rare plateform that get so much negative goodwill from content creator who depends on it to make some money.
[1] One famous french Youtubeur, "Joueur du Grenier" has to playfully bypass the subject by joking that "Nothing whatsoever happened between the 10th and the 12th September" while showing 2 plastic bottles being hit by paper airplane and then crumbling. He originally put real images of 9/11 while describing the early 00's zeitgeist, but had to do that instead since it caused the video to not be sent to subscribers (or demonetized to oblivion, I forgot which)
I honestly think YouTube could have stood up to the advertisers... I also think it was way overblown. Too many people got caught in the crosshairs.
>I honestly think YouTube could have stood up to the advertisers.
No, YouTube was looking for an excuse to clean house. Advertisers have had the tools to stop their ads from appearing per video type for a long time now, so the claim that "it's the advertisers" was obvious misinformation.
>Too many people got caught in the crosshairs.
And yet, YouTube has yet to be dethroned; seems to be working fine for them.
No, YouTube was looking for an excuse to clean house. Advertisers have had the tools to stop their ads from appearing per video type for a long time now, so the claim that "it's the advertisers" was obvious misinformation.
>Too many people got caught in the crosshairs.
And yet, YouTube has yet to be dethroned; seems to be working fine for them.
Yea, I honestly don't doubt it.
I've had a rep lie straight to my face telling me demonetized content didn't affect the recommendation of the video. Everyone knew it was a lie but they only admitted it years later.
I've had a rep lie straight to my face telling me demonetized content didn't affect the recommendation of the video. Everyone knew it was a lie but they only admitted it years later.
Using YouTube is physically painful. I am pretty sure if I was at risk of heart problems, I would be advised to avoid YouTube. it's UX is fatal. it raise blood pressure almost instantly and it has the feature set of a vaporware product demonstration as far as sort and search is concerned. it's like YouTube decided to make a point of removing all useful search and sort functionality and make sure it was nothing but a glorified vending machine arm serving up 'chances' to find what you are looking for while being bombarded worst than minesweeper on extreme difficulty.
Oh yes, search is the worse.
They inserted a few widets with unrelated videos ("People also watched", "Previously watched", etc.) after the first 5 results and you have to scroll through multiple pages to get to the next search results.
They inserted a few widets with unrelated videos ("People also watched", "Previously watched", etc.) after the first 5 results and you have to scroll through multiple pages to get to the next search results.
YouTube recommendations have always sucked for me. But ever since Shorts was released, I constantly get amazing science channel shorts that are usually bite sized chemistry or physics experiments. I'm really enjoying them. Not sure how they even came to be recommended to me because I was never one to search for them before.
Kids have it so good these days.
Kids have it so good these days.
Maybe they learned from TikTok? What matters most is what people watch from beginning to end, not what people "like and subscribe" to. Short videos are an easier signal for this than 1-20min+ videos.
That is definitely the case.
I guess I was thinking more in terms of how the recommendations just one day populated with cool science content for no obvious reason in a format (shorts) that works so well.
I guess I was thinking more in terms of how the recommendations just one day populated with cool science content for no obvious reason in a format (shorts) that works so well.
That crazy push for 10min and longer videos was a sole reason why tiktok happened.
I still remember that there used to be short and super informative videos before but now everything is so stretched out with low info density
I still remember that there used to be short and super informative videos before but now everything is so stretched out with low info density
God, I wondered why these youtubers can't stop with the super long introductions, walkarounds to tell us something basic that could be explained in 2-3 minutes TOPS.
Yeah, lot of noise added. Reminds of those content mill articles that dance around the subject/question for 80% of the length of the article just to keep you for longer and increase the chance of clicking an ad.
It has to be long for you to get any ad revenue, I thought?
I think twitter killing vine was the real moment that brought us tik tok. It was like the digg exodus to reddit but way bigger. Everyone thought twitter was dumb for cancelling one of the most popular social networks out there for no good reason, and what do you know, the market proved this was dumb when tencent came in with their vine clone and became bigger than twitter ever was.
That was a remarkably bad call and huge fuck up. The weirdest thing is I think all my older gen-X colleagues are the ones that could've told you that. They were the ones who had kids old enough to be on music-Ly or whatever that got bought by TikTok. I as a lowly millennial had no idea what they were talking about at first but whatever it was had all the signs of a viral success with their kids.
Wasnt there like a 10 year gap between the two? It's clear Vine left a gap that TikTok filled but it's wasnt like one shut down and the next started right away... Rgiht?
TikTok launched in 2016, about 4 months before Vine shut down, although it wasn't immediately available worldwide. Musical.ly, the precursor to TikTok which then merged with it, launched in 2014.
I think you are being disingenuous. It wasnt widely available or popular until 2018.
Saying that Musical.ly, a Chinese based lip syncing service, was where everyone went after Vine, a USA based short video service, closed down in 2016 is quite the stretch.
I said 10 years which was an exaggeration but TikTok may be the spiritual successor to Vine but TikTok didnt even exist in the country where the majority of Vines users existed until two years later.
I guess you could say there was a exodus from Vine, users wandered around in a desert for two years, and then finally arrived at the promised land, TikTok...
Saying that Musical.ly, a Chinese based lip syncing service, was where everyone went after Vine, a USA based short video service, closed down in 2016 is quite the stretch.
I said 10 years which was an exaggeration but TikTok may be the spiritual successor to Vine but TikTok didnt even exist in the country where the majority of Vines users existed until two years later.
I guess you could say there was a exodus from Vine, users wandered around in a desert for two years, and then finally arrived at the promised land, TikTok...
Was Vine ever that popular outside of US? I've almost never heard of Vine in France.
TikTok is worldwide.
TikTok is worldwide.
I remember some of the best youtube content I've seen was less than 10 minutes in length, like short animations and other content which took a lot of time to produce in small amounts.
It's still out there, it's just harder to find. YouTube also doesn't want to send it to my subscriptions inbox so I now prefer NewPipe which actually shows me what each channel posts.
Khan academy videos are one of the best examples for this.
This is exactly right. Youtube has been trying so hard to turn itself into a tv network. Tiktok (for now) is a classic disrupter and has had tremendous success by making something great that people liked. Vine is the more embarassing failure, but YouTube is a close second. For those who dismis tiktok without even trying it, it is hard to convey how fun, interesting, and surprising it can be.
i'm not sure if vine was a true failure. the only difference i see between that and tiktok is the focus on music and the less rigid length requirement.
the users loved vine and it's still quoted in tiktoks
i think it's because china is able to dump money it was able to take off more
the users loved vine and it's still quoted in tiktoks
i think it's because china is able to dump money it was able to take off more
> i'm not sure if vine was a true failure
it isn’t around anymore.
it isn’t around anymore.
Google Reader wasn't a failure, but it's also not around any more.
Sometimes companies shutter successful products.
Sometimes companies shutter successful products.
Does TikTok make a profit though?
Is it required to? It's effectively Chinese government owned, right?
Exactly. Not all profits are dollars.
There is quite some value in longer videos.
However there seems to be a thing that you need 10 minutes for monetisation, so people stretch content not needing much time to those 10 minutes ...
However there seems to be a thing that you need 10 minutes for monetisation, so people stretch content not needing much time to those 10 minutes ...
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We can all hate Youtube here for sure but when you listen to for example Linus from LTT he is very adamant that while youtube does have it's fair share of problems, when it comes to compensating creators fairly on their platform, they are much better than almost all others.
And I personally enjoy Youtube very much. So much great content for free. If I need to learn about something i find myself looking into youtube first quite often.
And I personally enjoy Youtube very much. So much great content for free. If I need to learn about something i find myself looking into youtube first quite often.
OTOH they are a snake eating themselves. At one point they were the webs repository for videos. Now things are built specifically for it, and its constraints. 90 second viral videos don't play well anymore. People don't show up nd upload two videos with a million hits and never post again anymore. It's screwy now. Everything is of a certain length to fit with advertising expectations. Things are all shot in the same uniform style of a talking head over enunciating things in what's probably a paid ad at the end of the day.
I guess that's what is to be expected with a platform over time. the market will optimize conditions until some peak of efficiency is reached, occasionally this will shift to another peak of perhaps even lower or higher efficiency after overcoming some activation energy or in the pretense of some catalyst (like when creators first realized the optimal video length). Its all seemingly thermodynamic in nature.
That being said, it sure gives you rose tinted glasses of those days of a dumb short and funny video of an actual unscripted happenstance, or someone teaching you how to fix something and actually pointing the camera at that something instead of their own face. It's like the stakes were lower and egos were nonexistent back then, and everything seemed a little more genuine.
I guess that's what is to be expected with a platform over time. the market will optimize conditions until some peak of efficiency is reached, occasionally this will shift to another peak of perhaps even lower or higher efficiency after overcoming some activation energy or in the pretense of some catalyst (like when creators first realized the optimal video length). Its all seemingly thermodynamic in nature.
That being said, it sure gives you rose tinted glasses of those days of a dumb short and funny video of an actual unscripted happenstance, or someone teaching you how to fix something and actually pointing the camera at that something instead of their own face. It's like the stakes were lower and egos were nonexistent back then, and everything seemed a little more genuine.
If you have a large channel sure, but they cut off smaller creators a while back with their new monetization requirements.
Agreed. I would not be where I am in life today without the skills and knowledge I learned from YouTube. I am a huge fan of the way they compensate creators and align their incentives with creators' incentives, and generally just very pleased with the product they provide. I pay for Premium and it's the best monthly subscription I have imo — the sheer quantity of expertly-produced content on YT is unparalleled, and I've discovered so many new hobbies, interests, and people through it.
I’m not familiar w the compensation mechanism but am part of a YouTube premium family subscription and agree on the overall value.
The content is unparalleled. Home repair is one of my most valued content types on the site.
There are many, many different types of house problems and solutions covered by videos.
