The quantity of quality on Youtube

[SOSU]

Back around 2014 when i first started watching Youtube videos i could barely stop binging them, barely any videos i got recommended were boring and they were all fun to watch, nowadays though i spend more like searching for something to watch than to actually watch anything and if i watch something it's probably a video i have already seen once before. I know that most videos i watched then are still on the site and that there are still lots of great channels out there but this i find is a problem.

Do you share the same problem as me? Do you think this is because of Youtube algorithms or whatever or does it have to do with Youtube content creators OR do you think i'm just being nostalgic to some game reviewers and have standards too high for my own good because of that?

[diosoth]

Ad revenue and Patreon begging ruined the platform. People only wanted to do videos that made money- which I can't blame them. There is less incentive to do all this for free. COPPA will affect a lot of channels though and weed out the ones that can't make money anymore and I suspect YT will tighten its policies on monetization and in the next 3 months - 2 years Patreon will drastically tighten what they count as "content creation"(because unboxing videos and buying crap at thrift stores ain't it). They will be forced to enforce their "no use of copyrighted content" rule that's already policy yet not upheld, booting a lot of users off the site(the number of Patreon accounts that do adult content while accepting Paypal payments are going to backfire as well when Paypal upholds their "no adult content" rules on a larger scale). Patreon has been allowing anything to go as long as they get their cut but it won't last.

[Vorpal]

It's not just you. There's been several phases of the videos that youtube suggests. Originally they were "related" or "suggested", based on tag associations. Then there was a sort of golden era where related videos were based on your interests with some algorithm (viewing history, likes, dislikes), and the site respected your "don't suggest this channel to me" requests, probably around the 2014-16 range you suggest. It was nice while it lasted but it was probably just preparation for the current phase which only suggests high view count videos that are actively running a campaign (paying in to AdSense or w/e it's called now). Suggested videos are only vaguely tuned to what you are actually interested now based on the mountain of data they've collected on the collective user interest, and where they've guessed you fit into it; "American, Male, Age 20-25".

 

Channel Subscriptions seem to have been hidden a bit now, requiring the user to actively seek out that content (this is purposeful). I haven't had any of my subs show up anywhere for about a year.

[Linguica]

Youtube ad revenue has plummeted so people have less incentive to make new and interesting videos for an increasingly hostile platform. Why spend time on Youtube content when you could spend that time Twitch streaming and asking for subs and donations?

[Yourfacedotcom]

Yeah. Way too many reaction videos and idiotic hot takes.

[Woolie Wool]

9 hours ago, diosoth said:

Ad revenue and Patreon begging ruined the platform. People only wanted to do videos that made money- which I can't blame them. There is less incentive to do all this for free. COPPA will affect a lot of channels though and weed out the ones that can't make money anymore and I suspect YT will tighten its policies on monetization and in the next 3 months - 2 years Patreon will drastically tighten what they count as "content creation"(because unboxing videos and buying crap at thrift stores ain't it). They will be forced to enforce their "no use of copyrighted content" rule that's already policy yet not upheld, booting a lot of users off the site(the number of Patreon accounts that do adult content while accepting Paypal payments are going to backfire as well when Paypal upholds their "no adult content" rules on a larger scale). Patreon has been allowing anything to go as long as they get their cut but it won't last.

Hobbyists cannot stand against professionals when their activity is made into a competition, and competition is thoroughly ingrained into Silicon Valley ideology and baked into both their algorithms and their business models. In the race to attract eyeballs and view counts, the person who can do it all day, every day will always beat you. Furthermore, people who regularly release monetized content with a huge userbase are inherently more attractive to Google as users than people who do not. Amateur video makers may think they're the salt of YouTube, but as far as Google is concerned, we are freeloaders whose existence is tolerated to preserve the illusion of an open internet. As the universal civilization-wide race to the bottom continues, I expect this tolerance to be slowly but inexorably withdrawn until YouTube becomes something very much like a traditional publisher, and independents are driven to smaller, shittier sites (are you ready for porn ads?) or shoved off Neo-Compuserve the internet entirely.

 

 

[VGA]

Youtube is desperate for ad money and ad companies are wary of edgy independent content creators. So steadily Youtube has been promoting cable TV crap, like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver doing their tired Orange Man Bad routines over unexplainable laughter. Or mumble rap music video clips for braindead people. They keep promoting "industry" channels over independent creators and cut their income. Huge Youtube creators are putting out less and less content on YT as the money dry up (the money goes elsewhere).

 

 

Do you want to spend a couple dozen hours to put out a video that is overwhelmingly liked and gets a lot of views, like 150,000 views let's say, and nets you only a pittance in revenue? Which may be claimed by some company over the use of 5 seconds of music? Which is illegal if the use is transformative but good luck disputing it. You are guilty until proven innocent.

 

On PC I go straight to my Subscriptions and on Android I use NewPipe and ... go straight to my subscriptions.

[Graf Zahl]

Youtube is a perfect mirror of the internet at large - something slowly but surely losing all its attraction due to overcommercialization and general crap content. To be honest, the sooner it all crashes, the better. These days I rarely even visit information sites anymore because it's all being made do drive ads, not to present content. I've mostly gone back to reading my local newspaper, which doesn't terrorize me with all this digital excrement.

 

 

[diosoth]

Youtube doesn't care what their viewers want(which is why I get constant looney bin conservative propaganda BS in my recommendations no matter how many such vids or channels I flag them to not suggest to me- though lately the flagging seems to stick better than before where a channel would show up again a day later) and will suggest whatever gets high views regardless of your interests or settings(a channel you have blocked should never show up in recommendations yet does anyway- but I wouldn't be surprised if they gut that feature soon too), while they gladly allow smaller channels to get thrown under a bus on a daily basis. That idiotic need to click a bell icon AFTER subscribing to get notifications, when subbing used to do that just fine, was a bad decision. They'll sooner cater to the loudmouth jackass rambling about whatever upsets him personally than an actual channel with effort, because the crybaby can turn on his mic and make 5 videos a day while the creator can do 1 a week, so the crying loon generates more content and a bigger audience.

 

COPPA was Youtube blaming their users for their own idiotic decisions and pinning the punishment on them, while the FTC licked their lips at the thought of $43K fines against violations and allowed everyone to get blamed. Some of those channels opted to quit because adding a "13+" disclaimer to videos doesn't matter to YT or the FTC whatsoever- they make the determination, not the creator.

 

They also bend over backwards for corporations and refuse to fight any copyright claim, even ones with no merit(fair use cases, claimant has no actual copyright ownership, etc). They then side with whoever filed the claim 100% of the time when the uploader appeals.

 

Companies have also now got around ad blockers by forcing creators to film the ad as a narrated part of the video itself.