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Is anyone actually happy with the current state of Youtube?

Griffon

Member
I've found the channels I enjoy and youtube algorithm sometimes recommends a new channel in the same vein that I like. Seems like it's working as intended.

Youtube is doing fine. Professional youtubers are doing a better job than amateur ones did 15 years ago. It's not even a question. Just don't watch general trending trash and focus on your interests and you'll have plenty of good stuff.
 

Power Pro

Member
Online fan content creation has died down or became too monetized...it's sad. Simpler times are gone and there are seemingly no viable alternatives for it
I think this is what ultimately bothers me, because I don't use it much without some sort of adblocker. It would be unwatchable without one. Even without ads though, you can see their influence all over what is primarily on there now. Every one is so concerned with making sure they meet all the checkmarks to get monetized, and suck the algorithm's digital dick.

I think though this is a problem that is existing far outside of just YouTube how every single thing needs to monetized to hell. Ads NEED to be on every thing, because well if we're not monetizing every thing, that's just money lost. That's the mindset of the world we live in, and it's really sad. Greedy companies keep on trying to push the boundary, and it's not a new thing, it's just getting so ridiculous to those of us who remember when things were different.

At one time you could go into a movie theater, and maybe hear some music. My older brothers who were the projectionists would play movie soundtracks over the speakers between showtimes. Now, you go to a movie and you're bombarded with stupid fucking ads, when you're paying to be there. There was once a concept of, well you're paying for a service, so you shouldn't be hit with ads all over what you're paying for. Cable stations used to be the same way. You got commercials on over the air stations, but cable channels, which we are still paying for access to have commercials worse than any over the air stations used to have. I even remember when they used to sell movies on VHS....versions of movies that you rent, they are the ones that used to have commercials, or trailers before a movie. But if you bought a first run copy of a movie, from a place like Suncoast, or something similar, they did not have ads in them.

I went off on a tangent, but my point is that YouTube is just another casualty I guess in a big chuck of things getting over monetized. It's funny how companies always like to talk about how they're not making enough money today, when there used to be less marketing, and less intrusive ways of selling a product, and yet they thrived and became as big as they are now.

Some people have pointed in this thread how it's silly it is what they're charging for premium, when YouTube themselves don't actually make and produce the content.
 

nocsi

Member
I think this is what ultimately bothers me, because I don't use it much without some sort of adblocker. It would be unwatchable without one. Even without ads though, you can see their influence all over what is primarily on there now. Every one is so concerned with making sure they meet all the checkmarks to get monetized, and suck the algorithm's digital dick.

I think though this is a problem that is existing far outside of just YouTube how every single thing needs to monetized to hell. Ads NEED to be on every thing, because well if we're not monetizing every thing, that's just money lost. That's the mindset of the world we live in, and it's really sad. Greedy companies keep on trying to push the boundary, and it's not a new thing, it's just getting so ridiculous to those of us who remember when things were different.

At one time you could go into a movie theater, and maybe hear some music. My older brothers who were the projectionists would play movie soundtracks over the speakers between showtimes. Now, you go to a movie and you're bombarded with stupid fucking ads, when you're paying to be there. There was once a concept of, well you're paying for a service, so you shouldn't be hit with ads all over what you're paying for. Cable stations used to be the same way. You got commercials on over the air stations, but cable channels, which we are still paying for access to have commercials worse than any over the air stations used to have. I even remember when they used to sell movies on VHS....versions of movies that you rent, they are the ones that used to have commercials, or trailers before a movie. But if you bought a first run copy of a movie, from a place like Suncoast, or something similar, they did not have ads in them.

I went off on a tangent, but my point is that YouTube is just another casualty I guess in a big chuck of things getting over monetized. It's funny how companies always like to talk about how they're not making enough money today, when there used to be less marketing, and less intrusive ways of selling a product, and yet they thrived and became as big as they are now.

Some people have pointed in this thread how it's silly it is what they're charging for premium, when YouTube themselves don't actually make and produce the content.
I just want to address that one paragraph I bolted. It’s not sad to expect everything you create to be monetizable, it’s much needed freedom for people. In the Web 2.0 times, these sites wholly exploited people by not offering anything back for the content they create. Facebook is nothing without whatever the shit their users posts and would die instantly the moment they stop. There’s a feedback loop with YouTube wherein you are getting better content because creators can monetize now. That’s the Web 3.0 ethos. You should be able to expect to make something off of your creation.