Even when you get to something that seemingly has no person describing the problem and fix, you can often get close enough to improvise based on other people’s ideas.
YouTube is a skill building platform. You can save money by becoming more self-reliant.
Despite other comments here, I think the search is quite good. It sometimes ignores keywords but returns the video I _intended_ to seek.
I don’t care for shorts, though and would hide them completely if able.
It would also be good to have relatively anonymous ways to upload video. Sometimes I’ll establish a novel solution and would post the information but wouldn’t want it associated with my identity—or even to monetize it.
The content is unparalleled. Home repair is one of my most valued content types on the site.
There are many, many different types of house problems and solutions covered by videos.
Even when you get to something that seemingly has no person describing the problem and fix, you can often get close enough to improvise based on other people’s ideas.
YouTube is a skill building platform. You can save money by becoming more self-reliant.
Despite other comments here, I think the search is quite good. It sometimes ignores keywords but returns the video I _intended_ to seek.
I don’t care for shorts, though and would hide them completely if able.
It would also be good to have relatively anonymous ways to upload video. Sometimes I’ll establish a novel solution and would post the information but wouldn’t want it associated with my identity—or even to monetize it.
Sure, Youtube is talking handsome faces, and that works very well, like it did for TV back then. But AI will ruin all that because you can't beat it. Youtube had a great run, but it is optional for the future
I wonder how many channels are out there right now that combine a deepfake and a language model? You could probably set up your "influencer" to be running a youtube, instagram, and tiktok campaign all at once, completely automatically with you raking in the passive income from the ads. Maybe run a thousand of these accounts in parallel, targeting all sorts of content. Might as well throw in a twitch and an onlyfans in there too. Maybe have it write its own kickstarter campaigns to pay dev time for you to refactor its code every now and then and add more functionality to the models.
To be honest... good riddance. Her tenure will probably be remembered for YouTube's slowly increasing decline into irrelevancy among the young enamored with TikTok and Instagram, increasing and significant censorship misfires (the moment almost every creator has to mention Content ID and the YouTube algorithm or the community guidelines, you've screwed up), the removal of the dislike button despite overwhelming negative feedback to the change in what appears to have been a method of placating advertisers, and the total butchering of YouTube Rewind into a corporate affair before finally giving up.
Youtube is the top platform for teens, according to pew research.
"YouTube tops the 2022 teen online landscape among the platforms covered in the Center’s new survey, as it is used by 95% of teens. TikTok is next on the list of platforms that were asked about in this survey (67%), followed by Instagram and Snapchat, which are both used by about six-in-ten teens. After those platforms come Facebook with 32% and smaller shares who use Twitter, Twitch, WhatsApp, Reddit and Tumblr."
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social...
"YouTube tops the 2022 teen online landscape among the platforms covered in the Center’s new survey, as it is used by 95% of teens. TikTok is next on the list of platforms that were asked about in this survey (67%), followed by Instagram and Snapchat, which are both used by about six-in-ten teens. After those platforms come Facebook with 32% and smaller shares who use Twitter, Twitch, WhatsApp, Reddit and Tumblr."
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social...
youtube has run its course. it's basically a medium for corporate (read: tv). everything can be disabled and, most importantly, dislikes are globally disabled.
It says Mohan launched 'youtube music' and 'shorts' et al. well, youtube music killed google play music, so not a fan; and shorts are the most recent annoying unfilterable addition to youtube.
ah well.
It says Mohan launched 'youtube music' and 'shorts' et al. well, youtube music killed google play music, so not a fan; and shorts are the most recent annoying unfilterable addition to youtube.
ah well.
this should've the person to get the reigns at google and run google.
however, they got a chrome pm as ceo. and now the company is floundering.
if the youtube CEO made a billion in remuneration, it will be well deserved compared to say some CEO / CPO's eg the recent Coinbase CPO or Mozilla CEO.
however, they got a chrome pm as ceo. and now the company is floundering.
if the youtube CEO made a billion in remuneration, it will be well deserved compared to say some CEO / CPO's eg the recent Coinbase CPO or Mozilla CEO.
It seems to me that YT as a product has vastly improved during her tenure and become an incredibly valuable brand that probably has more value than "Google" at this point. It's facing an existential threat in TikTok and still hanging on. It more or less shoved Vimeo aside. It's definitely moved on a bit from the early days of purely "home video" amateur content to be a real marketplace for professional and aspiring professional content.
Does this mean even more censorship or less?
Considering the lead of the Trust and Safety team is taking over, less is unlikely.
With Wojcicki stepping down, what YouTube executive will be the next one to win the YouTube sponsored Freedom Of Expression Award?
Thank you, Susan, for (maybe?) being responsible for the only case in Big Tech where you can actually pay to not be the product yourself. YouTube Premium is awesome.
Well, you continue to be a product delivering a lot of metrics to the platform beyond the ads you don't see, surely you are optimizing others ads. Not saying YouTube Premium is awesome, though.
Yes, but if they eventually get more revenue from this than ads, the incentives will align more with the user.
It's not likely to happen, but it's not too far fetched either.
It's not likely to happen, but it's not too far fetched either.
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Discussion of her actual announcement at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34821472
Bring back the original founders from UIUC instead?
Cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks.
the only positive thing i can say about the changes during the era under her is that now makers of the videos get to keep a chunk of money if they use a "copyrighted" song. it used to be slurped entirely by the "copyright holder" till recently.
but i also empathize with someone trying to break even from a very expensive-to-run platform.
but i also empathize with someone trying to break even from a very expensive-to-run platform.
Head Censor stepping down.
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google might have a chance to win the LLM battle, to train multi-modal LLM based on youtube videos, which is a huge advantage over Microsoft.
OpenAI's Codex model got the reasoning ability through github. LLM could learn so much more with real-life videos in an embodied way.
OpenAI's Codex model got the reasoning ability through github. LLM could learn so much more with real-life videos in an embodied way.
That would require better speech recognition. Judging by automated subtitles, it's not there yet. And I don't think YouTube videos tend to have better veracity than the web at large.
Maybe YouTube videos can be used to train models on how to verbally present information in a compelling way, but I don't see how it would make an AI better at generating written text.
Maybe YouTube videos can be used to train models on how to verbally present information in a compelling way, but I don't see how it would make an AI better at generating written text.
> That would require better speech recognition
No, I mean ML can recognize real-world objects like human eyes do. They have a raw, direct understanding of the visual "world", an alternative to parse the world facts only by texts.
No, I mean ML can recognize real-world objects like human eyes do. They have a raw, direct understanding of the visual "world", an alternative to parse the world facts only by texts.
Ok. I don't pay for YT Premium. I mostly watch streamers and documentaries on Youtube. I find the recommends are perfect. You do have to "train" it, though.
Discovery sucks on it, I feel like walking into an echo chamber everytime I go in
what platform is not an echo chamber?
For example, if you don't want to read tangentially related pet peeves every time bigtechco is in the news, you stop coming to HN. You stop coming to HN, and only complainers are left.
For example, if you don't want to read tangentially related pet peeves every time bigtechco is in the news, you stop coming to HN. You stop coming to HN, and only complainers are left.
HN is different, it seem separate from the rest of Reddit. The comments are almost always informative without karma farmers popping crowd pleasing jokes
Hopefully the new CEO will give a push for more / better live contents on the platform and for a better navigation structure on the website.
Maybe they can do something about the endless crypto scams about "elon musk projects" that use (really lousy) deep fakes and the same script across dozens of different advertising accounts.
Doubt they will though.
Doubt they will though.
> focus on family
Maybe just wants kids?
Maybe just wants kids?
I'm sorry, what?
Maybe not new ones, but more time with existing ones. Could also just be a firing.
YouTube started out as a site that gave the middle finger to (c)opywrong laws, and it still has that spirit alive, while growing into an incredible resource to learn and grow. It's also damn fast and easy to publish to.
Thank you Susan!
Thank you Susan!
> YouTube started out as a site that gave the middle finger to (c)opywrong laws, and it still has that spirit alive,
no it doesn't has that spirit anymore, channels who get too many copyright strikes get banned.
Why do you even credit "Susan" for any of that? She isn't a Youtube founder, but a pure product of Google culture.
no it doesn't has that spirit anymore, channels who get too many copyright strikes get banned.
Why do you even credit "Susan" for any of that? She isn't a Youtube founder, but a pure product of Google culture.
Hopefully crypto/webniar scam ads stop now
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So much hate for her on all fronts, yet she made the most rewarding media platform today on the internet. Any creator or consumer who has half a brain should realize the magnitude of the feat and how unobvious it is that YouTube exists as it does today.
Rewarding to who? And _she_ made it? To me YT continued its successful streak despite of the poor changes with not much to attribute to people actually making the calls.
Exactly, she was only CEO since 2014. Saying she made YT is laughable, if anything most of the annoying things at YT happened under her reign, from bogus DMCAs to dislike button removal to the force fed YT shorts and so on.
Don't forget having to have a fucking Google+ account. I'm proudly one of the few who spent half a decade being unable to comment or send direct messages because I refused to assent to the Google+ account creation pop-up.
That wasn't under her. Google+ launched in 2011; Salar Kamangar was CEO of YouTube at the time.
Google plus is still "around", it's just not a social media network. A conspiracy theorist would argue it succeeded in its purpose: to unify all accounts under a single Google account banner. Google music, android, YouTube, maps, Gmail, search, drive, etc.
We didn't even notice it happening, like frogs being boiled. E.g. try being anonymous on a fresh Android device now. You can't even access the play store without logging in.
We didn't even notice it happening, like frogs being boiled. E.g. try being anonymous on a fresh Android device now. You can't even access the play store without logging in.
Youtube before 2014 was great, I definitely feel like there was a big decline in quality in both content, the app, and the website since then.
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I disagree. She was the CEO and was clearly not great from the perspective of users, in part because the real customers are advertisers. People who say "um, ok" when a CEO at a user-hostile corporation leaves are not haters. I know there are plenty of actual haters but I don't see "so much hate".
