[charcircuit]

Yes, it works great for me. I don't really use the negative feedback. Most recommendation I guess are new uploads from creators I like or videos I haven't watched from creators I like. It shows me videos from unknown creators to me that match my interests as they go viral. It shows some random old videos that just randomly go viral again. It's a good experience.

[q-base]

That's interesting and perhaps I should not be that surprised. If it did not work at all, then they would probably have changed it. Their KPI is probably ad revenue, but still if it worked for no one, then I would expect their revenue to decline as people spend their time elsewhere. But then again, where will you go and watch medium to long videos created by "normal" people? Vimeo? Perhaps youtube's interactions are despite their algorithm and not because.

[charcircuit]

>ad revenue

Not directly, most people believe they optimize for session time. It tries to serve you a result that will keep you on the platform watching videos as opposed to needing to keep scrolling or leaving the platform. They truely do want to serve the best videos that they can to you that they think you will be interested in watching. Thankfully for YouTube you watching videos and YouTube getting ad rev is correlated.

>where will you go and watch medium to long videos created by "normal" people?

No one forces you to watch that format of video. You can go on TikTok, Twitch, Netflix, etc and be entertained.