[HN Gopher] YouTube, the jewel of the internet ___________________________________________________________________ YouTube, the jewel of the internet Author : gumby Score : 130 points Date : 2023-04-23 18:56 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.ft.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com) | lawrenceyan wrote: | Deriving pearls from the complex oyster that is our world. | grensley wrote: | I think YouTube will really struggle to figure out how to weigh | lowest common denominator content that does well with | personalized recommendation that satisfy some deeper intellectual | curiosity. I'm already finding it's a kind of "work" to keep the | geopolitical and economics content that makes me feel like | YouTube is a positive for me on the front page over shorts and | sports montages. | | Maybe my algorithms just in a bad place right now, but it feels | like there's been some kind of shift this year, and I'm wondering | if others are noticing something similar. | chongli wrote: | I'm a very strict curator of my watch history. If I ever | succumb to click bait and click on some video I immediately | regret, I go into my watch history and delete the offending | video. This puts an immediate stop to any recommendations of | similar videos. I recommend it to everyone! | SteveDR wrote: | I use a second account to watch videos that i think will muck | with my recommendations in any way I don't like. Comedy, | political news, music videos, etc... it's nice to have a | separate feed that gets my taste in these things without | distracting my main algorithm from focusing on my deeper | interests | spydum wrote: | same, single greatest control of what it recommends. | sometimes i will go off on a tangent, but i dont want it | populating my feed, so i'll prune the history, and it's | perfectly happy. | xrd wrote: | I'm troubled by YouTube. There is absolutely incredible content | there. And there is so much shit in between the good stuff. | | Does anyone run a frontend that offers control over the shit? I | want my kids to have autonomy in viewing interesting things | there, but I don't want to YouTube algorithm attacking their | developing brains. | | Maybe a browser plugin? | kmfrk wrote: | There's Restricted Mode[1], but it's extremely aggressive to | the point of hiding too much. | | I personally use the drop-down feature to tell YouTube I'm not | interested in a particular recommended channel or video, as | well as maintain a manually updated BlockTube list for channels | and keywords. | | I've also heard that clearing stuff like your watch history is | a good way to flush weird recommendations. Generally, disabling | all targeted stuff goes a long way to ward off the craziest | stuff. On top of disabling the main trending page so it goes | directly to your subscriptions. | | [1]: https://www.howtogeek.com/770192/how-to-turn-off- | restricted-... | sp332 wrote: | Well, YouTube Kids? | timbit42 wrote: | The following are all web browser add-ons: | | "Unhook" hides the related videos, comments, shorts tab, | suggestions wall, homepage recommendations, trending tab and | other distractions on YouTube pages. | | "BlockTube" lets you block channels or videos by ID, title | keywords, or comment content. | | "Channel Blocker" puts an X next to the channel name on each | video. Clicking the X instantly and permanently removes the | channel from search results. | | "uBlock Origin" removes ads from the beginning and within | videos. | | "SponsorBlock" skips over a variety of uninteresting sections | of videos via crowdsourcing. You can choose which types of | sections you want to skip. | sgu999 wrote: | That's my problem with it as well... I keep on clicking "I'm | not interested" for all kind of clickbait brainless content, | but they keep on coming back. | duxup wrote: | > And there is so much shit in between the good stuff. | | Yeah discovery is really hard on there. So much loud crap :( | Jolter wrote: | There are alternative front-end apps. Not for iPhone, because | of course not, but Android has Newpipe at least. For desktop, I | haven't looked but sure there are some. | tambourine_man wrote: | Why didn't the author linked to the examples he cites? It's | almost cruel. | ur-whale wrote: | > Why didn't the author linked to the examples he cites? | | And generate traffic and revenue for another company without | getting a cut? | | You gotta be kidding, right? | [deleted] | tus666 wrote: | No, no, surely it's Facebook! | | I joke, I joke. | tambourine_man wrote: | Another great thing about YouTube not mentioned is the quality of | comments. Something happened in the last 5 years or so that | changed them profoundly. | | Once the laugh of the internet they are now one of the most | wholesome in it. Almost unbelievable for a public site. | alonsonic wrote: | I'm fascinated by this. I feel the same way. Do we know if The | YouTube team if ordering comments using some sort of sentiment | analysis? This might be the key to moderating social media. Is | almost like negative/toxic comments are shadow banned and | relegated to the bottom of the comments section. | BlueTemplar wrote: | Youtube's system is extremely heavy handed. You can sometimes | notice your comments getting shadowbanned if you see the same | comment from another account/computer. And I think you