[ubercow13]

Did you give it any useful information? I mean for example, I am subscribed to a bunch of channels about music theory, and Youtube will put other videos about music theory and analysis in my feed. They are highly relevant and at least somewhat popular, so usually reasonable quality. Sometimes it will start recommending videos from a channel that is not so good, and you can tell it to never show you that channel again.

If you only watch random Youtube videos linked from other sites with no particular theme, or generic news and political videos, or don't subscribe to any channels, I can imagine the recommendations would be pretty useless. But the algorithm does seem pretty good at recommending things related to your interests if those are clear from what you watch and subscribe to. It's probably the only recommendation engine I find useful.

[patwalls]

My point is less about the content being useful/interesting and more about being mindful of our information diet.

How many videos do you need to watch about music theory? Does it ever feel like the same content but regurgitated in different ways? Do you watch this to genuinely learn? Or is it more enjoyment/infotainment? (honest questions)

I don't study music theory, but this is how I feel about productivity/self-help/business videos, which dominate my feed. Although these videos were life changing at one point, I'm not sure how much more value I'm getting by continuing to watch these anymore. When I get to the end of these videos, nowadays, I just feel a bit 'bleh'.

It feels nice to find new, refreshing content that is completely outside of what the youtube algo would give me, and sometimes that happens by talking to friends (esp in different industries), reading books, old blog posts, etc. I want to stay curious and proactive in finding discovering new things and hobbies and interests.

[ubercow13]

I appreciate the general point of being careful about one's information diet. It's easy to fool yourself into thinking what you're consuming is bettering you, when it's really just entertainment (I consider HN to be a good example of this!)

Regarding Youtube and music education, I feel like it's a pretty healthy stream of content.

>Does it ever feel like the same content but regurgitated in different ways?

Learning an instrument is such a challenging and broad topic, there's no shortage of things to learn. One thing I like about Youtube is that the better content can surface for everyone to access. Finding a good teacher in real life can be tricky, but with Youtube I can watch 10 different people's takes on a topic and see which explanation clicks for me.

>Do you watch this to genuinely learn? Or is it more enjoyment/infotainment?

It's both. Staying motivated, interested and enthusiastic is just as important as the learning itself. Often watching a good performance or explanation of some musical idea is what makes me want to pick up my guitar in the first place. Of course there's a balance to be found - just watching videos about things you would do if you weren't so busy watching videos isn't much use.