I think you’re kind of jaded as a result of the YouTube boom that occurred as an artifact of the advertiser boom which occurred out of a larger spending boom. As of this moment, the advertiser bubble has kind of popped for YouTube and payouts have cratered. So you probably won’t see a lot of creators being able to shovel content since there isn’t as much advertising going on. We have a recession incoming, so enjoy the advertising lapse
 

Jsisto

Member
I've found the channels I enjoy and youtube algorithm sometimes recommends a new channel in the same vein that I like. Seems like it's working as intended.

Youtube is doing fine. Professional youtubers are doing a better job than amateur ones did 15 years ago. It's not even a question. Just don't watch general trending trash and focus on your interests and you'll have plenty of good stuff.
Really doesn’t get much simpler than this.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
We need another big video site. With the advent of Twitch, I thought something was going to appear. I was hoping that Vimeo would took off, but I guess that this ship has sailed...
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Dailymotion is still up. I rarely use it myself. But they do have full episodes of videos of old TV shows I like watching. They are always taken down on YT, but exist on DM.
 

Tams

Gold Member
We need another big video site. With the advent of Twitch, I thought something was going to appear. I was hoping that Vimeo would took off, but I guess that this ship has sailed...
There's just not room for another free with advertising video platform at a similar scale. The running costs are just too high.

Vimeo say the writing on the wall and went hard on being a paid site. Dailymotion and the like survive by not having to serve anywhere near as many people. By being relatively small, they can also get away with having content YouTube can't get away with, so they get enough but not too many people coming to their site.

Edit: That said, having just had a look, Dailymotion have really polished themselves up and have some big corporations/bodies on there now. I'm seeing a lot of SE Asian content, so perhaps it's becoming more of a regional thing like the many messenging services?
 
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Ryllix_

Member
As others have said, with Adblock on a computer it’s a good experience. Trying to use it on a phone or tablet without paying to remove ads is a nightmare. There are frequently ads that are longer than 30 minutes.
 
I've found the channels I enjoy and youtube algorithm sometimes recommends a new channel in the same vein that I like. Seems like it's working as intended.

Youtube is doing fine. Professional youtubers are doing a better job than amateur ones did 15 years ago. It's not even a question. Just don't watch general trending trash and focus on your interests and you'll have plenty of good stuff.
But sometimes I want to watch something I've never seen before. I want something completely fresh and isn't in my comfort zone. Youtube (and any of these fucking algorithms that drive content these days) is only good at boxing you in. It's like a soft walled prison No wonder people are so polarized, they no longer have any exposure to points of views and content that they're not in love with.
 

Methos#1975

Member
There is tons of good YouTube content out there dependent on your likes, Weird History, Tasting History, Eons, Garden State Tortoises, etc.
 

Nico_D

Member
The monetization very clearly shows if only in the constant amount of commercials. Now I only watch vids I really want to see instead of random browsing and discovering. I don't want to be interrupted every other minute by sone loud and stupid commercial shit.
 

WitchHunter

Member
The excessive commercials every minute are horrendous.

Have no opinion about it as far as the creator side goes.
And they show the same commercial again and again and again. I was wondering whether the big companies know how their money is spent. At least facebook has some proper ads and don't try to force feed you some unrelevant shit.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Edit: That said, having just had a look, Dailymotion have really polished themselves up and have some big corporations/bodies on there now. I'm seeing a lot of SE Asian content, so perhaps it's becoming more of a regional thing like the many messenging services?
That could go very bad...
 

-Minsc-

Member
I was afraid of posting anything, because a lot of people on here don't seem to like to actually read threads, but this is something I've wanted to get off my chest for a while; I'm tired of the hustle that is YouTube. Sadly since I don't watch a lot of TV, and there are still a few things like Red Letter Media, or MVs I enjoy watching on there, so I always find myself going back to it to find something worth watching, but it's gotten so hard to do.

I'm glad that Youtube provided opportunity for some talented content creators to do it as a full time job thing, and considering the years of entertainment they provided, they probably deserve it, but I also really miss the YOU part of YouTube. The part where people could just share their hobbies and passions. When YouTube was new, I was the kind of person who occasionally did a game review, or made some AMVs. Some of those actually got a few hundred thousand views, and it was fun and made me happy to see people enjoyed what I made. One in particular got so many people saying it was their favorite AMV, so that stuck with me. It was just a hobby, because I enjoyed editing, and I made people happy. I enjoyed just interacting with others about stuff I made, but I didn't keep doing the game reviews, because Nintendo fans are jerks. A lot of them didn't seem to like my less than perfect review of Mario Kart Wii, so I didn't keep doing that as long, but I digress. The point is, there was a time when you could just do YouTube videos as a hobby, and still get some amount of engagement with others. Now every thing is so run by what the algorithm wants, that doing something because you or your viewers want it seem all but lost on YouTube.

