[mbg721]

I had done this in a new browser because my work once used it to stream a meeting, and I was shocked how tabloid-trashy the default front-page suggestions were. I can't believe that's what a plurality of people would want without the algorithms.

[jjoonathan]

I can believe the tabloid trash is what people want: I've seen supermarket checkout aisles and daytime TV, the depths of the lowest common denominator have been plumbed before and it seems reasonable that youtube would arrive at much the same place. I can understand occasionally wanting to check the popular content for neat trends that you missed out on, but the idea of seeking out the pop / tabloid experience as your main interaction mechanism is foreign and slightly revolting to me. It's not an escape from the algorithm, it's just another side of the algorithm, and not the best one.

IMO the curated youtube experience is far better. Yes, it recommends similar content and will push you down a rabbithole if you let it, but that's what recommender systems do. The flipside of discovering good content from good choices is discovering bad content from bad choices, and I don't think those can be automatically separated. On occasion you have to actively and firmly tell the algorithm "no" in the form of "don't recommend this channel," but once you do it respects your decision. A tiny bit of curation goes a long way, and if if I didn't let youtube work with me to figure out what I liked I imagine I would wind up doing the same thing but worse by keeping a list of interesting channels that I periodically checked.

[krapp]

In my experience, Youtube only works as a curated experience, which means being logged into an account, having subscriptions, an active search history, etc.