can | notice it for other people when you get a reply notification, | and can even read the comment, but it doesn't show in the | comments if you open the list of comments in notifications ? | | (Posting multiple comments for the same video seems to be an | easy way to get them (shadow)banned. Even more posting links, | even when it's literally a timelink to the same video using | the mm:so format !) | throw_m239339 wrote: | > Another great thing about YouTube not mentioned is the | quality of comments. Something happened in the last 5 years or | so that changed them profoundly. | | It's not uncommon to get spam from bots trying to impersonate | the video creator (same username, same avatar) and trying to | push crypto scams everytime one answers a comment. Youtube | hardly does anything about it. | jasmer wrote: | I see masses of bots and dregs in support of authoritarian | states. | sebzim4500 wrote: | The real comments are wholesome but a significant portion of | them are obvious scammers. It looks like such an easy problem | to solve, they are by accounts that literally post exactly the | same comment with a link on loads of videos. | mastax wrote: | Yeah. They seem to have had problems recently with some very | obvious spam bots, but other than that the quality is alright. | | On some niche nerd channels the comments are often exceptional | and informative. Usually they're at least pleasant or amusing. | [deleted] | petilon wrote: | A major fail, in my opinion, is YouTube TV. The user interface is | horrendous. YouTube TV's UI is mostly images (video thumbnails) | and it is hard to see what the currently selected item is. A | mostly-text UI, with thumbnail only for the currently selected | item would have worked much better. I tried to switch to YouTube | TV as soon as it launched, but canceled because of the horrible | UI. Recently I tried again -- surely they would have fixed the | issues -- but no, navigation is still terrible, so canceled | again. | jutrewag wrote: | YouTube's video player is the best and most responsive video | player online. I don't think I want any UI changes around it. | snug wrote: | As someone that only uses YTTV to watch sportss, pecifically | NFL Redzone, F1, and baseball/basketball playoffs, I really | enjoy YTTV interface because it always knows what I'm going to | YTTV for. Very rarely do I need to click more than 2 buttons to | get to the thing I'm trying to watch | asdfman123 wrote: | I couldn't agree more. Most of my other "social media" | consumption involves either low effort humor or getting mad at | strangers. | | I'm constantly learning stuff from YouTube. I'm watching | chemistry channels, DIY channels, history channels, etc. It's an | amazing learning tool. | zh3 wrote: | There is indeed great content on Youtube. It's just more than | unfortunate that the algorithmic pull is towards the - shall we | say - less informative end of the spectrum? | | Some people learn a lot from it. Most people just seem to gawp | endlessly. | jimsimmons wrote: | YouTube is an internet in itself. There are many sub-Youtubes | and you can end up in any set of them depending on where the | algorithm takes you. | dkarl wrote: | > less informative end of the spectrum | | My experience is that my recommendations are 80% good but | lightly sprinkled with random stuff that is known to addict and | exploit people in my demographic. It reminds me of gambling and | other businesses that make a disproportionate amount of their | money off of a few "whales" who invest an unhealthy amount of | their lives into it. They're happy to serve you and make a tiny | bit of money off you, but their real goal is to turn you into a | whale. | | My theory is that some small percentage of my recommendations | (2-3%) are dedicated to YouTube's best guess at, "What would | this guy watch if he was miserable enough to watch YouTube 16 | hours a day?" | hsjqllzlfkf wrote: | [dead] | causality0 wrote: | Or it was, anyway. Youtube's choice to tune its algorithm for | profitability rather than things I'm actually interested means my | home page and "related videos" are almost entirely useless. | Youtube's strict search limits also make it very hard to find | anything obscure, and impossible to find every video on a | particular topic. Maybe it's not the most intellectually healthy | thing in the world, but if I want to watch every single, say, | reaction video to The Verge's terrible PC build, how dare YouTube | decide I'm only allowed to see the three most popular ones before | my search results are replaced with random monetized nonsense? | ravenstine wrote: | YouTube's search is pretty much horseshit now. Trip off any | wrongthink keywords and it will give you nothing but CNN, | MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR. I wrote an add-on that blocks all | these channels by filtering out anything with the verified | checkmark, and it's pretty revealing as to how much content | YouTube suppresses. It's pretty clear who's buttering their | biscuits. | causality0 wrote: | It's truly disheartening to go back through your favorite | creators and liked videos and see how many have been removed | for violating new community guidelines or deleted by their | creators because they no longer fit a marketable image. If I | hadn't already had complete archives of my favorite