zlacker

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.

>>cheez+(OP)
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...

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

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

>>Nasrud+Gc
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.