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Comment by CM30 | Hacker News Reader

Perfected the feed? As a YouTube user, 'perfected' is probably the last word I'd use for it.

Instead, it seems to either:

1. Hide stuff I actually wanted to see from channels I'm subscribed to 2. Show me videos I've already seen before. 3. Show completely irrelevant videos 4. Mix up subscriptions and recommendations by recommending videos I'd already have seen if they showed me the bloody subscriptions in the first place.

And watch later... oh boy, their idea of videos to show there seems to be stuff I've either seen years ago and didn't like enough to finish, or that I've seen multiple times and didn't finish once or twice because I saw something new to watch.

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Wholeheartedly agree.

Feels like a generational difference. I'm from the generation that prided itself on its ability to selectively craft one's own "feed" (RSS originally) by spending time finding the highest quality, most relevant sources of trusted content.

The author of this piece doesn't take that approach. And YouTube caters to such. [edited to be less judgmental]

I'm constantly annoyed that the YouTube homepage requires several clicks for me to find new videos posted by channels I subscribe to. The organization on the home page is different every single day. My only options are to delete suggested channels (to see them reappear a week later!!). But in small print on the side, YouTube taunts me that it actually does remember all the channels I've subscribed to. It just thinks that it knows better what I want to be watching.

And you know what? I probably do spend more time on the site because of this shitty design. But what their algorithms don't tell them is the slowly simmering resentment I have toward the site and my feeling of being in an increasingly adversarial role with Google as a whole. Maybe that feeling will never have any monetary impact on anyone, but it seems dangerous to ignore.

How is that a "generational" difference...

I'm sorry but your melodramatic attitude makes it very hard to take you seriously. Simmering resentment? Adversarial role? Come on. It's as simple as getting a YT browser extension.

> I probably do spend more time on the site because of this shitty design

Same can be said about the insufferable video suggestions that now cover half the embedded player right where you have got used to click to pause/unpause it over the years.

YouTube UX designers implement this dark pattern, then look cheerfully at their metrics as if people are really into it because they use it so much. When I know for a fact I've mis-clicked it almost every time it's popped up.

Drowning design decisions in metrics needs to die, it's just a breeding ground for dark patterns.

This has been my experience as well. I have been using YouTube for over 7 years and the feed is getting worse. I imagine it's not great on the content creator side either. I know most youtubers have been looking to view count rather than subscriber count for a success metric. That to me signals that there is less loyalty to content creators and more loyalty to topics. That loyalty shift weakens content creator's fan bases. That combined with the current user experience of the "feed" is not what I would call perfection.

I solve a lot of this problem by not logging in to YouTube, by using search (often DDG's !yt <pattern>), and by browsing under Incognito such that my YouTube history is effectively continuously purged.

The searches mean that what I'm shown in a specific session tend to be related to that session's focus, and not random other stuff from 18 months ago.

It's a tremendous incentive to not log in to YouTube.

I'm fairly sure that "Watch Later" is just a special playlist full of videos where you click the "Watch Later" button on...

It is. Which leads me to question the OPs comment.

I think he got mixed up with the playlist where it's video you left without finishing ("continue watching") and the playlist where it's "watch again".

Yep, mixed it up with continue watching.

The thing that bothers me most about youtube feed is that if I watch some series up until part number N and stop somewhere in between, it would offer me to watch the N+1 part in feed even though it tracks that I finished every part before that and didn't finish the Nth one.

I'm not sure what you're saying but I think I've experienced it. Youtube tries to get me to skip parts. I watch parts 1,2,3, it recommends 5 and I have to go searching for 4. Without fail it wants me to skip one.

I think the parent wants a Netflix style "continue the unfinished video at the right sopt in time".

That is correct.

Watch Later is just a playlist. You control what's there.

Otherwise I agree completely.

Point #1 I only noticed the other day - I wondered why a handful of channels I subscribe to hadn't appeared in months on my front page. Turns out they'd been posting heaps of new videos but YT was "recommending" me other stuff I wasn't interested in (well I was interested in watching the ones I chose, not the flood of useless recommendations that followed). It just meant that i ended up Spending less time on YT

It also has the incredibly annoying behavior that if you watch one video you are shown of some cartoon (maybe Family Guy, or the Simpsons, or the DC Comics cartoon from the 90s), even if you didn't enjoy it, what feels like a full third of your feed will be that for days... from one video you saw... it all makes absolutely no sense :/. It would be epic if it noticed "oh, this user seems to like watching pop culture examples of this specific thing happening in the videos (such as commentary on machine learning, or politics, or the existential angst that is life itself)" and started finding such across all TV shows (as I quite like many of these shows! but that isn't why I am watching them today), but it just goes "oh, you like Futurama? OMG HAVE I GOT FUTURAMA FOR YOU".

Their general-purpose video recommendations remain terrible

However, their music recommendations for me have improved drastically in the last few months. I've discovered so many obscure indie bands that it has become my go-to discovery platform now.

I agree, it's not great. That's why I use a RSS feed reader to track the youtube channels I want to consistently watch.

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