Also from Wikipedia: "YouTube was founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. The trio were early employees of PayPal, which left them enriched after the company was bought by eBay. Hurley had studied design at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign."
Also from Wikipedia: "YouTube was founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. The trio were early employees of PayPal, which left them enriched after the company was bought by eBay. Hurley had studied design at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign."
If you're CEO of such a successful company and are surrounded by smart people, you don't have to be very good to keep the thing running... Any modest person with half a brain could do it.
Getting respect from employees these days is not difficult; most of them are extreme conformists and worship power for its own sake. They will interpret any dumb words out of your mouth as words of wisdom. Even if everything you say is idiotic, they will bend so far as to assume you speak in metaphors.
Getting respect from employees these days is not difficult; most of them are extreme conformists and worship power for its own sake. They will interpret any dumb words out of your mouth as words of wisdom. Even if everything you say is idiotic, they will bend so far as to assume you speak in metaphors.
She did a good job, however, we had to see negative likes removed, a lot of really quality content demonetized, content creators removing words to avoid demonetization, and annoying af discovery algorithms. These were all things that she helped bring about, but that were in keeping with Google's strategy. Removing dislikes is similar to Google's search ads, where Google is happy to show all kinds of crap and it's up to you to filter them out. Caveat emptor.
Still, I think YouTube is better than average for social media. Its censorship of words sucked, but its censorship of ideas wasn't so bad. It was worse on other platforms.
Still, I think YouTube is better than average for social media. Its censorship of words sucked, but its censorship of ideas wasn't so bad. It was worse on other platforms.
YouTube was an acquisition. Susan had zero input in its creation, she was working at Google at the time.
The yt of today and the yt of 2006 are very different services. If anything, Google bought a userbase and a brand name and built its own service from there.
>"yet she made the most rewarding media platform today on the internet."
I think TikTok holds this position, not YouTube. Indeed, YouTube seems to be pushing really hard for Shorts to be a viable competitor but it doesn't seem to be working.
Or, do you mean rewarding in terms of monetization for creators and not engagement?
I think TikTok holds this position, not YouTube. Indeed, YouTube seems to be pushing really hard for Shorts to be a viable competitor but it doesn't seem to be working.
Or, do you mean rewarding in terms of monetization for creators and not engagement?
She didn't build anything. She got Google to buy it.
She didn’t “make” anything. Your average employee working at YouTube did.
Ever heard of Jawed Karim?
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I always saw her as one of the best candidates to become the Twitter CEO. She has the industry credence, and the experience of leading and making both google ads and YouTube successful (the two parts that Twitter needs help with).
I wonder if Elon Musk would notice.
I wonder if Elon Musk would notice.
I think there's some conflict in their philosophies on free speech.
It would be ironic if Twitter turned into a graveyard for former Googlers, considering how many of them have been shut out from ever working at Google again/being rehired by the company end of their respective non-compete periods.
>considering how many of them have been shut out from ever working at Google again/being rehired by the company end of their respective non-compete periods.
Is this because of layoffs or something else happening? I would think that mass layoffs would still allow eligibility for rehire down the road?
Is this because of layoffs or something else happening? I would think that mass layoffs would still allow eligibility for rehire down the road?
- increasingly ignores your search keywords, instead shoving unrelated stuff at you
- removed ability to sort videos by date
- removed dislikes
what else.....youtube UX has being getting worse for a few years.
- removed ability to sort videos by date
- removed dislikes
what else.....youtube UX has being getting worse for a few years.
Fear not! Just serve more ads before and between every video! Sacrifice your user at the altar of advertisers and all will be fine in the world.
YouTube is almost unwatchable. The show I’m viewing now has an ad every minute or so. I don’t see how they will survive another few years. They’ve literally angered their user base to the point of abandoning the platform.
There’s no alternative (though Tik Tok certainly is doing a decent job of taking all the short content). I think it would be a gangbuster opportunity for Apple to integrate user created content into Apple TV. They don’t need to rely on ad revenue, and similar to Microsoft kneecapping Google with ChatGPT, it would be a great opportunity for Apple to further hurt Google by winning longer form video content and driving advertisers away from YouTube.
But I am not sure Apple has the stomach for the controversy that often surrounds user generated content. Maybe Facebook would be the better competitor, though they are as beholden to advertisers as Google.
All I know is that it will take a massively well financed group that can sustain the server costs of video streaming with most of it generating zero revenue.
But I am not sure Apple has the stomach for the controversy that often surrounds user generated content. Maybe Facebook would be the better competitor, though they are as beholden to advertisers as Google.
All I know is that it will take a massively well financed group that can sustain the server costs of video streaming with most of it generating zero revenue.
why is it apple's goal to "hurt Google"?
With MSFT it's obvious that Satya is trying to distract a competitor in cloud, but chatgpt is hardly going to "kneecap" Google. Satya is hyping it with all the credibility of a used car salesman. There's zero evidence that LLMs are going to finally make Microsoft capable of launching a competitive search service.
With MSFT it's obvious that Satya is trying to distract a competitor in cloud, but chatgpt is hardly going to "kneecap" Google. Satya is hyping it with all the credibility of a used car salesman. There's zero evidence that LLMs are going to finally make Microsoft capable of launching a competitive search service.
> why is it apple's goal to "hurt Google"?
I can’t tell if you are trolling. Google develops Android which is the primary competitor to Apple’s biggest product. If Google loses revenue it weakens its ability to compete. This directly benefits Apple.
> With MSFT it's obvious that Satya is trying to distract a competitor in cloud, but chatgpt is hardly going to "kneecap" Google. Satya is hyping it with all the credibility of a used car salesman. There's zero evidence that LLMs are going to finally make Microsoft capable of launching a competitive search service.
All the reporting on this seems to be consistent that Google is freaked out about ChatGPT, rushed its announcement of Bard, etc etc. So I guess you could have the opinion that ChatGPT isn’t a threat, but I think it is obvious you would be in the minority. No one knows for sure of course, but the smart money, and Google itself, seem to think it is a major threat.
I can’t tell if you are trolling. Google develops Android which is the primary competitor to Apple’s biggest product. If Google loses revenue it weakens its ability to compete. This directly benefits Apple.
> With MSFT it's obvious that Satya is trying to distract a competitor in cloud, but chatgpt is hardly going to "kneecap" Google. Satya is hyping it with all the credibility of a used car salesman. There's zero evidence that LLMs are going to finally make Microsoft capable of launching a competitive search service.
All the reporting on this seems to be consistent that Google is freaked out about ChatGPT, rushed its announcement of Bard, etc etc. So I guess you could have the opinion that ChatGPT isn’t a threat, but I think it is obvious you would be in the minority. No one knows for sure of course, but the smart money, and Google itself, seem to think it is a major threat.
You can't afford $9 a month or whatever it is to remove the ads? What other service are you planning to use instead that has no ads and no subscription fee?
You can only hide the SUGGESTED SHORTS section temporarily, they pop up again like a nasty smell every week or so.
Worse for power users seeking specific things.
Better for advertisers looking to push non-sense to toddler-level users.
Better for advertisers looking to push non-sense to toddler-level users.
I've no use for the dislike button in YouTube ("never show me this channel again" is more useful) but its search/sort functions are getting increasingly broken.
I am personally completely unable to understand the decision to remove the ability for me to search a youtuber's videos. I didn't even know this was something a video website could take away!
Is that specific to the app? I still see the video search inside the web UI for each creator's page.
hmm I'm going to admit my mistake here.
It does exist but it's hidden in the tabs. My m1 mac screen is not large enough to show the search icon which I must click on the right chevron icon to see as it's on the far right.
I'm glad it's there but it wasn't always like this. I wonder if I'm just an idiot (totally possible), a dark pattern, or just a bad UI change.
It does exist but it's hidden in the tabs. My m1 mac screen is not large enough to show the search icon which I must click on the right chevron icon to see as it's on the far right.
I'm glad it's there but it wasn't always like this. I wonder if I'm just an idiot (totally possible), a dark pattern, or just a bad UI change.
Worse for whom? Everything you listed is favourable for cutting costs and pleasing/attracting advertisers[1]. There are not a lot of alternatives to YouTube, certainly nothing with the same size of audience, so squeezing the users and creators to improve revenue makes business sense.
YouTube users are the product being sold, not the customers.
[1] The recent crackdown on swearing falls in the same category.
YouTube users are the product being sold, not the customers.
[1] The recent crackdown on swearing falls in the same category.
I couldn't care 2 shits about the dislike gauge (felt more there to wax the ego of the powerless).
Search as little as I use it is fine. Maybe you just don't have a ton of matching content left to watch, maybe it is worse but this all feels too subjective/situational to speak qualitatively about.
Sort by date of me is only really relevant in a creators page, and the "uploads" stream is always by date recent to oldest, so profits?
The only thing that has significantly gotten worse over the years is their ridiculous increase in ad placement throughout videos. I'm guessing you block ads or have premium because it HAS to be the #1 most hated change in YouTube over the past few years.
Search as little as I use it is fine. Maybe you just don't have a ton of matching content left to watch, maybe it is worse but this all feels too subjective/situational to speak qualitatively about.
Sort by date of me is only really relevant in a creators page, and the "uploads" stream is always by date recent to oldest, so profits?
The only thing that has significantly gotten worse over the years is their ridiculous increase in ad placement throughout videos. I'm guessing you block ads or have premium because it HAS to be the #1 most hated change in YouTube over the past few years.
You can still sort a search by date...
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Dear Youtube: Please please please have an option to filter out "shorts" on the web version.
None of the normal controls exist: playback speed, jump to position, etc. The desktop web interface is a terrible place for these.
None of the normal controls exist: playback speed, jump to position, etc. The desktop web interface is a terrible place for these.
Behind the scenes the shorts are just normal YouTube videos. You can change the /shorts/ to /watch?v= in the URL and they work fine.