channels | due to an obsession with carrying media on the go, I'd | probably have broken down and wept at the devastation of | channels like Retsupurae and ChipCheezumSA. I learned that if | there's _any_ chance I 'll want to watch something again in | the future I need it saved to disk. | stolenmerch wrote: | My experience with YouTube seems to be entirely dissimilar with | the clickbait/algorithm horror stories I'm reading here in the | comments. I watch a lot of Youtube and I let my 1st grader watch | YouTube somewhat unregulated. It's seems entirely fine to me. | When I do look over his viewing history, I'm relieved it's all | fairly wholesome content. No, he's not always learning science | and math (but sometimes), but I simply do not consider his | research into "what every color light saber means" as harmful. | Looking over my own current recommendations it's all science and | engineering related videos because that's what it knows I'm | interested it. You get out what you put in. | jackcosgrove wrote: | > It has a greater trove of content than Netflix, HBO and Amazon | Prime combined and squared | | And one third of that is presented by Simon Whistler. | belter wrote: | https://archive.is/kUh3M | seydor wrote: | You can't even read the subtitle now. Focus on the clickbait. | andrewstuart wrote: | YouTube is amazing but a couple of disappointments: | | 1: YouTube financially rewards 12 minute videos. I feel like this | has resulted in a collapse in creativity as now most videos are | 12 minutes. You get what you pay for. | | 2: being a walled garden, YouTube is devoid of technical | innovation. This really hasn't evolved far beyond broadcast TV | and that's because YouTube owns all the content and developers | can't innovate the core experience. | [deleted] | waboremo wrote: | YouTube has gotten much much better at rewarding videos based | on context not just length. They weren't always great about it, | but they've improved tremendously. I can see them further | adjusting this, so that say if you've uploaded ~11 minute | videos consecutively it'll prevent you from adding that "middle | video" ad break (note: I don't know if they already do this). | | I don't believe these changes have collapsed creativity, there | isn't another platform on the planet that is creating as much | long form content as on YouTube. People aren't posting their | great absurdly high detailed yet entertaining content on Medium | or Substack, no it's on YouTube. This has led to a walled | garden of sorts, but it's also reaping benefits from their | improvements from the days where you could easily game YouTube | with shallow thumbnails. | zokier wrote: | > 1: YouTube financially rewards 12 minute videos. I feel like | this has resulted in a collapse in creativity as now most | videos are 12 minutes. You get what you pay for. | | I checked my subscriptions page and of the latest 18 videos, | here are the lengths stats | | * 1x <1min | | * 3x 4-6min | | * 1x 10-12min | | * 6x 13-20min | | * 7x 20-40min | Zetice wrote: | Levi Rozman talks about this a bit in his videos, I feel like | the better rule is that you need at least one ad break, but | two is also a good inflection point? I don't think its 12 the | number specifically, but 12 guarantees the first ad break. | turtleyacht wrote: | Recently: | | _YouTube, the Jewel of the Internet_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35670162 - yesterday (1 | comment) | Kye wrote: | This website has no connection to Internet Archive. | sp332 wrote: | No, but it does have a paywall that you can get around by | reading the archived version. | Kye wrote: | I didn't comment on that. Just the mistake about having | something to do with Internet Archive. | turtleyacht wrote: | (Edited the above.) | [deleted] | YinLuck- wrote: | [dead] | bdangubic wrote: | My kid is 9 - YouTube is her search engine. All my efforts to | explain that is what Google is for have failed. Every time I use | Google she laughs at me and calls me old :) | skywal_l wrote: | HN is the jewel of the internet. Youtube might be the amethyst | maybe? | crop_rotation wrote: | HN is too small to be the jewel of "the internet", and | irrelevant compared to YouTube for impact. | rcarr wrote: | I agree with the author. I just cancelled Spotify and got YouTube | Premium and it was an absolutely brilliant decision. Pretty soon | I'm going to cancel Netflix and Prime too and just take out the | odd month subscription to a streaming service if there's | something I really want to watch. I'm probably better off | watching some informative documentary on YT than I am watching | Netflix anyway and if I want entertainment, there are millions of | hours of TTRPGs, stand up comedy and web series to watch that are | often of a really high quality (e.g Critical Role, Ari Shaffir, | Wayne). | | It's an awesome resource and I think Gen Z are at a massive | advantage because of it. They can literally leave school and | already be professionally competent. I think we'll see them | leapfrogging millennials on the career ladder because they had a | youth where they could spend their entire time learning literally | everything there is to know about their passion for free. No | other generation in history has had such an opportunity. You were | limited by your parents bank balance or the resources of