YouTube has become all about the money, and as someone who just wants to watch fun content, this is what makes me sad the most. I escaped watching regular TV, because I was tired of being dictated what type of content was alright to watch, but now YouTube might as well be television. You got videos censoring swear words for fear of pissing off advertisers, you got people doing videos strictly because it's what's trending at the moment. Instead of making thumbnails that actually tell you about the video you're going to watch, they often have people making dumb faces, and if you go to a creator's profile, so many of the thumbnails look near identical because it's what works on YouTube I guess? Let's not even start with the constant thumbnails with people making dumb faces on them.

These people aren't happy unless they're constantly monetizing EVERYTHING. I won't knock them for wanting to be a monetized YouTube channel, go nuts, but a common factor with so many people I've watched in the past couple years is they get sooooo upset if even one video underperforms, or is not monetized. Somebody like Angry Joe as an example, he probably made a dozen videos complaining about copyright claims, because oh no, this guy worth over 1 million dollars didn't make money on one video he made. I get it, some people feel they need to be paid for their "work", but at some point when a lot of the content by these creators comes down to sitting in a chair, talking, and maybe some minor editing.....get over it. You can make another one in an hour probably. It's hard to feel sorry for someone not able to monetize their content, when they're still making money from any number of sources. Twitch subscribers, patreons, donations...they're bringing in money constantly from so many different directions. Stop crying that you only made $10,000 today, instead of $11,000.

I know this is running kind of long, but let me give one more example. I follow a game streamer/let's player who does daily videos where he posts 20-30 minute videos of a let's play per day. Often times, I actually just wait till an entire game is posted to even watch them because I hate watching them in short chunks, but he's entertaining enough to wait it out. He's got a fanbase that is sizeable I'd say, sizeable enough that I would be happy to get what he does if I was in his shoes. However instead of just trying to appeal to those fans, he keeps chasing this never ending idea of "I must follow follow the algorithm and grow! that's all that matters", at least that's how it comes off to me. In his comments, or discord chat, he'll have members in his fanbase community say "I love watching you play this game", and hope he would follow it up, or actually finish a game he starts, but he doesn't care about that, if it doesn't meet his view count demands, he'll quit that game half way through, and go back to doing more Zelda randomizers, because they might get 10k views per video, rather than what he considers a "low" view count of 7-8k views, which I guess that's what he seems to consider a failure.

I've dabbled into doing YouTube/streamer stuff, but no one watches, so I don't usually stick with it, but this guy has what would be the dream for me. A supportive and consistent fanbase that's been with him for years, which is easily enough to live off of. Yet he seems to hate his fans, and doesn't care about doing what makes them happy, but rather what the algorithm says might make him get bigger. That's what drives me nuts. It's like, dude clearly makes enough money to live happy. That's just the YouTube side of it, the guy still has an average of 1200 or more subscribers a month on his twitch channel, not to mention the donations of money or bits every day I've seen him stream.

I find it frustrating because I would do the kind of content he does even without the money aspect. I would be so grateful that people were actually watching and wanting to interact with me, but I don't do it, because every time I try, no one watches, and that's more discouraging. People like the creator I mention don't even don't even see their viewers as people, and in fact often just look down on them.

TLDR: Sorry if this is long post, but I am just a wordy type of person, and wanted to get my point across. Basically, I am tired of the over monetization of YouTube, and how it made so much of the content homogenized. You can't find people making videos for the love of a hobby, or passion anymore, but rather how much money it can make them. Does this actually make anyone happy? The creators seem miserable, and I would hope the viewers would tire out on all the same-ness of everything.

I love it. So much free entertainment over the years. They sure do make some dumb decisions though. I really want "sort by oldest" and being able to totally ignore shorts though. Probably need to look into extensions.
HJSkDQf.png


The "Unhook" browser extension has made my YouTube home page much easier. When I first wanted to "detox" I hid everything except the search bar and the video player. No trending videos, comments, likes, recommended videos, notifications or view counts. It's an experience I recommend giving a try. Search up a topic and switch the filter to sort by upload date. Having all the noise surrounding the player window filtered out can be eerie.

