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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   35115 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Is YouTube's business model imploding in slow motion?

They've been pushing more inane bullshit in recommended with zero prompting, and the algorithm just seems totally broken from too many manual overrides at this point. I don't see video ads thanks to Vanced, but the image ads are getting increasingly schizo or just plain weird. Who is actually paying for them any more?

Their personalization obviously isn't working too well either, given all my ads for menopause meds and Israeli flag lapel pins. Do they think I'm a republican congressman with a Bulwark subscription or something?

As a youtube premium subscriber(on principle if a service offers a choice between ad and pay model I choose any reasonably priced paid model) I find the recommendation algorithm works fairly well. There are some "sticky" recommendations that happen when I watch some link I wish were easier to get the algo to forget about but it mostly works.

Here is a random f5 on my youtube homepage.

I can pretty much tell where each of these suggestions is coming from and

  1. I sometimes watch random documentaryies

  2. I watched on of the "blood on the clocktower" no holds barred videos on the behest of someone here

  3. Tech humor skit that combines my watching of skit comedy with my watching of tech videos

  4. Video essay about some video game nonsense that I use as background noise

  5. JRE clip because sometimes I'll watch recommended episodes with interesting people, although I rarely watch the clips

  6. Short look into something I might find interesting

  7. music playlist because I recently got that Sanatra song in my head and played it

  8. Old documentary short, a category I watch somewhat frequently

  9. Board game review from a board game reviewer I watch sometimes

  10. Video game challenge video, I don't watch many of these but it's adjacent to some things I watch, suggestions can't all be hits

  11. TV show debunking/confirming video I sometimes watch these.

  12. a stand-up set

If I didn't already know what I wanted to put on I think I'd happily click on about half of these recommendations.

I also find the algorithm is pretty responsive to changes in my watching habits. When a new Path of Exile season comes out and I start consuming more PoE videos I find that pretty much every refresh will include a video from one of the PoE content creators.

I think some of the problems of people here are self created. If you're not logging into an account and intentionally throwing wrenches into the gears then how can it be a surprise when the algorithm doesn't work for you?

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