your | local library. | bmitc wrote: | > It's an awesome resource and I think Gen Z are at a massive | advantage because of it. They can literally leave school and | already be professionally competent. I think we'll see them | leapfrogging millennials on the career ladder because they had | a youth where they could spend their entire time learning | literally everything there is to know about their passion for | free. | | I'm not convinced for YouTube. For the most part, I just see | Gen Zers teaching other Gen Zers. It is very rare to find | someone older on YouTube with actual, professional, real-world | experience, and if you do, the channel is not popular and is | thus buried in search results. | jjtheblunt wrote: | > They can literally leave school and already be professionally | competent. | | How? (I'm misunderstanding.) | ZephyrBlu wrote: | YT helped me learn a lot about software engineering before I | had a professional SWE job, but it was nowhere near a | replacement for a bit of experience. My first 6mo at a good | company was very formative. | mkaic wrote: | As a Gen Z-er who grew up learning as much as I could about my | passions, mostly on YouTube, I hope you're right about us! I'm | really hopeful that my generation can go on to do some pretty | great stuff. We do have a patently odd sense of humor, | though... | tinyhouse wrote: | > Pretty soon I'm going to cancel Netflix and Prime too | | No one is paying Prime for their video services... | menzoic wrote: | > No other generation in history has had such an opportunity. | | I'm a milllenial that learned how to code at 14 using the | internet. To be fair to your point about "free" I did use | pirated software and a few pirated video courses | makapuf wrote: | At 14 I learned to code for "free" - minus very expensive | computer m y parents bought and a pirated copy of turbo | pascal and computer magazines. Magazines and books were not | as good but remember Internet made some other resources | disappear or rendered them less visible. | NickBusey wrote: | > I think we'll see them leapfrogging millennials on the career | ladder because they had a youth where they could spend their | entire time learning literally everything there is to know | about their passion for free. | | I'm a millennial and I spent my youth learning everything there | is to know about my passions for free. YouTube is not they only | avenue of free online education. | waboremo wrote: | The resources that makes someone professionally competent are | gatekept until you enter the industry and no amount of video | content will change this. This means that despite a hire | potentially being extremely competent in the subject matter, | everything else around that is likely to be a "red flag" in the | hiring process and prevent them from gaining that professional | competency. | | Which I hope changes, I suppose we'll see if millennials-as- | managers can change enough about the process to find and hire | these talents to nurture their professional competency. MAM's | also generally will also be less strict about traditional | processes which is exactly the type of environment these | talents need. | coliveira wrote: | This assumes that this generation will spent its youtube time | learning something useful. While this will be true for part of | the population, most people are just wasting their time and, in | aggregate, it may happen that this generation will have even | lower skills than the previous generation that had access only | to a local library. | wolverine876 wrote: | > They can literally leave school and already be professionally | competent. | | Do you have evidence for that? | | No training makes someone professionally competent, only being | a professional does. Even people who go through intense years | of law school or medical school, studying directly and | interactively with world-class scholars and peers, in actual | labs and courtrooms, are not professionally competent lawyers | or doctors. People with PhDs are not professionally competent | professors. | | But focusing on training: I don't just accept any training when | hiring. What evidence do you have that videos on YouTube | provide a similarly high level of training? The Internet is | filled with nonsense, misinformation, and disinformation, and | it's clear that people don't make the effort to discrminate | between that and truth, and between just any truth and the best | knowledge and training. I'm certainly not giving someone or | YouTube the benefit of the doubt. | | A strong counter-signal is someone saying they learned from | "YouTube", which is like saying they learned from "a book", and | demonstrates a lack of discrimination or even an awareness of | it - here is someone who lacks even the awareness that it's | problematic. | | And learning from a video or a book has never been a high | standard of training; it's been a pejorative - 'they learned to | be a doctor from a book'. It's just not the same at all as | interactive learning with an expert (a professor), with peers, | with a diverse cirriculum, resources such as labs, an | institution geared toward creating effective learning programs. | Again, it shows a lack of discrimination and judgment, and of | even enough thought and skepticism to be aware of the issue. | | People like YouTube because it's convenient, and