You can see this happen in real time if you closely follow some youtube channels. You take someone who is genuinely talented and has some interesting, novel insights. And, maybe a couple of their videos makes it big. And they rightly think they should keep making videos because they have other insights. And they're not wrong.

But over time, something happens. No one has a novel, brilliant insight 1-2 times a week. So once they really turn in and decide to make a serious effort with their channel, the quality of their content suffers. Maybe it's not quite click-bait, but it's less genuine and more formulaic than their original work. A bit more sensational. Videos are reaching for reasons to exist, since the author needs to keep pumping them out.

I wouldn't quite call it corruption, but it's a clear degradation. In principle it's not a novel problem, since people have been writing weekly editorials for a long time. But, there seems to be something about the Youtube format that makes it such that the big channels must always play the game and pump out sub-par content.

> Maybe it's not quite click-bait, but it's less genuine and more formulaic than their original work. A bit more sensational. Videos are reaching for reasons to exist, since the author needs to keep pumping them out.

I've come to accept that this is what many viewers want. They're more interesting in seeing their familiar personalities talk on camera than in the details of what they're doing.

At the risk of downvotes given the audience, this is how I feel whenever I've tried to watch Linus Tech Tips videos. I have some friends who watch every LTT video when it comes out and love the brand, but I can't make it through a single LTT video because there's so little subject matter. The few videos I watched also had some glaring oversights and borderline misinfo. I think the audience for those videos is people who like seeing the LTT crew have fun, do some activities, and talk. The subject matter of the video is secondary for them.

I see a lot of YouTube channels going the same direction: They realize the content they're discussing is secondary to the fact that they're in front of the camera doing something. The cooking channels know that most viewers aren't going to be cooking the dish. The DIY channels know that most viewers don't care about the code or engineering as much as seeing personalities goof around on screen.

I don't think there is anything wrong with this type of content, though. One of my friends says he handles his work better with a constant stream of YouTube videos in the background, so he semi-watches more YouTube than anyone I know. I do appreciate the channels that focus on the content and subject matter instead of becoming content factories, though.

I’m old, but this pattern is old too. You’d see it in car magazines where the regular columnists would rehash their tired old opinions but you’d read it anyway because they had a particular sense of humour or an otherwise engaging style.

It’s hard to create novel content regularly once a month, let alone weekly or daily like some of these YouTube guys are doing

It’s just people responding to incentives.

If you want to be profitable, or widely watched, you have to play to the algorithm.

YouTube seems to strongly boost channels that post regular videos in the 10-20 minute range, and actively incentivizes clickbait through AB Testing tools for titles and thumbnails.

There are channels that post irregularly, with long form videos, but they get buried.

Another issue I've seen from some of the more prolific YouTube channels is they slowly become another mouthpiece for "news coverage". The algorithm very much expects you to continue uploading, because everyone is always looking for the newest content; at least before YouTube removed the Trending section. I admit that I only really check my Subscription page at this point, and after going through a subscription purge I only see maybe a half a dozen to a dozen new videos. Its actually been very useful since it encourages me to not get sucked in to watching hours of videos.

However, given my experience during Digg's v4 attempt this past year, I will say being willing to put yourself out there has served as a pseudo-networking activity and I've gotten the chance to speak with several people and now I'm giving talks "out there".

this is why the only youtube channels I really watch regularly are the ones where the formula is the point, e.g. https://youtube.com/@crackingthecryptic

Every youtuber eventually becomes a parody of themselves.