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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

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amelius·

Google: We need all your data so we can provide you with a better UX.

Me: Ok, please turn off AI Overviews, and while you're at it never show me anything from Pinterest ever again.

Google: Sorry, can't do that.

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YouTube search has to be one of the worst offenders.

It will intentionally insert unrelated videos into search results, in an obvious attempt to boost your engagement. And it probably works. I have no doubt it’s possible for Google (a damn search company) to make a more capable YouTube search, but it’s clearly not aligned with their interest of increasing some retention KPIs.

You mean, when you search Youtube for "Galvanic Corrosion Explained" you don't want clickbait nonsense like "Elon Musk fires employees in twitter meeting DUB" or "Cybertruck Crash Test is HORRIFYING, Here’s Why" ??

But did you watch them?

Fuck no. One of the biggest quality of life improvements other than ditching YouTube entirely is turning off the auto play mode and only watching specifically what you were looking for.

I asked because I don't get those same suggestions, so it's likely YouTube knows you're interested.

The suggestions I see are generally things I'm interested in.

The suggestions I see are almost always based on the same kind of “seeing” as astrology.

Missing the “Here have an ad instead”

Make that ad obvious to be an ad (different background?) instead of doing shit like barely visible "oh, have completely unrelated search results" like they do in YT...

And I would actually welcome the Ads

“Welcome” doesn’t mean engage with, read and retain, or purchase / whatever it is the ad is pushing, which is what they ultimately want.

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