[PeterBarrett]

This is so nicely written, good job.

It's a topic that captivates me every couple of months, most recently I've been interested in the power of YouTube's recommendation system. If you show interest in a topic you're slowly guided into more videos on the topic, to the point where you're more likely to buy items surrounding the topic you have become interested in. Then eventually the recommendations change, your interest in that topic weans and you're on to your next interest. It's a cycle that's easy to fall into and easy to break if you notice, but how many people don't notice?

[rorykoehler]

YouTube recommendations are awful. I watch one video out of curiosity and am then flooded with similar videos. There is no nuance just a deluge of shit. Even stuff I am interested in is annoying to see day in day out. It pares the world down into a few niches in turn stopping you from discovering new and interesting things outside of what you already know.

[ehnto]

Do you mostly watch videos from people you already subscribe to?

YouTube behaves the same way for me, and I am wondering if it's just a perception thing. If I watch an MTB video, it's mostly MTB recommendations, but they're all people I am subscribed to so it's not notable. But if I watch a video about metalworking, it probably shows the same kind of spread just for a topic and channels I'm not familiar with, making it feel like it's lost it's way.

I also wonder if they don't weight subscriptions that highly for the recommendations, and because I mostly watch subscriptions, if I watch a new topic it's heavily weighted because there's not much other data.

[rorykoehler]

Yes I do and I also think this may be part of the issue.

[tomjen3]

That is a very interesting perspective. Maybe that is why I don't mind watching clips from Apples yearly shows, which are 100% commercials, but loath youtube ads/sponsorships. They are both advertising, but one is really high quality, the other is squarespace.

[thomasjbevan]

YouTube refs are great for music, but awful for any kind of ‘content’

[busymom0]

It probably works on most people but I find that YouTube recommendations are always something I do not want to watch. Now a days they have started putting mainstream media and news content always at the top in the recommendations on the right side of a video and I never ever click on them. I have tried the “Don’t show me this” but it doesn’t seem to work. It’s gotten to the point where I might look into using content blocker to block that HTML element all together.