There are addons to do this redirect automatically, but I haven't bothered.
Why they force the terrible UI on desktop is beyond me though.
There are addons to do this redirect automatically, but I haven't bothered.
Why they force the terrible UI on desktop is beyond me though.
I use an extension to remove them - no affiliation but it seems to work. Chrome: "No YouTube Shorts". Between that, a plugin to remove already watched videos and my ad blocker, youtube is a way better experience!
I use Remove YouTube Suggestions: <https://lawrencehook.com/rys/> It has settings for a lot of customizations, including removing shorts. (You can keep suggestions if you want to.)
You can remove Shorts with this uBlock Origin script https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-shorts
I'd like the option to filter out cable tv news designed to emotionally outrage from my recommendations.
I'm well aware there is a land war in Europe right now, when I turn on the TV at 6pm on a Thursday to watch cooking videos I don't need reminders pushed in my face.
Out of all the issues with youtube, this is probably the one that has the most real negative cognitive impact for me.
I'm well aware there is a land war in Europe right now, when I turn on the TV at 6pm on a Thursday to watch cooking videos I don't need reminders pushed in my face.
Out of all the issues with youtube, this is probably the one that has the most real negative cognitive impact for me.
Lot of replies to this describing hacks/workarounds/scripts for something that should really just be an option in the official interface. I get that this is hackernews and everyone's just trying to be helpful, but I'm sick of needing to do work on my end to work around crap UI decisions.
As a stopgap, you can use a URL redirector:
Redirect: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/*
to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$1[deleted]
Positives:
* Presided over a vast increase in revenue, from $4 to $29 billion
* Steered the ship through a number of content controversies
* Anecdotally, the brand value of YouTube remains good
* YouTube Premium seems to have good uptake
* Presided over enormous cost savings with custom encoder hardware
* Few major technical outages, good streaming performance generally
* Relationships with advertisers and content creators generally remain good
Negatives:
* Missed the Twitch/streaming wave
* Missed the TikTok, short video wave
* YouTube Originals flopped (partly bc they didn't commit hard enough, not like Netflix or Amazon)
* Overall low user experience - slow/complex website and apps
* Issues for content creators - overly aggressive ContentID, not rewarding short but valuable videos enough (indie animation), opaque demonetization rules
* No shrinking of the algorithmic filter bubble
* Presided over a vast increase in revenue, from $4 to $29 billion
* Steered the ship through a number of content controversies
* Anecdotally, the brand value of YouTube remains good
* YouTube Premium seems to have good uptake
* Presided over enormous cost savings with custom encoder hardware
* Few major technical outages, good streaming performance generally
* Relationships with advertisers and content creators generally remain good
Negatives:
* Missed the Twitch/streaming wave
* Missed the TikTok, short video wave
* YouTube Originals flopped (partly bc they didn't commit hard enough, not like Netflix or Amazon)
* Overall low user experience - slow/complex website and apps
* Issues for content creators - overly aggressive ContentID, not rewarding short but valuable videos enough (indie animation), opaque demonetization rules
* No shrinking of the algorithmic filter bubble
> Overall low user experience
I literally have to wait for 5 seconds for 3 dot menus under videos to load on the main page. It's ridiculous.
I literally have to wait for 5 seconds for 3 dot menus under videos to load on the main page. It's ridiculous.
> * Relationships with advertisers and content creators generally remain good
I'd say this is due to lack of competition and network effects than a good relationship. CuriosityStream, Nebula, and even channels as benign as Linus Tech Tips trying to get Floatplane off the ground show this relationship is far from strong. Your non-edgy creators wouldn't be trying to replace you if they thought you were doing a good job.
I'd say this is due to lack of competition and network effects than a good relationship. CuriosityStream, Nebula, and even channels as benign as Linus Tech Tips trying to get Floatplane off the ground show this relationship is far from strong. Your non-edgy creators wouldn't be trying to replace you if they thought you were doing a good job.
It's not perfect, but it's not terrible either. Millions of creators and billions of users generally have a good experience on YouTube. There's been no "let's try Mastodon" moment.
Funnily enough I really like YouTube shorts. A lot of Tiktokers cross post and because of this I haven’t found a reason to download TikTok.
> I haven’t found a reason to download TikTok
Its a good business. My daughter isn't allowed Tiktok, but youtube comes with every phone and ipad already...
Its a good business. My daughter isn't allowed Tiktok, but youtube comes with every phone and ipad already...
* Missed out on stand up comedy!
Netflix became the comedy powerhouse by, most likely, just looking at what unofficial standup uploads had the most views on YouTube and making appropriate offers.
Netflix became the comedy powerhouse by, most likely, just looking at what unofficial standup uploads had the most views on YouTube and making appropriate offers.
To be fair, Netflix had already built out original programming. YouTube hasn't.
Last I checked there were multiple direct replies to this commenting on how censorship issues weren't mentioned as negative, and now those replies are mysteriously all completely missing, which is about as ironic as you can possibly get. Comments complaining about censorship issues are themselves censored.
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> YouTube Originals flopped
Maybe as a whole, but Cobra Kai was excellent and very popular!
Also, in the long-run, will having "missed" streaming & shorts necessarily be a bad thing? Time will tell.
I wish they never introduced shorts. Why do all platforms need to be everything to everyone? Why can't they focus on just being the best platform for user-created long-form video? I probably know the answer, but it makes me sad that that's the reality we live in.
Maybe as a whole, but Cobra Kai was excellent and very popular!
Also, in the long-run, will having "missed" streaming & shorts necessarily be a bad thing? Time will tell.
I wish they never introduced shorts. Why do all platforms need to be everything to everyone? Why can't they focus on just being the best platform for user-created long-form video? I probably know the answer, but it makes me sad that that's the reality we live in.
Cobra Kai was a huge flop for youtube (missed opportunity?), because they had to sell it off, couldn't keep it going, and to be honest, I'm not sure it would've been great had it stayed there, I enjoyed the first 2 seasons, but Netflix has just gotten better and better, and you can tell from the last youtube season to the first Netflix season how the quality shifted.
Just discovered something very interesting: She is resigning one day after Google received a subpoena from the U.S. House of Representatives demanding answers to questions on censorship of conservative voices, and specifically on content moderation decisions.
Yes, just yesterday. Subpoena to resignation.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-republicans-subpoena...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/02/15/house-r...
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3859762-house-gop-subp...
That's actually a really bad look (pro PR tip: Don't resign immediately after bad press - delay your resignation to avoid association if possible - or, if you know a certain political group doesn't like you and you're planning to retire, maybe resign before they get into power). Particularly important because Twitter is all over that "connection" right now that was pretty unnecessary. It appears that the subpoena was directed at Google, but her resignation means she may not have to personally have to personally testify, as Google could send the new CEO in.
Yes, just yesterday. Subpoena to resignation.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-republicans-subpoena...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/02/15/house-r...
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3859762-house-gop-subp...
That's actually a really bad look (pro PR tip: Don't resign immediately after bad press - delay your resignation to avoid association if possible - or, if you know a certain political group doesn't like you and you're planning to retire, maybe resign before they get into power). Particularly important because Twitter is all over that "connection" right now that was pretty unnecessary. It appears that the subpoena was directed at Google, but her resignation means she may not have to personally have to personally testify, as Google could send the new CEO in.
It's interesting timing but she will still have to testify about all the time she was in charge, resigning doesn't really change anything.
Republicans have been complaining about perceived persecution for years (decades), there's no real Youtube-related news in the fact that they are asking companies about it now that they have a house majority...
There's a dead reply to this calling the phrasing "perceived persecution" "gaslighting" that I think is somewhat interesting for a couple of reasons:
1) It's undeniable that Republicans have been complaining about this shit. It's also something not everyone agrees happens at the level of the complaint. So "perceived" seems like an accurate description of the situation.
2) There's mention of a "strangehold" on journalism from Democrats which is exactly one of the sorts of complaints I was mentioning: but it's also one that seems no truer today than it was when I was hearing it on radio stations 25 years ago. Mainstream media personalities complaining that no personalities like themselves existed in the mainstream media. From Rush on the radio then to today's wave either on cable TV or online, the song remains the same. This is why personally I think the claims of persecution is wildly overblown.
1) It's undeniable that Republicans have been complaining about this shit. It's also something not everyone agrees happens at the level of the complaint. So "perceived" seems like an accurate description of the situation.
2) There's mention of a "strangehold" on journalism from Democrats which is exactly one of the sorts of complaints I was mentioning: but it's also one that seems no truer today than it was when I was hearing it on radio stations 25 years ago. Mainstream media personalities complaining that no personalities like themselves existed in the mainstream media. From Rush on the radio then to today's wave either on cable TV or online, the song remains the same. This is why personally I think the claims of persecution is wildly overblown.
> "perceived" seems like an accurate description of the situation.
Look, I hate all politics and politicians and don't care for one over the other, but I do not understand how anybody can perceive this as a sensible take post twitter-files. It's not perceived, it's indisputably accurate. I get it, I get it, political partisans abound and want to have their tampering ignored, but there should be limits, and this pretty clearly steps over them for anybody paying even the slightest amount of attention.
Look, I hate all politics and politicians and don't care for one over the other, but I do not understand how anybody can perceive this as a sensible take post twitter-files. It's not perceived, it's indisputably accurate. I get it, I get it, political partisans abound and want to have their tampering ignored, but there should be limits, and this pretty clearly steps over them for anybody paying even the slightest amount of attention.
She wasn't subpoenaed, and as a CEO of a multinational, there is always recent bad press you could point to that makes it a "bad time" to resign.
Googling "republicans subpoena sundar" returns similar articles from 2020 and 2018 (such as https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/senate-republicans-vote-to-s... and https://theprint.in/india/governance/google-ceo-sundar-picha...).