Since then I've loosened up and enabled comments and video info. No recommended videos on the side, that's too much of a click hole.

This Odysee site sounds interesting, I'll check it out.

edit:

As for the content on YouTube, there can be great stuff on there if you find it. Obviously, it all depends what you are interested in.

This guy has some great videos on doing masonry work. Basically he's a retired fellow showing off the tricks he's learned over the years in the trade. Many of these tricks will be lost since old school bricklaying is basically dead. At least in North America.

 
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D-ray

Member
I see where you are coming, and to be honest it's a tale as old as time for me.

However I sense a bit of hypocrisy in your "making ethic"; no offence of course.
Youtubers making videos only for about the revenue, and you NOT making them because of lack of attention/interactions are equally passion lacking to me.
It's true that big figures don't interact all that much with viewers and don't really care about them, but try putting yourself in their situation.
Someone who may have 100.000 followers might get 5000 comments a day, maybe even emails and notifications in general, and it's obvious that at some point you won't care nor have the physical ability to answer and interact with ALL of them, so they just go for the revenue at a certain point.
People getting on making videos only for the revenue/attention don't usually go far, because the goal is greater than what they are capable of even comprehending.

As for you, I just think you need to try doing MORE rather than complain on what others DON'T do.
In today's internet everyone makes EVERYTHING, and it's hard to see the pebble in the grass field. However, if you fence a small part of the grass field, it will be easier to find it.

What I'm trying to say is that you should start with a low scale and most importantly target a CONTEXT to "ask" for interactions.
For instance: you make a video game review? You may ask in forums like these or others in which the game you review is the central context and ask for opinions directly by posting your video. And at this point you NEED to remain with low numbers, because if the numbers get too high, you end up like the big entertainers, who at one point will grow tired of the interactions.
 

22•22

NO PAIN TRANCE CONTINUE
Lol "youtubers"

Fuck those assholes.

YouTube hosts a lot of content with certain, episodes, if you will, spanning 2+ hours.

Unless I have to go 100% patreon I'm happy.

Premium as well. Don't like those manipulative "commercials".
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
But sometimes I want to watch something I've never seen before. I want something completely fresh and isn't in my comfort zone. Youtube (and any of these fucking algorithms that drive content these days) is only good at boxing you in. It's like a soft walled prison No wonder people are so polarized, they no longer have any exposure to points of views and content that they're not in love with.
The algorithm suggests content based on what you've watched and liked. How is the algorithm supposed to know that you don't want to watch what you normally watch and suggest something different? And expect the algorithm to know it will be something fresh that you will like?

I think the algorithm does a pretty good job of showing me related content in the home feed, but 99% of it is based on what I normally view. It does sometimes sprinkle in new things but not often. I mainly use the explore tab to find new stuff. Or just search.

Something youtube should do is just allow you to go to their less filtered main page instead of your curated home feed. I say less filtered because they still know who you are whether you're logged in or not. But at least it shows more new stuff than your normal feed.
 
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SegaManAU

Gold Member
YouTube Premium, which also includes music.

Love it, never see ads and I watch youtube every day. I enjoy the people I subscribe to so no complaints from me.
 

thegame983

Member
My only issue with it is how it suggests videos I have no history of watching.

No youtube, I'm not going to watch a video of Jimmy Kimmel/ Seth Meyers discussing the Jan 6th committee, no matter how many time you recommend it to me.
 

AREYOUOKAY?

Member
Removing video responses was the biggest downfall of Youtube and there was no need to get rid of that. It was useful for many things such as multi-part videos.
 

cheststrongwell

my cake, fuck off
HJSkDQf.png


The "Unhook" browser extension has made my YouTube home page much easier. When I first wanted to "detox" I hid everything except the search bar and the video player. No trending videos, comments, likes, recommended videos, notifications or view counts. It's an experience I recommend giving a try. Search up a topic and switch the filter to sort by upload date. Having all the noise surrounding the player window filtered out can be eerie.

Since then I've loosened up and enabled comments and video info. No recommended videos on the side, that's too much of a click hole.

This Odysee site sounds interesting, I'll check it out.

edit:

As for the content on YouTube, there can be great stuff on there if you find it. Obviously, it all depends what you are interested in.

