To solve that problem: when you're logged in, go through the suggested-videos margin and right-click on the suggested videos that appear irrelevant or awful to you, and you can click either "Do not recommend channel" or, more mildly, "Not interested." Do that a few times and you'll see the suggested videos get far more relevant to what you want to see. Yes, they definitely have an agenda in terms of the channels they push, whether it's political news clips, late-night talk show interviews, celebrity gossip, or zany pranks and challenges, but you can block them all. They love CNN, Joe Rogan, the Kardashians, and New York City real-estate mogul Donald Trump, but you don't need to see them if you don't want to. I've also done this with my Instagram "Explore" page and now it's always nearly all posts I'm definitely interested in, like about technology, science, astronomy, history, archaeology, coins, all sorts of stuff I like, it's great.
There are many genres of content where other video platforms--all of them entirely entirely or mostly premium--are bigger than YouTube, for instance, for:
- movies (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, Turner, Criterion)
- old as well as current TV shows (Netlix, Hulu, Amazon Prime)
- cartoons (Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Tubi)
- pro sports (ESPN and league-specific platforms)
- video game videos (Twitch)
And for short advice videos (I call it "advice-ology," and there are tons of people doing it, whether about relationships life, nutrition, health, or fitness), comedy shorts, and prank videos, a video app called TikTok has been the biggest app in the U.S. and the world for the past 6 years, and Instgram, with its video "Reels," is also bigger for such videos.
So, my question to you is: What are 2 of more types of videos you'd like to get YouTube get disrupted in? Music videos? Podcasts? Movie trailers? Here's the current "Trending" list:
Rick Beato has talked about this problem; in one video, he was even talking about how 5-second snippets of jazz were causing videos to be taken down, but the algorithm didn't even identify the right song. It reminds of how, in using the Shazam app, I've had numerous instances where it will wrongly identify a track 2 or 3 times, and even stick with the wrong answer. But even bands like Guns N' Roses and The Eagles will get videos of cover performances quickly blocked for sounding too close to the originals. Here's a great video where he talks about YouTube's recklessly draconian algorithms:
I think a bigger reason is all of those is the brand trust that YouTube has. If I, as an independent director, make a music video, or a 10-minute tutorial video, or a short cinematic film, and want it to be seen by tens of thousands of people this month, YouTube is where I'm posting it. If you can persuade me that there's a video URL that thousands and even millions of random strangers would be even more likely to click on than one that starts with YouTube.com, I'd be very grateful to know it. Even Vimeo is known to far fewer Gen Z viewers than it has been to Millennials -
What's an example or two of what one of those static Webserver's URLs would look like? I'd like to see one that you believe would get as many random people to click on it as would click on it if were a YouTube link. In my own experience, sharing videos on Reddit, X, and via text message that are not from YouTube often get comments and questions of suspicion and distrust about the site it's posted from, and sometimes, even people even posting a YouTube copy of the same video. Some of those sites have been Odysee, DailyMotion, and Ok.ru. YouTube is a name that billions of people worldwide trust, and it has been the 2nd most visited online property in the U.S. and worldwide for many years now.
You're one of those video game defenders, extolling the interactivity as though it's so sophisticated and intellectually edifying. Video games are mental garbage. I remember kids telling me in elementary school that Nintendo and Sega were really good for improving hand-eye coordination, and now it's seriously being called "esports."
I'll take your advice and watch 6 hours of TikTok every day for the next 12 months and then confirm to you whether or not you're right about it being scary. Thanks for the suggestion! Looking forward to what I learn.
What ridiculously pretentious old-person grandstanding. Let me guess--was the late 1990s the last stretch of some golden age where the youngsters of America were, for the most part, sophisticated, nuanced, intellectual critical thinkers? The glorious 1990s PlayStation and Nintendo games, network and cable television programming, popular rap and metal music, and print-magazine content of that time were something that people who were your current age then were seeing as insidious time-wasting garbage that was inarguably "fucking up" the minds of teenagers and 20-somethings. You've simply just fallen behind and gotten old; is the feature phone you carry with you a Nokia or a Motorola?
The issue of having someone's phone number is completely different these days; in 1985, I couldn't find out your age and your previous addresses and then find dozens or even hundreds of photographs of you alone and/or with your relatives and friends, as I can now - see my other comment:
Before the Internet, all you could do with a person's phone number is call them. But now, with PeopleSearchNow.com (the ultimate free source of personal info--feel free to look up your own real phone number in it, assuming you're American) and with Google and the MULTIPLE social networks that virtually everyone between the ages of 20 and 45 has been on now--typically using the same username on most or all of them--you can find out way more in a matter of a few MINUTES than a 1980s private investigator ever could in a span of a month. I can look up your number on PeopleSearchNow and then, if I can't find YOU on Facebook, I'm confident I can find one of your relatives (several of whom will be listed on PeopleSearchNow), and get to you from there--meaning find your other online profiles, thanks to those Facebook friends who know you.
As I've seen on WhatsApp on every smartphone I've had: when you download WhatsApp and tap the "New chat" icon in the upper right corner, the app SHOWS YOU a list of everyone from your phone's contact list who has a WhatsApp account. They also show the list when you click "Chat" at the bottom and then "New Group."
You're not avoiding having a shadow account created about you though, once I've upload my contact list and you're right there, Jim Wyclif, with your real phone number, and I've also tagged you in a photo we took together last year. And then there are all the other people who have your real phone number and who have been on Facebook, Messgenger, Instagram, or WhatsApp since they saved the number. And then there's even relatives and former classmates and co-workers who've looked up your name and typed in your town, school, and/or former company to find you. When I use Facebook, it still recommends former classmates and acquaintances who I literally looked up once ever. (As a side-note, Snapchat does the same type of things; people I've worked for in the past, as a tutor, are recommended to me on the "Add Friends" page.)
/r/Politics is centrism? Wow. If that's centrism, that I'll continue working to ensure a #Trump2020Landslide! These arrows will move even further to the right:
Lol... If that was even remotely accurate, Reddit would've been abandoned very quickly. You really have no idea what you're talking about at all, AT ALL.
Well, you must be thrilled! Now that Trump supporters have all migrated over to this tiny little obscure island where they can just spam EACH OTHER, and share conspiracy theories with EACH OTHER, and post fake news links for EACH OTHER! Joe Biden is surely gonna win AT LEAST 28 states now that all those pesky Trump supporters have been isolated away from smart normal good people like you and me!
On a separate note, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall":
Remember AOL in the '90s (unless you're under 35)?
And how powerful was the social networking site, MySpace? -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwG3P5ob-nk
And at that same time, how big was Blogger and even blogging itself?
And as for Almighty Facebook/Instagram dominance among teenagers and 20-somethings:
> [TikTok] was also the most-downloaded app on Apple's App Store in 2018 and 2019, surpassing Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.[68][71]
> Cloudflare ranked TikTok the most popular website of 2021, surpassing Google.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
And most recently:
1. TikTok – 825 million [downloads in 2024]
https://www.designrush.com/agency/mobile-app-design-developm...