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Why does YouTube feel completely devoid of content? (clarification in body) (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

60 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Normally, I use YouTube very little (watch a couple videos a month). However, I've been in bed with an injury for some time now, which has led me to watch quite a bit of YouTube. The thing is, I subscribe to a small handfull of channels that I enjoy content from, but after a relatively short time I had watched pretty much all the new content from those channels.

Now, I would expect that the YouTube algorithm, which is supposedly designed by competent people to get me to stick around, would be able to suggest some decent content to me based on my subscriptions. However, the past week, I've opened YouTube only to find the same old videos being suggested over and over. Even worse: Whenever there's something interesting-looking from a channel I don't recognise, it always turns out to be some shitty AI voice over some generic animations or footage.

I know for a fact that thousands of hours of content are created on YouTube daily, but it genuinely feels like there are maybe five creators out there that are making anything worth watching. It's either that, or the YouTube algorithm is just complete crap at suggesting creators that are in any way similar to what I'm already subscribing to.

What's going on here? Why does it seem like there's no real content out there?

As a "funny" side note: What's with the "aggressively American" AI narrator-voice? I've heard it before, but thought it was some dude until I realised it's the same voice in a bunch of unrelated videos. It reminds me of the Discovery-channel "action-narrator"-voice from back in the day, but now it's showing up in all kinds of crap videos.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There are two answers. First, the algorithm obviously sucks. Maybe they have it programmed in a way that attracts other people to watch a ton of stuff, but it definitely doesn't match your interests and personality. The second point is that as YouTube has changed how they pay content creators, they have disincentivized various types of videos. Depending on the content creator and the topic, it might make sense to have a relatively short video or possibly a quite long one, and yet it seems those are not getting the type of payment that they used to.

Another point that I have heard various YouTubers mention but I don't know the details of involves how the algorithm will either hype you a lot or not hype you at all. Various channels used to get large amounts of visits routinely and then in a matter of 2 months those visits dropped to a few percent of what they once were. In other words, the algorithm appears to be very polarizing in certain cases.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

I've also heard that they run a "feast or famine"-type model, and honestly believe that's a major culprit. I can't remember the last time I was recommended a video from some semi-niche channel unless I was already subscribed.