because it's | trendy they can get away with not questioning it (and | dismissing these issues). I hire people who are committed to | being the best, who think deeply, skeptically, and | insightfully. I don't want to hire those who make serious | decisions - such as their career preparation - based on | convenience and who turn over analysis and decisions to the | Internet crowd-think. | | Anecdotally, I've had people assert that to me how informative | certain YouTube videos are and show me them. When I take the | time to research it, most are nonsense - I just lack expertise | in the field and couldn't tell by watching (research | establishes that people are very poor at that, and I'd guess | that the obviously false ones don't get views). I have sought | and used some videos from specific sources, but then I'm not | learning from YouTube, I'm learning from that person. YouTube | as nothing to do with it; the medium has nothing to do with it; | if they wrote a book or article I'd have used that. | | One way of thinking about the problem: Why is learning from | YouTube any better than learning from a book before YouTube? | irrational wrote: | > they had a youth where they could spend their entire time | learning literally everything there is to know about their | passion for free | | I have children between the ages of 9 and 26. You know what | they are passionate about? Minecraft, Mr Beast, Travel vlogs, | mommy vlogs, "reality" videos, etc. | | I've tried to introduce them to science, space, programming, | history, math, finance, nature, etc. content and they don't | want to have anything to do with it. They are passionate about | cheap mindless entertainment. I see the same things in their | friends and classmates. You can bring a horse to water, but you | can't make him drink. | | I'm sure there are a few youths who are using their time | productively and it will pay dividends for them. But, from what | I've seen, the vast majority aren't interested. | somethoughts wrote: | One trick I've used is to disable Youtube on all of the kids' | devices [1] and only enable it on the family living room TV. | | Then rotate video selection powers to each family member so | that there's an equal mix of Mr Beast and Practical | Engineering/Vertasium/Tom Scott/City Beautiful/Sebastian | Lague etc. | | [1] Chromebook with Family Link to only enable specific | websites. | AlbertCory wrote: | The lesson I get from all these replies is (shock & horror!): | | _Kids are different_. I hear of kids who are intelligent, | energetic, curious... all those good things. Probably NURTURE | (i.e. the parents) has something to do with that. | | But then: also NATURE. Not having any kids myself, I'm not | going to preach. | durandal1 wrote: | The variety in temperament, interests and ability between | even siblings varies greatly. The people most eager to | share parenting advice is usually parents only one child | who is calm and attentive :) I've seen several parents in | that category have a second child and come out shocked. | | I'm believe that beyond a base level of food, clean clothes | and love, your influence as a parent is marginal. It's also | a wildly unpopular but intelligence is highly genetic (at | least 50% of outcome determined by genes). | brewtide wrote: | I have a 9 and 7 year old and we are constantly enjoying such | YouTube channels as "smarter every day", "veritasium" | (spelling?), "Stuff made here", to some extent Colin furze, | "technology connections", and other such edutainment. | | Not sure it speaks about differences in kids, in ages, in | households, or likely a combination of sorts. | | Also, not a judgement on your kids, just a counterpoint about | the resources available and how some people will tend to | gravitate in different directions. | | 7 year old daughter is learning to knit and forgot how to | "cast on" , so she jumped on YouTube to search a how-to and | had one of the methods figured out in 20 minutes. | | So, perhaps it does have more to do with the availability of | such edutainment since they were very young -- we've been on | this path for 5 years or so and it has just become "the norm" | if we are to use YouTube as a household. | | (I will admit that as Dad, my time on YouTube is split | between learning about whatever new hobby has peaked my | interest , currently SDR related stuff, and car related | material for fun. I've also fallen into the LTT universe, but | am aiming to back away because it, in my opinion , is just | providing that mindless watching which I aimed to get rid of | around 16 years old (ie, decades ago) to better use available | free time. | | Seems everyone is just different, but the resources are for | sure there! | stormfather wrote: | Can you attribute your kids' behavior to any actions you | took or policies you had? Please don't be shy about it, I | would love to inculcate that into my kids as well. | MonaroVXR wrote: | > I've tried to introduce them to science, space, | programming, history, math, finance, nature, etc. content and | they don't want to have anything to do with it. | | Anyone good suggestions? | brightball wrote: | This. It's the entire reason that I'm the unpopular parent | that doesn't let my kids have unlimited YouTube. | evanchisholm wrote: | I am currently in high school, you definitely are right