> Users don't want their shit changing all the time.
Eliminating A/B testing won't solve this problem. Even without A/B testing, they make updates, etc.
You might as well just say "Updating an online service without asking the user first is unethical."
Oh, and how much are you paying for that service...?
I paid YT Premium once. It unlocked a playback queue in the app. That queue had 5 separate bugs I found within an hour. It's literally a simple playlist and yet not a single feature (adding, removing, reordering etc) worked reliably. The playback queue also randomly emptied itself sometimes. Meanwhile I get a superior version of this in the browser by simply opening a video in another tab, for free.
Why should I pay for that while they only have AI support designed to never solve any issues, do nothing against bots, and then warn you that you may get banned when you report too many bots?
I actually discussed it with a friend a few years back while debating the declining quality of Google's engineering.
The craziest thing to me - it appears to be using some kind of eventual consistency, so additions/reorders/deletions have to go through some complex process server-side that takes several seconds to update in the UI (and often the order is wrong, or silently fails to add videos). And yet, the whole queue disappears without a trace if the YouTube app gets unloaded by iOS, and is unavailable on other devices, so it could have just been stored locally all along.
I thought that perhaps they were storing it server-side because eventually it would allow the queue to be restored or transferred, but it has been about 3 years now and I don't think that day is ever coming. I just lost a whole queue of several vids this morning (on the plus side it was a good incentive to get off YT, so I'll give it that).
My guess is it's using eventual consistency or some complex multi-microservice chain of RPCs because that's just what you have to do at Google. I'm sure there are engineers who want to fix the feature or go back and complete the rushed launch but likely can't convince the decision makers that it's necessary.
So we get a subpar experience from one of the largest companies in the world with thousands of the best engineers, while Google keeps getting their $16/month because there are no alternatives
When it comes to paying for video streaming, they are plenty of other services, and they all provide a better user experience than Youtube. Even if I pay, say, Paramount for their ad-laden option (the cheaper one), it's superior to Youtube without ads.
Why people pay for Youtube is beyond me.
Updates are one thing, changes made specifically targeted towards manipulating users into spending more time on the site in ways they can’t opt out of (youtube shorts is a good example) are different. No one is bothered if YouTube updates to allow 8k streams. I am extremely bothered that YouTube does not allow me to disable shorts in the app. I don’t want shorts, they are a distraction and one more thing i have to guard against getting sucked into. Let me use the app how I want to use it, not how you want me to use it.