Googling "republicans subpoena sundar" returns similar articles from 2020 and 2018 (such as https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/senate-republicans-vote-to-s... and https://theprint.in/india/governance/google-ceo-sundar-picha...).
Wow, that literally doesn't matter at all.
There's absolutely nothing stopping Congress from issuing her a direct subpoena.
There's absolutely nothing stopping Congress from issuing her a direct subpoena.
She's resigning days after a bad quarterly result came out for YouTube, which seems much more likely to be related. I can't imagine the subpoena thing being relevant for a number of reasons:
1) Wojcicki wasn't subpoenated, 2) everyone expected subpoenas to come, and if she wanted to avoid them, it would have been smarter to resign the day before, not the day after, 3) the panels are political theater and aren't based on any sort of evidence or reality, 4) Even if this was a super real issue and Wojcicki sat down and confessed to illegally murdering Republicans on Joe Biden's orders, there would be no consequences, since Democrats control the Senate. The news coverage from both sides would be roughly the same either way.
1) Wojcicki wasn't subpoenated, 2) everyone expected subpoenas to come, and if she wanted to avoid them, it would have been smarter to resign the day before, not the day after, 3) the panels are political theater and aren't based on any sort of evidence or reality, 4) Even if this was a super real issue and Wojcicki sat down and confessed to illegally murdering Republicans on Joe Biden's orders, there would be no consequences, since Democrats control the Senate. The news coverage from both sides would be roughly the same either way.
Not as bad as the look of conservative voices since 2016
Is this a form of synesthesia?
Imagine going through life giving "pro PR tip"s when you're this ignorant of where true power lies.
Tech companies have not feared the US government in decades. They embarrass or ignore US senators and representatives. See former (yes, they can subpoena you after you leave the company) Twitter employees embarrassing Donald Trump at these same hearings last week.
The more likely conspiracy theory is Wojcicki lost an internal power struggle. Google hasn't been doing great. Pichai hasn't been doing great. Wojcicki going for the top job and not getting it, and leaving is a much more believable scenario.
Tech companies have not feared the US government in decades. They embarrass or ignore US senators and representatives. See former (yes, they can subpoena you after you leave the company) Twitter employees embarrassing Donald Trump at these same hearings last week.
The more likely conspiracy theory is Wojcicki lost an internal power struggle. Google hasn't been doing great. Pichai hasn't been doing great. Wojcicki going for the top job and not getting it, and leaving is a much more believable scenario.
I don't think this press looks bad, it merely looks like partisan bickering without substance. Particularly with how widely publicized it is that YouTube facilitates radicalization towards right wing ideologies in the past. Resigning after those allegations wouldn't have looked bad either.
Do you think this is as big or even bigger than the silencing of conservative voices revealed in the "Twitter Files"?
my user experience is pretty great. Any time I run into a video on a blog somewhere and realize it's hosted at yt, it's a huge relief to me. What video streaming service is more reliable or higher quality?
yt shorts are very successful. But regardless, I don't think that a CEO is unsuccessful any time innovation happens anywhere else in the world besides within their own company. That YT is a social media platform which has only become more relevant over the last 17 years is a pretty stunning track record. What other service has shown such longevity?
yt shorts are very successful. But regardless, I don't think that a CEO is unsuccessful any time innovation happens anywhere else in the world besides within their own company. That YT is a social media platform which has only become more relevant over the last 17 years is a pretty stunning track record. What other service has shown such longevity?
It seems likely that YouTube TV is also going well.
Some numbers would be helpful. I recently got it for Superbowl, because I couldn't be bothered to find pirate stream and cancelled it shortly thereafter. I did look at what else they offer why I had access. Nothing that would make me think of staying anyway.
I tend to think all those services rely heavily on old TV-addicts like my wife.
I tend to think all those services rely heavily on old TV-addicts like my wife.
It’s worth getting a TV antenna for events like this. If you don’t have a TV, YouTube TV is a good option but expensive.
I wouldn't be so sure about TikTok. YouTube Shorts seems to be quite good and popular.
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Hopefully this brings back the dislike button. Intellectually I know a change of CEO shouldn't/wouldn't impact a feature like this, but I am still annoyed at its absence and find it makes YouTube substantially less useful.
Edit: I understand the dislike button is still there, I misspoke. But for my purposes of seeing like/dislike ratio, it might as well not be there.
Edit: I understand the dislike button is still there, I misspoke. But for my purposes of seeing like/dislike ratio, it might as well not be there.
The stated reason for getting rid of dislike visibility was very suspicious to me. While I don't deny that targeted harassment and bandwagoning with dislikes on certain channels/videos happens, there's no way it was happening frequently enough to warrant removing the feature from all videos. I saw no reason why individual creators couldn't stick with hiding the controls on a per-video or per-channel basis.
Removing the dislike count takes away a valuable indicator of low quality and/or time wasting videos. Yes, it has false positives on charged topics, but I use it to help determine if an intriguing recommendation or search result is actually worthwhile or just clickbait. I suspect YouTube was pleased to remove the like/dislike visibility because it would boost engagement metrics. I assume any concerns about quality or the viewing experience are secondary or considered inconsequential.
Edit: They removed the dislike visibility, not the dislike button.
Removing the dislike count takes away a valuable indicator of low quality and/or time wasting videos. Yes, it has false positives on charged topics, but I use it to help determine if an intriguing recommendation or search result is actually worthwhile or just clickbait. I suspect YouTube was pleased to remove the like/dislike visibility because it would boost engagement metrics. I assume any concerns about quality or the viewing experience are secondary or considered inconsequential.
Edit: They removed the dislike visibility, not the dislike button.
The dislike button was never removed, that is not accurate. The dislike count is no longer being displayed to viewers. Dislikes still exist. In my opinion, it is important to be accurate with language.
Isn't this a distinction without a difference? The point of having likes/dislikes is it's supposed to be a social signal for quality of the content? I have found dislikes useful for knowing which videos to skip if I am crunched for time and do not want to watch all of them, like music.
I regularly dislike decent content based on my idea of what youtube thinks of my recommendation preferences. It’s baffling how much I need to manually participate in their “engagement” metrics to be able to go to youtube.com without closing it shortly thereafter. And I wonder how much more echo chamber-y it is for less tech-savvy users who rarely touch these controls.
80% of regulars are not subscribed and don’t “like” videos according to content creators, that’s why they nag for “like, subscribe” five times per minute. Developers tend to think that bigcorps’ data analysis is at a rocket science level, when in reality it’s probably less efficient than SQL LIKE query could be on some `video.tags` field.
80% of regulars are not subscribed and don’t “like” videos according to content creators, that’s why they nag for “like, subscribe” five times per minute. Developers tend to think that bigcorps’ data analysis is at a rocket science level, when in reality it’s probably less efficient than SQL LIKE query could be on some `video.tags` field.
Author/owner of the video would still be able to see it, so they can judge if their audience liked the video or not. But still, the biggest value proposition of having the likes vs dislikes is for viewers, not content producers, so it really sucked it went away.
I believe disliking it also influences whether or not you are recommended similar content.
I've never really found the like/dislike buttons useful, and tbh they could get rid of ratings altogether and not much would change for me.
As someone who looks up tutorials on various pieces of software, the dislike ratio was a pretty good indicator as to whether or not a particular video would help me do what the title of it says without me having to sit or scrub through the whole thing
Just a counter opinion, I find them fairly useful.
Not 100% useful, but more often then not very useful.
Thanks to the idea of disliking as a meme, the ratings are essentially meaningless. An overwhelmingly disliked video is probably worth watching, if for the humor alone.
My experience in this space is you would be surprised how many thing slike this only exist because of as few as one person wants it to be that way. It's not even the leader necessary. A mid-level VP can have an outsized impact just based on their area of responsibility.
It can be purely emotional too, no data whatsoever. If there is data it's just selectively chosen to support the preconceived view. It literally happens all the time.
Just look at the changes to the Macbook following Johy Ive's departure or even the iOS UI changes following Forstall's departure. In the latter case, the removal of skeuomorphic design was so impactful Apple engineers called it "de-Forstall-ation".
In this case, I see it being big brands pushing for the removal of dislike button. They simply don't want to be dislike-bombed for doing something unpopular. That's it. So I wouldn't bet on Wijicki leaving impacts this.
It can be purely emotional too, no data whatsoever. If there is data it's just selectively chosen to support the preconceived view. It literally happens all the time.
Just look at the changes to the Macbook following Johy Ive's departure or even the iOS UI changes following Forstall's departure. In the latter case, the removal of skeuomorphic design was so impactful Apple engineers called it "de-Forstall-ation".
In this case, I see it being big brands pushing for the removal of dislike button. They simply don't want to be dislike-bombed for doing something unpopular. That's it. So I wouldn't bet on Wijicki leaving impacts this.
I've been using this chrome extension [1] and actually forgot they removed the dislike button.
[1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/return-youtube-dis...
[1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/return-youtube-dis...
It's just made-up or out of date data, the feature has been removed, not just hidden.
It's not just made up, it tracks downvotes from extension users and combines them with a historical database. And I think some creators share new info with the database to help the accuracy.
Creators can only share own counts and would be heavily incentivized to lower their dislike count, no? How is this supposed to work?
Many videos had the dislike count collected by the extension and stored before YouTube completely removed the counter from the videos. That number is now combined with dislikes sent by the users.
New videos will only show dislikes sent by people using the extension. There's no way to know the real number anymore.
New videos will only show dislikes sent by people using the extension. There's no way to know the real number anymore.
I don't think many people are going to go through the trouble of offering to help and then feed in fake info, especially if they make awful videos and it's easy to guess what they're doing.
ah, good point. I thought when this originally came out the data was still available via api call but it appears thats not the case anymore, or possibly never was.
From the FAQ
> Where does the extension get its data?
> A combination of archived data from before the offical YouTube dislike API shut down, and extrapolated extension user behavior.
From the FAQ
> Where does the extension get its data?