that | the majority of people my age do just waste their time on | YouTube (I do too sometimes) but there are a few of us that | really take advantage of it. I have personally spent a large | amount of time on YouTube learning to program over the past | few years, I have now become quite competent and built some | pretty cool things on my own (search engines, chess bots, | personal web apps, competitive programming, etc.) My brother | older brother spent a lot of time watching videos about | physics and math to the point where he is now doing a physics | degree. A lot of my other friends have used it to cultivate | other skills and knowledge for free too. | EGreg wrote: | Do you think this would help your classsmates get more | interested: | | https://teaching.app | 867-5309 wrote: | disclaimer: this is yours | EGreg wrote: | Yes. That's why I am asking | Kye wrote: | It's good form to say you're the person behind the thing | you're recommending. Making stuff to solve problems is | the point of most of the domain this little website is | under, so self-promotion is fine, but not saying that's | what it is looks bad. | EGreg wrote: | Right. But I'm not promoting it. I am definitely NOT | recommending it. It isn't even launched. I was attempting | to ask in an unbiased way whether it would help. That | would require one person (the one I am asking) to go and | check it out. | | Yes, I omitted saying it's mine, not because of any | nefarious reason. Just didn't realize it was necessary to | simply ask an opinion of one person about whether it | would have the intended effect. And in my opinion it | would actually be counterproductive to reveal that I made | it. | Kye wrote: | That's promotion, though. It would be promotion if you | _didn 't_ make it. I've been accused of being a shill for | enough things I was enthusiastic about to be 100% sure of | this. And since you did make it, it's hard to argue you | don't benefit in some way from sharing it. That's why | disclosure is good form. | EGreg wrote: | I don't think asking someone a question about their own | specific opinion about whether a particular website could | help their peers OR NOT, is the same as promotion. For | example, earlier today I promoted a service that I built | (see my comment history) and clearly disclosed that it's | mine. | | In fact, sometimes you don't WANT the person to know | whether what you're asking about is yours, so they can | give a more honest assessment without worrying about | hurting your feelings. It should not matter, and for some | purposes it shoild be disclosed, whether you made it. | | As for being accused of shilling... sounds like the crowd | accusing you was pretty extreme. The definition of a | shill from Wikipedia is indeed nefarious: | | _In most uses, shill refers to someone who purposely | gives onlookers, participants or "marks" the impression | of an enthusiastic customer independent of the seller, | marketer or con artist, for whom they are secretly | working. The person or group in league with the shill | relies on crowd psychology to encourage other onlookers | or audience members to do business with the seller or | accept the ideas they are promoting. Shills may be | employed by salespeople and professional marketing | campaigns. Plant and stooge more commonly refer to a | person who is secretly in league with another person or | outside organization while pretending to be neutral or | part of the organization in which they are planted, such | as a magician's audience, a political party, or an | intelligence organization_ | Kye wrote: | All you're doing here is turning what looked innocent and | well-intentioned into something suspicious. I hope you | learn to take feedback better before your app is big | enough that handling it poorly does real damage. | EGreg wrote: | This is Hacker News. It is reasonable to have substantive | discussion and correct mistakes. We are deep in a comment | thread hardly anyone will see. So I think it's OK to | explain where I am coming from. | | It _was_ innocent and well-intentioned. You just | misunderstood the intention. If people say there is a | systemic problem X in high school, and a high schooler | confirms most of their friends have problem X, what do | you think is more well-intentioned: | | 1) Promotion: Hey high school student! I built Y! Check | it out! Tell all your friends! I think it might help | them! Or... | | 2) Feedback: Hey high school student, do you THINK this | COULD help your friends or not: Y | | My purpose was 2. I sometimes do 1, but here that was not | my intent. When I'm promoting something, you know it. Now | that you highlighted that I made it, though, it defeats | much of the original intent. So now it has turned into a | conversation about whether people can have purposes other | than promotion. That's fine. It is somewhat useful for me | to get this straightened out. I won't get an unbiased | answer anymore, but I can get them elsewhere when I do | case studies and beta testing. | | bottom line: doing a clinical trial or experiment or beta | testing or asking someone's opinion isn't always | primarily about promotion. | [deleted] | zo1 wrote: | Be careful what you do on the internet. This thread will | forever be connected to this "teaching.app" website, your | down-votes, and your tone-def responses to