Three reasons:
1. Picking something to watch takes time. Sometimes I only want to see something in the 15 minutes that I'm dining alone. My meal gets cold before I start the video
2. Choosing something to watch is stressful. If I'm tired and I don't know what I want to see makes me more tired and frustrated. These are the times that I don't want the freedom to watch I want because they are the times that I don't want to think about what I want
3. The random factor of watching something that I would never watch by myself it's something that makes me go outside my bubble. I can't say how many good movies (or songs, etc) I found by that randomness
I'm not against the freedom of streaming services but there are moments that I just don't want that freedom. So, thank you!
I think the YouTube recommendation algorithm you get from opening the app or viewing the front page is good for this. They have a lot of random content and when the algorithm gets to know you, it will suggest things of interest that can be consumed this way.
We ditched cable forever ago, but I do find that I miss just watching 15 minutes of some random show like I used to. I usually forget about it until I'm at someone's house or a doctors office and catch a snippet of some random car show or cooking show.
The only issue is that my youtube is the one on the main tv, so sometimes the suggestions get messed up when my kids watch. Youtube probably has a really confusing set of conflicting beliefs about who I am.
If I lend them a device to watch YouTube I usually do it in the browser in incognito.
Cool! I have a list of movies to watch that I write from several recommendations sources, so I can try focus in watching instead of choosing. I can't say the same about music, I'm stuck for years hearing almost the same bands, which is kinda sad...
> I usually forget about it until I'm at someone's house or a doctors office and catch a snippet of some random car show or cooking show.
Another good point, watching something that I don't need to pay too much attention because I don't care about the subject, but can entertain me while I do other things... Here in Brazil that kind of shows that "we watch, we like but we don't know why" is a recurring joke, and we have three main ones: one about farming (Globo Rural), one about fishing (Pesca Alternativa) and one about trucks (Siga Bem Caminhoneiro)
Are those public access type shows that are meant to be somewhat educational?
You can certainly fake it as a workaround. For example, you'll notice that "I'm feeling lucky" on Google simply follows the first search result. Streaming services could take what is already computed as the first result on the "Home" page and use that, for example.
But at that point why not just click on the first video? Unlike Google, which doesn't give you much until you enter a search query, all of the streaming services I know of have already given you your "lucky" matches by the time a "I'm feeling lucky button" could be presented. Two buttons side-by-side that do the exact same thing doesn't offer much.
I like SiriusXM for this. I'm often finding new channels to listen to, and once I pick a channel I don't have to pick out songs.
Apple Music has some features that can work similarly, such as radio stations (though a lot of theirs are really more like podcasts) or they have lots of playlists of recommended hits from different genres and you can shuffle them.
You do realize that the search function is literally that?
The reason that might be preferable to just clicking the first result is that the second actually involves a choice since you’ve seen the second item.
if that feature existed it would never be a random video from all the available videos. It'd be a random-seeming video from a carefully curated selection of videos that youtube wants to push at certain users, and in some cases were paid to promote. Users wouldn't know and wouldn't care anyway because they pushed a button and got content without thinking.
Google doesn't make money by avoiding sending streaming data; they make money by showing ads, which (mostly) aren't shown while you're scrolling.
Or to make another analogy, if you go out and sit at a bench, who knows what will pass by?
I agree, but sometimes I just don't want to choose because I don't have enough time or I'm to tired to do it
The only response I have is that purposefully-clicking the 'random' button has a psychological effect over clicking the first video returned which (gut check) makes me think it will be more easily tolerated if it ends up being "off-beat" since I didn't explicitly click the first selection (thus choosing it).
I can't easily press 'skip' with a plate of pasta in one hand and a fork in another, and I don't want to watch two 2:30 leading ads, so I guess I'll just go somewhere else.