YouTube is as good as you make it. If you watch a lot of a type of content, it does a great job at finding similar content, including relevant things that you didn't know existed. If you just watch random popular stuff, then yeah, it's pretty trashy.

Imagine this option:

   [x] Turn off recommendations

   [ ] Turn on recommendations

One problem with an internet where people expect, accept and rely on "recommendations" from so-called "tech" companies is that it ignores and disincentivises people who know how to search and find good stuff. Often these people want to tell others about, and share, what they find. Before so-called "tech" companies existed, these people could be excellent sources of recommendations. IMHO, they still are

Other HN comments have suggested recommendations should be an exception to Section 230 (cf. publishing user-generated content without commercially-motivated favoritism)

I highly recommend using the "Not interested" button on anything you don't want to see. It's actually pretty effective at pruning unwanted things from your recommendations. If I get anything political or slop related, it gets the not interested button.

I also have a second channel for language learning where I used it to prune out any videos in English. It's not perfect and recommends a few still, but they get more rare as time passes.

Agree, their algorithm sucks, I wish I could have more freedom to customize it

This is the only downside. You really need to curate good content.

Agree! So many great genuine creators, but the algo keeps pushing only clickbaity shit

I have a friend that sends me lunatic fringe videos every day that youtube recommends. It's tiring

YouTube Premium is the best ~~$11.99~~ ~~$13.00~~ $15.17 I spend per month...

I actually don't care that much about YouTube content and it's not a place I go and hang out, but I'll pay just about anything to avoid seeing ads. Yes, I know ad blockers exist, but getting them to work on laptop, phone, Apple TV directly, Apple TV via casting, etc is not easy or even possible in some cases. If I had to guess I watch ~1hr of YouTube a week, if I watch more than that I'm watching longer-form content, but mostly it's because everyone hosts their videos there so the 3-7min here and there add up to ~1hr (tutorials, product launch, help/documentation video, etc). As much as it pains me to fork over $15+/mo for that, I hate being interrupted by ads more.

More channels are fighting for attention though, so finding more channels are "creating buzz" or "news" based on mediocre information ie. taking things out of context and making unwarranted conclusions or blowing things out of proportions for clickbait titles.

"This changes everything!!"

Getting youtube fatigue.

Fully agree. There is so much good content and being ad-free is just a really great experience.

I'd pay that, but it's about $22 in my country...

I prefer newpipe for $0/mo

uBlock origin + SponsorBlock has a much better price to performance ratio imo.

i judge ppl who dont have youtube premium as a not curious ppl :D

> Youtube charges $10 per month and doesn't produce a single video.

This is like complaining that your fridge takes money to run even though it produces none of the stuffs you put in your fridge. Serving video is enormously expensive especially if you let practically everyone use your platform as permanent storage for videos that will never be watched and will never generate ad revenue. There is a reason why no real competitor to YouTube has emerged and the alternative platforms that do exist target professional content creators even more than YouTube.

> They should quit it with the Shorts though, nobody likes those

No one on this website likes them, sure. The number of likes and comments some of those short videos get suggests that there are enough people who like them for YouTube to keep pushing them. They just don't tend to get very vocal about it on a nerd social media.

It didn't used to be like this though, and it feels bad to feel like a rat in a cage with YT. It's an un-winnable situation, choosing between excessive ads and paying the racketeer to be safe from the racket. It just really exemplifies their de-facto monopoly on internet video, and it makes me feel bad.

They get paid to display ads, and they get paid to hide ads. What a fantastic business model.

I'm also in the same bucket, happy to pay my subscription.

I used to be vehemently opposed to shorts, but with recommendations disabled it is tolerable, because only shorts from people I subscribe to are in there.

The only reason I really watch shorts is because Vsauce started using them a lot, and his content is definitely worth a watch every time in any format.

> Youtube charges $10 per month and doesn't produce a single video

It is different from Netflix (that pays upfront for production costs), but there's of course a revenue share + the bulk of the revenue for creators is actually from sponsorships (which YT doesn't take a share of).

And they steal all the content for AI training. You couldn't buy their archive for all the money in the world.

I don’t think the schedule argument is a strong one these days. DVRs have been around for decades now, and built into satellite and cable services too. In fact, some TVs even have DVR functionality built in.

What annoys me is when streaming services release shows on a weekly basis. Which makes them just as inconvenient to watch as traditional broadcasting.

You used to be able to set your VCR to record the show at a certain time (and skip the ads by fast-forwarding). DVRs exist too. We have lost a lot of freedom.

Only 20 years too late. They should have been involved from the start

So Ofcom publishes a factual report with the positively dull actual title of "Passive social media use, AI companionship, and online side hustles: UK adults’ media and online lives revealed"

A report that makes zero comment on controlling how people use YouTube or any other social media.

And yet somehow they are "a disgrace to humanity"

Really?

UK voters get what they vote for.

I think your disgrace-level calibration needs adjusting given everything else that's going on rn buddy.

the slop has been in regular TV for decades.

and even if it's not algorithmically generated in a direct sense it is clearly subject matter made and selected by algorithm.

57 Channels And Nothin' On

Those quotes read like the quotes you'd read from someone's facebook after they've committed an atrocity

Those comments are something... I take the most issue with the second one. I wonder if the person knows they're directly describing group-think. That's something that would theoretically get you called a "sheeple" in some places, unless you agree with the general opinion held by most people there, of course. :)

> Because you can't get doomlooped into right-wing podcasts and "citizen journalism" on the TV.

FoxNews, NewsMax, AM Radio are already good enough for that. I’ve also noticed that most of the guests on TV News are now YouTubers, so even if you are watching TV, you are going to see them.

Citizen journalism can be a bad thing, like the Nick Shirley example, but the alternative seems to be that only news Larry Ellison or some other billionaire approves will get on TV, that seems like a far worse scenario to me.

For the Iran war, on YouTube, you can see Canadian journalists sailing in the strait of Hormuz and interviews with real Iranians. You cannot see this on CBS.

Sigh. Those comments are truly something.

> Ofcom emitting anti-social media statements shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.

Where was there anything in that story that was ant-social media?