This guy has some great videos on doing masonry work. Basically he's a retired fellow showing off the tricks he's learned over the years in the trade. Many of these tricks will be lost since old school bricklaying is basically dead. At least in North America.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Does it allow you to search specific channel videos by oldest uploaded? I probably won't go as far as you did, though. That's some hardcore minimalism:messenger_grinning_smiling:
 

-Minsc-

Member
Thanks, I'll check it out. Does it allow you to search specific channel videos by oldest uploaded? I probably won't go as far as you did, though. That's some hardcore minimalism:messenger_grinning_smiling:
As far as I can tell, all Unhook does is hide specific parts of the page.

I don't even know if I lasted a week on Hardcore Minimal. It's possible I even stopped visiting YouTube for over a month. This is back when I was attempting to rewire myself away from some bad habits. For example, comments. The only reason I was scrolling through the comments was to see if people made comments I liked. Essentially I was spending a lot of time scrolling down.

Today I use Unhook to clean up redundant side menus and hid recommended/trending videos. Recommended videos were too much a click vortex.


You may find useful information as to why the "sort by oldest" option is missing.

As a workaround, the extension "YouTube Redux" may be what you need.
 
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22•22

NO PAIN TRANCE CONTINUE
I can find lots of music videos. A man spending a night in a snowy forest making his own tent and fire and cook a piece of meat. Excerpts of (old) series or full length anime that are rather difficult to find irl. Watch and listen hours and hours and hours to alternative history and conspiracy stuff. Watch a sexy woman try out Halloween costumes. Kickboxing and MMA all over the place. Instructional videos for weightlifting exercises. All without commercials. Should I go on? Forgot all the gaming related content. Sooo much.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Sure. Or use some other AdBlock if you want. I can't be bothered and honestly don't care what somebody else does.
I'm being cheeky due to your sentence reading like an exert that would be used by the company to sell their product, lol. Just need a photostock face to go with the quote.
 
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DR3AM

Member
Is there anything like an ad blocker for the YT app or Safari on the iPhone to block the ads? They are so annoying and long
 

badblue

Member
The algorithm suggests content based on what you've watched and liked.

The algorithm suggests me videos about Soccer, K-pop, small Local US news stations (I'm Canadian), Car and Engine shit, Minecraft and for some reason family vlog channels. I don't watch or like any of that content yet daily I'm getting it recommended.

Even flagging a video with "not interested" or "Don't recommend channel" doesn't seem to change what gets recommended to me depending on the content. After watching the Andrew Huberman and Jordan Peterson video for example, I was inundated with JP content being recommended, a couple of "Not interested/Don't recommend" on a few videos and I don't get JP content. "Don't recommend channel" for FC Manchester and it doesn't stick longer then a week before FC Manchester shows back up in my recommended.
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
I didn't read all that, but no. Everything is corporately produced and there's pretty much no way to find new content, unique content or things from small channels. Also, anything old is ignored in searches unless you specifically remember it and look for it. YouTube kinda sucks, but there is no viable alternative.
 
For youtube i use Brave Browser....by default it blocks any ads, comes bundled with a VPN, for free. It became insufferable watching a 30 min video and 10 ads along the way.
 

supernova8

Banned
Goes without saying but it's impossible to enjoy with an adblocker of some sort.

These days I only really use Youtube for listening to music playlists while working (adblock of course) and for checking JarrodsTech (annoying monotonous voice but he's improved compared to before) and a select few other laptop-oriented channels.
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
Actually, Google insisting on a "unified" google account annoys me to this day. I have a google account, a gmail account, and a YouTube account (from before they were bought) and it pisses me off that I can't log in to all three separately. Or, really, all two separately. My original google account has vanished. I don't want to watch YouTube videos with my gmail account or look at emails with my YouTube account, but google insists that I can only sign in to one at a time. This is the longest running Google era YouTube fuckery and I'm still pissed about it.
 
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Roxkis_ii

Member
The thing I dislike about youtube is the click bait or thirst trappy thumbnails (I'm kinda done with people and advertisers trying to use lust as a tool personally) . It's a really big turn off to content for me and I've unsubbed from creators for it.

Another thing that's starting to make me sad is a lot of video essayist are becoming streamers, and if you recall the old saying, "never meet your heroes", it applies here too.
I've sub to people who have made some really deep and interesting videos, then they start streaming, and you have to realize the artist you admired is 40 man who act like a high school mean girl.


Still like youtube waaay more then twitch.
 
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