> A combination of archived data from before the offical YouTube dislike API shut down, and extrapolated extension user behavior.
Wow only now I noticed that the dislike button disappeared. That's a terrible decision. All social media should have dislike buttons. To many people with large following think they are clever because they only ever see likes and retweets, but if we could downvote/dislike some of their idiot comments on Twitter the world would be a better place.
My hope is that coming AI can be used to help better discern and classify content. Essentially, "prewatch" videos and help filter spam. I would love to see incentives for creators reset towards making quality content rather than sensationalized content. So, so fatigued on the stupid thumbnails with surprised faces and shocking claims and they are everywhere from home repair guides to physics tutorials.
Are you missing the dislike button? I still see it on Youtube and I'm not running any plugins.
The button is still there, you just don't see the number of dislikes without a plugin.
Is it? I see in the network requests where the "likes" button data is returned, but not the dislikes. It's possible I just can't find it though - there's a lot of data in a lot of shapes.
The dislike count is from an external tracker, not YouTube's own data.
That makes way more sense, but seems like it's a useless feature. I would assume that in that case it would be dislikes from the add-on (or some sort of federated dislike space?), which is really just going to tell you the opinions of people who like disliking things so much they downloaded an add-ons just to see others down-vote it as well.
I am curious - Why shouldn't a CEO impact a feature like this?
There is a chrome plugin that brings the dislikes back.
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Completely disagree. Getting rid of that button has significantly cleaned up the associated comments sections. I’ve also noticed a general improvement in my recommendations. Great move imo.
How can you tell when a video contains something misleading? For example, I struggle to find quality DIY videos without the dislikes warning me away. Dislikes are a great way for the community to clean house.
DIY videos are my primary concern on this as well. It is also why browser extensions don't help me too much because my use case is usually in the garage, half way through a project having issues, on my phone furiously trying to get a solution to the problem I'm having.
I had this exact scenario yesterday trying to remove rounded/stripped lug nuts off my wheels. It would've been very helpful to be able to see if the video I was watching had 1000 likes but 6000 dislikes to know if what I was about to do was advisable or not. Yes, I read the comments and it ended up being a simple fix with the right tools, but the like/dislike ratio is a great way to filter dangerous/dumb/unhelpful videos.
I had this exact scenario yesterday trying to remove rounded/stripped lug nuts off my wheels. It would've been very helpful to be able to see if the video I was watching had 1000 likes but 6000 dislikes to know if what I was about to do was advisable or not. Yes, I read the comments and it ended up being a simple fix with the right tools, but the like/dislike ratio is a great way to filter dangerous/dumb/unhelpful videos.
Isn't YouTube already pushing down the bad-ratio videos, though? I know it's not the same as you being able to filter the counts yourself... but the data is being used to try to hide crap.
But YouTube is already using the dislikes to push content down, it's just not showing you the count (nor does it show you the many-other engagement signals it uses for its rankings and recommendations).
Personally, I see the removal of visible dislikes as a net positive. They were used to rain down negativity and meanness on well-intentioned videos. I think YouTube is now a happier place when a kid's crappy singing video gets quietly ranked down, versus being shown to have 34 classmates (or 34,000 strangers) that hated it.
Personally, I see the removal of visible dislikes as a net positive. They were used to rain down negativity and meanness on well-intentioned videos. I think YouTube is now a happier place when a kid's crappy singing video gets quietly ranked down, versus being shown to have 34 classmates (or 34,000 strangers) that hated it.
same experience trying to find videos that answer a technical question - there's no immediate gauge on whether or not the video's useful, and it's easy (and often automatic on YouTube's part) to hide any comments with a negative sentiment
Sure, we all got fucked by that but just think of the political porn addicts who now get to have their feelings protected. Ensuring the integrity of their ideological bubbles is much more important than preventing videos with dangerous instructions in them from being promoted.
>Dislikes are a great way for the community to clean house.
That's precisely why it was removed. Can't let the rabble have a voice. They might think the wrong things.
That's precisely why it was removed. Can't let the rabble have a voice. They might think the wrong things.
YouTube still uses dislikes to keep those out of your stream.
There's a lot more to YouTube than political videos. I'd estimate over 90% of "reviews" for exercise equipment are automated videos based on data scraped from Amazon. These used to get downvoted heavily, so you could quickly see which videos were worth watching and which ones were created by bots. Now you have to slog through a dozen bot videos to find even one created by a human, giving their actual review. But fuck those of us who use YouTube for something other than political porn because some politician got their feelings hurt by a high dislike count.
I'm not expert on YouTube's algorithms, how did getting rid of visible dislikes help improve recommendations?
I could see it having an impact on the comment section because rather than just dislike and move on people feel compelled to say what is wrong with the video, but I could also see the opposite effect where instead of just disliking and moving on now people spam the comment section with unhelpful attacks on the video/creator.
I could see it having an impact on the comment section because rather than just dislike and move on people feel compelled to say what is wrong with the video, but I could also see the opposite effect where instead of just disliking and moving on now people spam the comment section with unhelpful attacks on the video/creator.
Because people would brigade videos they politically disagreed with even if it was good content. I’m seeing those videos now. Taking away dislikes has a chilling effect on brigading.
The dislike crowd just came in and demonstrated exactly why dislikes were removed all while trying to defend their position.
I believe it is related to this movement to subpoena big tech about “collusion with government” https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/15/jim-jordan-subpoenas-alphabe...
Either she is being blamed, or she is deeply guilty and wants to try to avoid the publicity, or they anticipate this will become extremely ugly.
Or sundar is blaming her for lining him up for a firing squad.
Or she is a liability due to her past work.
Regardless, it seems like she is leaving because what she had to do to make the government happy previously is now going to be used against Google.
Someone else mentioned the theory that she might be the best Sundar replacement. Maybe she found out it’s not her or Sundar is eliminating competition here.
Either she is being blamed, or she is deeply guilty and wants to try to avoid the publicity, or they anticipate this will become extremely ugly.
Or sundar is blaming her for lining him up for a firing squad.
Or she is a liability due to her past work.
Regardless, it seems like she is leaving because what she had to do to make the government happy previously is now going to be used against Google.
Someone else mentioned the theory that she might be the best Sundar replacement. Maybe she found out it’s not her or Sundar is eliminating competition here.
Maybe, but I also think a lot of these people that hit the jackpot from the maturation of the internet the last 25 years are just going to quit cause the job is going to suck going forward. Being an internet tech executive when the industry is no longer growing ridiculously and is just another sector of the economy like durable good manufacturing, or real estate development or whatever might not be very fun anymore.
The founders themselves of these companies have already gotten a headstart.
The founders themselves of these companies have already gotten a headstart.
YouTube has been under far more dangerous regulatory scrutiny than that.
Nobody is falling on the sword for that circus. The "Twitter Files" were not very meaningful.
After 25 years and being worst case a hundred-millionaire, what's the point?
After 25 years and being worst case a hundred-millionaire, what's the point?
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YouTube has been riding it's content momentum for too long. It really needs a change of leadership to continue to innovate.
For some searches, it's baffling that the top results are clearly intuitively wrong (e.g. showing videos where dislike to like ratio is very high, compared to clearly better alternatives that you can find if you wade through the results)
For some searches, it's baffling that the top results are clearly intuitively wrong (e.g. showing videos where dislike to like ratio is very high, compared to clearly better alternatives that you can find if you wade through the results)
YT search is dogshit now, rather than just returning results for the keyword you want they mix in random videos you've watched before and "suggested" videos that have no relation to the search
and the lack of likes/dislikes makes it harder to determine quality, which is probably some dark pattern to try and drive more engagement by forcing people to watch multiple videos. Dark patterns work short term, long term they result in TikTok or the equivalent eating your market share
and the lack of likes/dislikes makes it harder to determine quality, which is probably some dark pattern to try and drive more engagement by forcing people to watch multiple videos. Dark patterns work short term, long term they result in TikTok or the equivalent eating your market share
It's also not SHORTS really trying SHORTS to mix its content nicely SHORTS because i seem to find its recommendations boring SHORTS and often can't find videos that SHORTS i know should be there. Maybe SHORTS i should be using bing search to find youtube videos. Yandex also has a nice video search
And if you start browsing shorts you're bound to get the same <9 creators ad nauseam with duplicates mixed in all the time.
It's a terrible experience, honestly.
The YT recommendation system is basically "we know what you want to watch better than you do", so it keeps blatantly ignoring any opposite signal.
No, I do not want to watch wedding videos that I've said I'm not interested in at least 50 times. No, there isn't anyone in my household watching wedding videos.
No, I do not want to rewatch a 6 hour long lecture I watched last month.
Yet it just doesn't bloody care. I am truly terrified to click on anything outside my regular comfort zone for fear that that's what I'll be recommended for the next 12 months. Youtube is the worst product I have to keep paying for — I tried going adblock, but good luck if you have Apple devices. I'd rather be held hostage to Youtube Premium than being brainwashed with ads every 5 minutes.
No, I do not want to watch wedding videos that I've said I'm not interested in at least 50 times. No, there isn't anyone in my household watching wedding videos.
No, I do not want to rewatch a 6 hour long lecture I watched last month.
Yet it just doesn't bloody care. I am truly terrified to click on anything outside my regular comfort zone for fear that that's what I'll be recommended for the next 12 months. Youtube is the worst product I have to keep paying for — I tried going adblock, but good luck if you have Apple devices. I'd rather be held hostage to Youtube Premium than being brainwashed with ads every 5 minutes.
The worst part is that they recommend 3 views shorts of children uploading random uninteresting moments
> YT search is dogshit now...
All of Google search is dogshit these days. You can't search for anything these days without a crap ton of ads and pages of SEO optimized wrong answers.
All of Google search is dogshit these days. You can't search for anything these days without a crap ton of ads and pages of SEO optimized wrong answers.
s/Google search/the web
And people think chatgpt is going to save us, when all it's going to do is make the web, and therefore search results, ever more nonsensical.