the people | trying to explain why they think you should have | disclosed that you made the website, and also the name | "EGreg".. | EGreg wrote: | That is a fairly good point, zo1. Sadly I think that, | with generative AI and fake bot accounts, it will become | very easy to create all kinds of negative associations | and destroy reputations. A thread somewhere deep inside | Hacker News won't rank highly for teaching.app when it | launches - but in a year from now, far worse things would | be going on (primarily because of generative AI making | such attacks cheap). | | My entire comment history has been one of discussing in | good faith and standing up for what I believe in. You | prefer that I back down and agree to something when I can | correct the misunderstanding. That's your prerogative. I | see nothing to be ashamed of. | | If someone wants to misinterpret what I say or take it | out of context, I can't stop it. Most celebrities cause | far worse outrage when they get famous, I am rather | careful with my words. I have made a decision for myself | long ago that integrity and standing for what you believe | in, in good faith, is worth it to me more than attempting | to be too political. I could be wrong. We'll see. | froggit wrote: | Nah, no one is saying you're being nefarious. We just | don't understand why you aren't proud enough to openly | declare that's your work that you're not not promoting. | EGreg wrote: | It's not that I am not proud enough. | | I was simply interested in the opinion of a thoughtful | high schooler who is aware of what his friends are doing. | I want to help fix society, including teenage education. | This is how I do it -- using software. I encountered an | opportunity to ask an unbiased question and I took it -- | without biasing it with "Heey, what do you think of MY | project that I clearly worked hard on?" That wouldn't be | neutral and thus defeat the purpose of asking the | question. Reading into this that I am somehow looking to | promote it is wrong. It would be a terrible way to | promite, anyway. There can be other reasons for asking a | question deep inside a comment thread that hardly anyone | sees, than low key trying to draw attention to a project | for purposes of promoting it. Besides, it isn't even | launched yet. | [deleted] | hyperliner wrote: | [dead] | shriek wrote: | Yep, same with my nephews and nieces too. It doesn't help | that YT algo pushes these contents to the front and center as | trending content. | | But, those who do put some effort on actually making good use | of this platform definitely has huge advantage than our | generation growing up though. So, in that regard I'm still | optimistic that our future generation will be much smarter | than us. | ur-whale wrote: | > They are passionate about cheap mindless entertainment. | | Everyone hopes that their kids will be exceptional. | | You just have normal kids, get over it. | kubectl_h wrote: | Watching kids watch youtube is like watching zombies. | | I know a kid who is a big fan of any kind of sports. He is | constantly watching youtube videos that are basically stats | and clips packaged up with some slight humor but very little | analysis. This kid has basically an encyclopedic knowledge of | sports... stats. All from youtube. I was also like this to a | degree as a kid, but I got my info from stats | books/magazines/newspaper sports sections. So in a way the | outcomes are the similar -- young kids love looking at the | numbers -- but I can't help but feel icky about the way | youtube can just lock a kid in for hours and hours. | | * Example video about Tim Lincecum that basically enumerates | the stats of his career but doesn't discuss anything else -- | his personality, his pitches, his unconventional delivery, | etc. Just clips (that repeat) and stats. It's bizarre. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgaPKJIF_Zo | meken wrote: | Not really sure what you're talking about when you say that | vid just enumerates stats. There's a lot of narrative and | comparison and context put into that video. Comparing it to | how I grew up watching ESPN Sportscenter, I find that YT | video much richer and varied | expertentipp wrote: | > Watching kids watch youtube is like watching zombies. | | My heart breaks when I see nephews playing dumb mobile | games and watch youtube videos of someone playing games, | all these interrupted with multiple full screen ads which | they also diligently watch. Fuck these platforms and all | their creators. | api wrote: | We banned YouTube after the kids would do nothing but | watch junk like PrestonPlayz for hours and hours. It was | really rotting their brains. We have seen positive growth | in their interests and behavior since it was banned. | | YT is full of good content but the good content is not | addictive or viral and the viral addictive content is not | good. There might be a few kids that will gravitate | toward substance but I have yet to see one. If we visit a | home with YT enabled the kids are watching hours and | hours of trash. | momirlan wrote: | totally in agreement, my kids are just the same. me and wife, | we read a lot of literature, poetry, classics, they don't | touch books. | mchaynes wrote: | Gen Z here. I grew up on YouTube. I'm 25 now, so technically | a cusper but had an iPod touch and