zlacker

It is complicated. I think thats a bad solution.

I want to see the counts. I feel it is far more transparent to see the counts than for things to just be surfaced or not opaquely. Youtube is not a discussion site and it does not work as one. How popular things are is a part of the context of pop culture, and most youtube content is pop culture.

>>verall+(OP)
> How popular things are is a part of the context of pop culture, and most youtube content is pop culture.

I can't think of any traditional medium that tells you the popularity of something before you consume it. Movie theaters, TV stations, radio stations, etc. have no concept of "view counts" telling you whether or not to consume something.

>>verall+(OP)
Every single day, I watch the channel of a guy who has put out < 15 minute videos going back to nearly the founding of YouTube.

He gets an average of 10-15 views per day.

The value this guy adds to my day is literally measurable in $$$.

If I could find more people like him, that would be great, but instead these are my recommendations:

    - 5 ways to do X
    - Bill Gates breaks down blah blah blah
    - Something about Tesla
    - One video by a guy I discovered outside of YouTube who is similar to the guy I watch every day. I don't watch this one that much though.

YouTube's algorithm is not designed for discovery. It's designed for engagement. So I keep separate accounts:

    1. Account for actually useful stuff where YT's recommendations are useless
    2. Account where YT's recommendations are OK: white noise like things. Howard Stern interviews, etc

I wish you could configure the algorithm for discovery somehow.

>>smt88+03
> I can't think of any

Well, information IS available, beforehand in nielson ratings and films' grossing numbers, but you're essentially right.

That's the problem: opaqueness leaves us vulnerable to being misled. Some PR company calls it "the hottest ticket of the season," and we have no way of corroborating this claim.

>>smt88+03
Uh, they don't have view counts, but they certainly tell you when things are popular. These are bad examples because all of these have very public "view counter"-alikes. First-weekend box office for ""popular"" movies is reported in news media. TV stations have ratings. Pop music has Billboard. In fact we have a local "Top 50" station which only plays ""popular"" music.

View counts ~= box office take ~= TV ratings ~= Billboard.

Every type of media you list has gatekeepers, kingmakers, and counters, and other things influencing your to or not to consume.

>>cheez+o3
I completely agree, and for a good example of "better", I think spotify's discovery algorithms are "pretty alright". It's less likely to get stuck in a rut. Youtube is happy to try to bring you down a rabbit hole.

And content-creators play a part in this: next time you hear about some pop-drama do a youtube search and admire how many videos are a single person just reblabbing the same story in front of a mic, cam, or videogames. You'll find hundreds. And so many things on youtube are like this...

>>verall+(OP)
>How popular things are is a part of the context of pop culture, and most youtube content is pop culture.

Only with respect to people you know talking about it. Not just arbitrary metrics. Rating systems are part of the context of putting valuations on ads, not part of culture. Whatever impact they do have is based on advertisers trying to reel you in by applying the bandwagon fallacy and stoking your sense of FOMO. It's not something edifying.

>>cheez+o3
Of course it is a matter of metrics - it has no way of knowing what is useful. The closest way to algorithmically discover (outcomes over time) would be prone to spurious correlations and be so intrusive it would make Cambridge Analytica look like LavaBit.

>>cheez+o3
Absolutely. There are gems on YouTube that are not only hard but almost impossible to find due to the flood of crap they repeatedly recommend me. As far as I am concerned the algorithm is broken and almost killed my YouTube experience(I have to admit that I'm still on YouTube but a lot less these days).

I figure that they probably don't give a damn about users like me, the algorithm is designed to steer traffic to a pyramid of monetized content and I don't seem to have any options to fight the trend but to disengage.

There are some channels/users that I started following a long time ago but after I watch one of their videos I land back on the crapflood.

>>cheez+o3
I'm pretty sure that YouTube used to be better at recommending obscure long-tail videos but cracked down on it a while ago precisely because of articles like this one - now only videos from relatively big channels which have undergone a certain amount of minimal manual scrutiny gets recommended.

>>cheez+o3
What about searching for keywords? That's how youtube discovery worked before recommendations came about and it worked fine (still does).

>>asdff+6n
Yes I do that occasionally when trying to solve a specific problem. Often helps.

>>Nasrud+4g
I'm thinking "make things more discoverable" than "find more useful things" if that makes sense. I'm willing to wade through it myself if you present me with options.

>>verall+t5
I have never met anyone who chooses their movies based on box office, nor have I met anyone who chooses TV shows based on their ratings. Those are all after-the-fact consumption stats, unlike YouTube view counts, which are shown to you upfront (without you looking for them).