And people think chatgpt is going to save us, when all it's going to do is make the web, and therefore search results, ever more nonsensical.
Why does everything have to keep innovating?
Youtube was fine years ago. People make stuff, I subscribe and watch it. Sure throw in some algorithmic discovery on the side. Bring back dislike count.
Other than that I don't care for any innovation. Just keep the lights on.
Youtube was fine years ago. People make stuff, I subscribe and watch it. Sure throw in some algorithmic discovery on the side. Bring back dislike count.
Other than that I don't care for any innovation. Just keep the lights on.
The nature of The Algorithm and its tendency to decide who gets to be a millionaire leads to a TON of metagaming. I think the algorithm needs to be non-static just so content on the website doesn’t homogenize. They often make subtle tweaks to the website for seemingly no reason, but I think a lot of it is just to prevent metagaming.
> The nature of The Algorithm and its tendency to decide who gets to be a millionaire leads to a TON of metagaming.
Every corporation owning more than 50% of a market should be broken up. But then, USA wouldn’t reign on the international culture.
Every corporation owning more than 50% of a market should be broken up. But then, USA wouldn’t reign on the international culture.
There's no incentive there (until users start leaving)
The algorithm's goal is to maximize revenue or profit, and what does that doesn't change that dynamically. This means the metagame is inevitable. You're essentially asking for YouTube to cut their goal for an unclear long term benefit, and we all know how those conversations tend to go.
The algorithm's goal is to maximize revenue or profit, and what does that doesn't change that dynamically. This means the metagame is inevitable. You're essentially asking for YouTube to cut their goal for an unclear long term benefit, and we all know how those conversations tend to go.
yea I'm a daily users of YT. Pay for premium. Don't produce. Only consume. Probably their ideal customer and I think the app is great. No idea what people are bitching about.
I'm in the same boat (as a user - paying for premium and consuming a lot of videos). I think app is pretty good, but search is horrible. Their recommendations in the feed are top notch, so I always have something interesting to watch. But searching for new topics returns garbage.
I don't currently pay for premium, but have and am considering it again with Netflix pulling their BS.
Nothing about Youtube the platform needs to change. It just works.
Nothing about Youtube the platform needs to change. It just works.
Same. Really like YT. The algorithm is not great, but compared to other parts of the internet, YT is top tier for me.
The main criticism I see with YouTube is that it has too many ads, and the idea of paying for youtube is laughable.
Basically, it's users are very entitled.
Edit: I have had premium since day 1, I'm speaking about others.
Basically, it's users are very entitled.
Edit: I have had premium since day 1, I'm speaking about others.
Paying for YouTube Premium has been the best $15/month I've ever spent. What's laughable is not paying for it. It's a good model that works.
You can save $3/mo by canceling your subscription through Apple and subscribing directly through the YouTube’s website ($11.99). Avoids the Apple tax.
Seriously, if you spend any meaningful time on it, premium is amazing deal. Variety of the content is unbeatable.
There's premium lite for like half the price as well.
I'm happy to part ways with a couple of bucks for an ad free experience. I use youtube everyday. Entitlement is thinking you should have a certain premium experience on someone else's dime (you).
A major benefit of paying for it is easily supporting more creators without directly donating. They get pittance for ad rolls but substantially more for premium views.
If you really don't want to pay $15/mo, sign up using a VPN in a developing country. They don't check or care. You will need a fake address as well.
Just not ARS. Apparently they now check if the credit card making the payment is linked to an Argentinian bank.
>Why does everything have to keep innovating?
would you like to remove the ability to add labeled chapters to your videos? would you like to remove browseable transcriptions to videos?
Youtube has a ton of things that it still needs to add, such as embedding multiple audio streams so you can have more than one audio language in the same video (I think they are testing it currently), or being able to better modify a video after you've uploaded it. Adding audio normalization to ads so they are not louder than the video they appear in? Still waiting.
Point is, there is a ton to innovate and I think you are quickly forgetting all those useful features that came in the last 10 years that were't there before
would you like to remove the ability to add labeled chapters to your videos? would you like to remove browseable transcriptions to videos?
Youtube has a ton of things that it still needs to add, such as embedding multiple audio streams so you can have more than one audio language in the same video (I think they are testing it currently), or being able to better modify a video after you've uploaded it. Adding audio normalization to ads so they are not louder than the video they appear in? Still waiting.
Point is, there is a ton to innovate and I think you are quickly forgetting all those useful features that came in the last 10 years that were't there before
I think theres a difference between innovating and polishing. I would love YT to polish the product, but don’t want it to innovate itself into something other than a medium length video hosting platform.
Those are technical improvements. Most people complain about changes to the UX that make things worse or change things around for seemingly no reason.
Because those stock prices gotta go up
Downvotes are hidden now. I'm not sure they actually have enough information to determine video quality anymore. Its all about gaming the algorithm's "engagement" metrics. No one cares if you enjoyed yourself any longer.
The dislike button is still there, they just don’t want to show the results to advertisers. If advertisers can see the ratio, they start complaining about being associated with “problematic “ content.
They probably want to show viewers, but you can’t reveal the stats to only one group.
They probably want to show viewers, but you can’t reveal the stats to only one group.
Yeah, but because its hidden, people don't use it anymore.
> showing videos where dislike to like ratio is very high
That's because Youtube prioritizes engagement over quality. You make more money that way.
That's because Youtube prioritizes engagement over quality. You make more money that way.
Bingo. This has made me spend a lot less time on Youtube because recommended content and search are worse for me. If I'm searching for a marine biology video I don't want to see recommendations for clickbait influencers 3 results in. I used to go down random rabbit holes when I found related interesting content, but now that just doesn't happen very much anymore.
For me, as a consumer of video content that I find with google video search, YouTube is just a video host and no different than any other video host that Google crawl. The vast majority of those searches for me pertain to hands-on DIY projects where videos are very useful to learn how to perform some process - like laying floors (a recent one for me). I would never visit youtube.com directly as I've learned that it's incentives are very different. But most of the really useful content that I find is in fact hosted on YouTube, so the service is in fact extremely useful for DIYers. And I do often find in those videos tools or supplies that make sense to purchase, and I often click on the producers affiliate links in the video.
I thought YouTube did really well under Wojcicki's leadership.
Well.... not really.
- Why does seemingly every channel I follow, whether it be JCS Criminal Psychology or The 8-bit Guy, have to mention the YouTube Algorithm, Content ID, Copyright Strikes, or Community Guidelines? If almost every creator is struggling and not just the fringe and edgy, you've screwed up big time.
- Removal of the dislike count. Extremely unpopular decision. Also YouTube's API is still answering dislike counts making extensions to bring it back still function, despite over a year later, almost implying it was about keeping up appearances. Now... who could be so worried about keeping up appearances...
- Completely blowing up YouTube Rewind into an increasingly corporate affair that quickly started heading downhill until the absolute train wreck of 2018, where it became the most disliked video in YouTube history at that point. This was, in part, because YouTube basically sanitized it of the presence of the popular YouTubers at the time because they might not be advertiser-friendly. Rewind never recovered and YouTube has now given up trying to engage with the community in such a way.
- Taking a 5-second ad at the beginning of her tenure, and leaving it with multiple, constant, unskippable, rampant advertising; and a subscription plan that started at $10/mo. turning into $23/mo. for equivalent service (5 users).
- Launched YouTube Kids to provide a curated experience for younger individuals, then decided to make it run on automation. Which then screwed up big time and started serving kids extremely inappropriate content causing a brief congressional inquiry. Then YouTube settled as guilty to violating COPAA, and decided to shift all the responsibility on the creators by disabling comments and other features on any video that may possibly be seen by kids.
Some "success"...
- Why does seemingly every channel I follow, whether it be JCS Criminal Psychology or The 8-bit Guy, have to mention the YouTube Algorithm, Content ID, Copyright Strikes, or Community Guidelines? If almost every creator is struggling and not just the fringe and edgy, you've screwed up big time.
- Removal of the dislike count. Extremely unpopular decision. Also YouTube's API is still answering dislike counts making extensions to bring it back still function, despite over a year later, almost implying it was about keeping up appearances. Now... who could be so worried about keeping up appearances...
- Completely blowing up YouTube Rewind into an increasingly corporate affair that quickly started heading downhill until the absolute train wreck of 2018, where it became the most disliked video in YouTube history at that point. This was, in part, because YouTube basically sanitized it of the presence of the popular YouTubers at the time because they might not be advertiser-friendly. Rewind never recovered and YouTube has now given up trying to engage with the community in such a way.
- Taking a 5-second ad at the beginning of her tenure, and leaving it with multiple, constant, unskippable, rampant advertising; and a subscription plan that started at $10/mo. turning into $23/mo. for equivalent service (5 users).
- Launched YouTube Kids to provide a curated experience for younger individuals, then decided to make it run on automation. Which then screwed up big time and started serving kids extremely inappropriate content causing a brief congressional inquiry. Then YouTube settled as guilty to violating COPAA, and decided to shift all the responsibility on the creators by disabling comments and other features on any video that may possibly be seen by kids.
Some "success"...
FWIW I think there are more or less two very distinct experiences/use cycles of YouTube. There is the one where people get to it from outside (mostly Google Search) and the one where people get to it from within YouTube itself. As someone who falls into the casual Google search category the latter class of serious YouTube user is just alien to me. The 2018 Rewind video was pretty bonkers stupid to me, but, to me, it also looks more or less the same as the 2017 rewind video. How you feel about YouTube is probably a function of how you use it.
> If almost every creator is struggling and not just the fringe and edgy, you've screwed up big time.
Whatever algorithm YouTube uses professional uploaders will try to maximize their views, which goes by acting as the algorithm requires. In a competitive environment there is a inherent struggle.
Whatever algorithm YouTube uses professional uploaders will try to maximize their views, which goes by acting as the algorithm requires. In a competitive environment there is a inherent struggle.
