[Drakim]

When I try to search up a topic on YouTube, the list of search results eventually STOP showing videos matching my criteria and instead show 10 videos in a row labeled "People also watched" that is unrelated to my search.

It's one thing to get recommendations in a place where recommendations are appropriate, and the dangers of the feedback loop you are talking about. It's another thing entirely to actively push it in other contexts.

"I know you are searching for programming topics, but might you be interested in this political outrage instead?"

[rchaud]

What you're describing is a common UX dark pattern. The system must never show blank space in the UI for a search result, lest it drive them into the arms of a competitor.

We can thank Netflix for starting the trend of "we don't have this, but how about this other thing that we do have?"

[fooofw]

I'm not sure that fully explains it here. I see more relevant search results below the "People also watched" section (just checked now). Further down, there is also "For you" and "Previously watched" which have videos of no discernible relevance to the query and these are also followed by again more relevant search results.

[mrguyorama]

No, youtube will cut off your search results early to show you videos it think will engage you more regardless of how many search results there actually are.

Google does not give a fuck what you think you want, because they know better than you

[andsoitis]

> results eventually STOP showing videos matching my criteria

How long is that typical list? How often do you pick the things at the bottom of that list vs the results near the top?

[everdrive]

I pick things from the bottom of the list a lot. I really hate when engineers try to guess what I want. I already know what I want. These “automatic” products are terrible.

[andsoitis]

What do you think is a good list length? One can assume search results are practically infinite, so you have to make a decision of where to stop. What would your heuristic / algorithm be for determining the termination point?

[JohnFen]

> One can assume search results are practically infinite

I don't think that can be assumed at all, actually. At least, it sure doesn't look that way when I search for most things, on YouTube or elsewhere. Most of them run out of relevant results pretty quickly and then start including obviously irrelevant results.

[everdrive]

A list of every video where my terms show up somewhere in the title or description.

[andsoitis]

Do you want it sorted in some way? If so, why might you go to page 99999999999999 and pick the last item?

[everdrive]

I’m not searching for some huge wildcard — I’m searching for some video content which must be generated by somebody and uploaded. There are not billions of results for “cool cover of a song I like” — there are hundreds of results at most. I want those hundreds of results.

[Drakim]

I did a test, searching for a pop song. I got 9 results for that pop song and then the "People also watched" section comes up. After 4 results with a +6 more button, it goes back to my pop song results.

[skybrian]

The trick to get rid of that is to go to search filters and select "videos."