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by anjc 2104 days ago
> "use YouTube infrequently"

> "binging random content"

gets recommended random popular content

> "why are recommendations so bad"

They can't read your mind, you know

1 comments

They could probably infer that if I'm watching comedy,and the last 5 videos were comedy by the same artist, I don't want to watch some guy's channel about bassists that they've tried to get me to watch 100 times prior.
If they were only recommending comedy from the same artist you may then have the same issue as another comment, which is that recommendations aren't novel enough.

I'd take your point if they only recommended bass videos, but presumably it's just one recommendation in a list of many, with the point being to explore your preferences while also satisfying your demands

The problem everyone is complaining about is that they used to recommend a good mix of content that was actually relevant. Like if you were watching a bunch of comedy videos by one comic it would recommend more of them but also another comic that you would probably enjoy. I don’t know how they did it, maybe it was just based on what other people with similar demographics and interests watched. If it was then they probably broke it when they decided to pop the filter bubbles. Turns out some of those bubbles were useful, they just decided to throw the baby out with the bath water.
If they used to recommend a good mix of content, what do you feel is the issue with recommendations now? Not enough variety? Not enough relevance?
> They could probably infer that if I'm watching comedy ... I don't want to watch some guy's channel about bassists that they've tried to get me to watch 100 times prior.

davie504 is basically a musically-themed comedy act, so this doesn't seem that unreasonable.

Urgh him. I watch a lot of music videos (as in videos about making music + music theory). I can not get this guy off my recommends. He has the personality of a sofa cushion. I cannot understand why he's popular.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with my recommends. I think the Google spooks have built a good file on me.

I use this firefox addin, it put a cross next to user comments and videos and lets you hide videos and comments from those users/channels in the recommended videos, searches etc;

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-clean...