By all metrics except TikTok YouTube is the 900 pound gorilla eating streaming.
Change of leadership is not necessarily = innovation
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> to continue to innovate
Like they innovated by blatantly ripping off tiktok and added "shorts"? Yeah best if they just stay exactly what they are.
Like they innovated by blatantly ripping off tiktok and added "shorts"? Yeah best if they just stay exactly what they are.
I'm noticing that traditional media & news outlets are getting their idea's from what is popular on social media outlets like Youtube.
Example: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-piano
https://youtu.be/ljjWeHmeVE8?t=157
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pub+piano+playi...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shopping+mall+p...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=public+piano+pl...
Example: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-piano
https://youtu.be/ljjWeHmeVE8?t=157
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pub+piano+playi...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shopping+mall+p...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=public+piano+pl...
She quite literally got this far because of family. Geez I wonder why Youtube remains one of the most underperforming media assets.
Edit: SV is full of nepotism.
Edit: SV is full of nepotism.
Not true. Her sister met Sergey because they were in her garage. She got the job fair and square.
This is like saying Ron Wayne should run the freaking Mac division because he was there first. She’s just not that smart. She only got around on her dad’s legacy prior to Google. She added zero value to Youtube.
How do you figure? She worked for Google for nearly 15 years before becoming the CEO of YT. If anything it sounds like she was peter principled.
Well given that Youtube gets its money from making the user experience terrible via ad bombardment... that sounds like a good thing?
They'd get more revenue by breaking things like uBlock origin being able to completely remove all ads. Not something we really want them to do I think.
They'd get more revenue by breaking things like uBlock origin being able to completely remove all ads. Not something we really want them to do I think.
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Right now YouTube has a big scammer problem. People impersonate channel owners and reply to comments on their videos with phishing links. Several creators I follow are now putting a warning at the beginning of their videos to help educate people, but it seems like this is something YouTube could and should fix.
Another probable issue is the upcoming Supreme Court decision about Section 230 protections. Maybe Wojcicki sees that writing on the wall.
Another probable issue is the upcoming Supreme Court decision about Section 230 protections. Maybe Wojcicki sees that writing on the wall.
> People impersonate channel owners and reply to comments on their videos with phishing links
Not only this, YouTube literally allows scammers to run ads and you can't report it. I saw an ad with Mr. Beast pop up offering $1,000 to the first X people to click on it. I clicked, because it sounds like something he would do and I was curious and figured YouTube wouldn't let a scammer advertise. Once I landed on the page it was immediately clear from the domain that it was a scam, but the page looked legit. It's astounding that YouTube is alright with openly running scammers ads for them.
Not only this, YouTube literally allows scammers to run ads and you can't report it. I saw an ad with Mr. Beast pop up offering $1,000 to the first X people to click on it. I clicked, because it sounds like something he would do and I was curious and figured YouTube wouldn't let a scammer advertise. Once I landed on the page it was immediately clear from the domain that it was a scam, but the page looked legit. It's astounding that YouTube is alright with openly running scammers ads for them.
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What most annoying is yt now showing vids that are already watched just a day afoy. Including shorts. They can't even do a proper sorting now
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YouTube has become such an unfree, restricted platform in recent years. Hopefully that changes, although I doubt it.
You can thank the concerted media effort to paint Youtube as a host for terrorist propaganda for that. The adpocalypse changed the site permanently for the worse, and a lot of people seem to overlook that.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/ads-shown-isis...
this was a huge story overnight with tons of advertisers pulling out of youtube. the site became a lot more locked down after this and a few more advertiser threats in the following years.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/ads-shown-isis...
this was a huge story overnight with tons of advertisers pulling out of youtube. the site became a lot more locked down after this and a few more advertiser threats in the following years.
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Speculation: I wonder if any of this relates to the Supreme Court Gonzalez v. Google case?
(basically, the SC is reviewing YouTube's Section 230 protections due to the use of recommendation engines)
(basically, the SC is reviewing YouTube's Section 230 protections due to the use of recommendation engines)
Thats awesome! was not aware of this https://www.brookings.edu/events/gonzalez-v-google-and-the-f...
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She got us to 100 miilion 'how to boil egg' videos. Hopefully the next corporate robot in charge or Bard (if the rumors are true) can take us to 1 billion.
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After winning the Free Expression award[0] there just wasn't much left for her to accomplish there.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/youtube-ceo-receives-free-expr...
https://www.theblaze.com/news/youtube-ceo-receives-free-expr...
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Five days out from the Gonzalez v Google hearing. If the decision goes against Google, perhaps some will question YouTube's decision-making around recommendations.
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> Wojcicki, who joined Alphabet nearly 25 years ago…
I’m not a journalist, but that doesn’t sound right.
I’m not a journalist, but that doesn’t sound right.
Read the article:
Wojcicki has been involved with Google practically since the beginning. The company's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, set up office in her parents' garage soon after they incorporated Google in 1998. Wojcicki became Google's first marketing manager the following year and played a role in the earliest Google Doodles. In 2006, she encouraged Google to buy YouTube, which launched a year earlier.> In September 1998, the same month that Google was incorporated, its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up office in Wojcicki's parents' garage in Menlo Park, California. [1]
2023-1998=25
Sounds right to me.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Wojcicki#Career
2023-1998=25
Sounds right to me.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Wojcicki#Career
Google started as a research project in 1995 and incorporated in 1998. Susan was an employee number 16. 25 years sounds about right.
?
Google's first office was in her parents' garage
Google's first office was in her parents' garage
No, her garage.
> With this investment, the newly incorporated team made the upgrade from the dorms to their first office: a garage in suburban Menlo Park, California, owned by Susan Wojcicki
https://about.google/intl/en_us/our-story/
> With this investment, the newly incorporated team made the upgrade from the dorms to their first office: a garage in suburban Menlo Park, California, owned by Susan Wojcicki
https://about.google/intl/en_us/our-story/
It’s accurate. Google was started out of her parent’s garage, and she became involved around then.
>Google was founded on September 4, 1998
Maybe she was an early employee?
Maybe she was an early employee?
I think k8sToGo's point is that she never "joined Alphabet", Alphabet did not exist when she joined Larry and Sergey. She joined concurrent with Google's founding as a company, she probably joined when the search engine was named Backrub. Alphabet would be created decades later.
Exactly. But I guess people don’t care about accuracy anymore.
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Yes, Alphabet was created less than 8 years ago. She probably joined Google.
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Curious why this is important enough to be on the front page. Even as a techie I don't find this news interesting, at least not HN front-page worthy. (Instead of down voting it would be nice to hear what others think as valid reasons). How does this affect our day-day lives?
YouTube is one of the largest and most influential tech companies in the world, and wields huge social power. Some of the greatest content on the internet is hosted there, so it makes sense to me that HN readers would find a major change like this of interest. Wojcicki has been in charge of YouTube for a long time now, so hearing that she is stepping down and will be replaced opens up tons of space for speculation about where YouTube could be heading in the near future. Personally, as someone who spends many hours a week using YouTube, I find this article to be absolutely HN-front-page-worthy!
posharma(1)
A change in leadership of what is almost surely a top 10 online property and something that >98% of HN readers use?
That seems like something that would be of enough interest to make the top-30 stories for a period of time.
That seems like something that would be of enough interest to make the top-30 stories for a period of time.
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It's not, but there is a large Big Tech fanbase on HN. Posts like these caters mostly to them.
What "belongs" on the front page of HN is whatever ends up on the front page without being moderated or flagged. At the end of the day, HN is a community and it decides for itself what it wants to see and share with its members! Like the guidelines for submissions say, anything that is intellectually stimulating or interesting to hackers is fair game! Vox populi vox dei :P
This post was very intellectually stimulating indeed.
This was also posted today, criticizing SV culture. Yet it doesn't even have half the votes. This is also not an exception here, but a trend:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/the-silicon-valley-l...
I guess Susie stepping down the corporate ladder of a shitty company must be more stimulating.
Also, why the downvotes? I didn't know it was illegal to discuss how banal and uninteresting a post is. Clearly posharma and I see it that way. Yet every time this happens, people get downvoted. Why? Can't you just scroll through and move on, or do other people's opinions bother you?
This was also posted today, criticizing SV culture. Yet it doesn't even have half the votes. This is also not an exception here, but a trend:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/the-silicon-valley-l...
I guess Susie stepping down the corporate ladder of a shitty company must be more stimulating.
Also, why the downvotes? I didn't know it was illegal to discuss how banal and uninteresting a post is. Clearly posharma and I see it that way. Yet every time this happens, people get downvoted. Why? Can't you just scroll through and move on, or do other people's opinions bother you?
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>She's 'starting a new chapter' to focus on her family, health and passion projects.
So YouTube wasn't her passion project?! C'mon.
So YouTube wasn't her passion project?! C'mon.
YouTube is an absolute trash platform and has been long before Susan became a CEO. Which goes to show just how incapable she was for the role.
The same algorithm that YouTube was using for recommendations 10 years ago is still the same algorithm being used today. An absolute disgrace and a spat in the face for the platforms users.
The same algorithm that YouTube was using for recommendations 10 years ago is still the same algorithm being used today. An absolute disgrace and a spat in the face for the platforms users.
I've seen the recommendations get better then worse then better again as they tweaked the algorithms. Right now it's better than it's ever been. Again, for me.
One complaint: I like to upload interesting clips from this or that. I got my first copy right strike on a clip of Russel Brand talking to Terry Gross of NPR about life on heroin because I thought it was helpful for people. YouTube told me I could only get 3 strikes before they disabled my account, which I assume they mean they will disable my GMail. I can't have that so I don't upload interesting clips anymore. In fact, I don't upload anything since I don't want to lose my GMail. So the complaint is why didn't YouTube tell me when I uploaded it that I couldn't? I'd be ok with that.
So I give Ms Wojcicki a people choice grade of B+ overall