YouTube since third grade. | | Videos of travel have a lot of value. I was stuck behind a | desk for 4 years at my programming job. The last 7 months of | travel has done so much for the rest of my entire human | experience that I could never get from a textbook. Plus it's | fun to see people explore the world. We've been fascinated by | this stuff since the beginning of humanity. | | Reality videos and reality TV all show elements of how | relationship dynamics work. They often are fraught with bad | narratives, but they model conflict and resolution between | people. This can be helpful as a guide to understanding human | interaction. | | I'm not saying that it is all bringing value to their lives, | but there is something inherently interesting about the | content they're consuming. Otherwise, they wouldn't be. | | The challenge for you is to go into their world and | understand what they value. You might even change your | definition of the word "value" | radicaldreamer wrote: | A lot of that stuff is going to be AI generated in the future | and it'll hit those dopamine circuits better than human | generated content ever could | api wrote: | Now we know what all the Borg were doing in their cube | ships. Between occasional bouts of conquest and | assimilation they were all frying in a sizzling bath of | repetitive dopamine triggering meme soup created by AIs and | other members of the hive mind. | | Maybe they lurched out and attacked or assimilated someone | when a new trending channel appeared that urged such | activities. | | I joke but it really is a bit spooky how _plausible_ the | Borg are today to the point that I can imagine what it | would be like to be part of them. It'd be like scrolling | TikTok but with Neuralink. | SnowHill9902 wrote: | It's your responsibility to guide them. | djaychela wrote: | If only it was that simple. In my experience (with four | step kids aging from 23 down to 16, and I've been in that | position for over 13 years), I'd say my input has had maybe | 5-10% influence, if that. | | If they're not interested in that area (and mine aren't), | then there's not much you can do, even if you spend a lot | of time and effort trying. | irrational wrote: | Like I said, you can bring a horse to water, but you can't | make them drink. Agency is a double edged sword. | zo1 wrote: | The "agency" that is dominated by the influence of their | peers, schooling, and media you allow them to consume as | impressionable and _innocent_ individuals. | | Normally I'd say let them grow, have their own agency and | learn the world in their own eyes with parental | supervision. But right now, the media and culture are so | highly toxic and degenerate, that I say it's our duty as | parents (and humans) to shield them from that, and | instilling positive values. | pcthrowaway wrote: | > It's an awesome resource and I think Gen Z are at a massive | advantage because of it. They can literally leave school and | already be professionally competent. I think we'll see them | leapfrogging millennials on the career ladder because they had | a youth where they could spend their entire time learning | literally everything there is to know about their passion for | free | | I don't follow this. I'm a millennial, graduated university 10 | years ago, and by my estimation, that was the golden age of | MOOCs (many of the courses available for free back then require | payment now, and several of the MOOC platforms have shut down) | | I don't consider bespoke youtube videos to be as rigorous with | regards to structuring a topic | BlueTemplar wrote: | Yeah, including Wikibooks... and why hasn't anyone brought up | Wikipedia yet ?! | | It's when I discovered it in 2006 when it _really_ dawned on | me just how immense the potential of the Internet was ! | raincole wrote: | Youtube videos are good for "fixing your own pipelines" kinda | of problem. | | I don't think they're good for, for example, programmering. | yodsanklai wrote: | > They can literally leave school and already be professionally | competent. | | I really wonder about that. Learning anything requires active | participation and motivation. YouTube provides great content, | but I'd say it's the easy part. BTW, public libraries existed | before youtube. | | My personal example, I graduated in maths 20 years ago and | spent countless hours solving problems. Nowadays, I'm a youtube | addict, I casually watch lots of videos, but I have very little | attention span left, and don't build serious knowledge about | anything. | | But your hypothesis could be assessed based on data. I may be | wrong, but I suspect students math proficiency has declined in | most western countries. | wildrhythms wrote: | School is less about learning a subject to any serious | degree, and more about socialization and exposure to a | breadth of subjects. I am suspect of people who view school | purely as an educational experience. | inkywatcher wrote: | You say "socialization" but I think the real word is | "conformity". | dmreedy wrote: | Yes, societal institutions have a flywheel effect of | normalization on those who pass through them. This is | foundational to a cooperative society. They provide a | background context to evaluate actions within, and define | oneself in, or against. | | Consider your Shannon Information. Meaning does not exist | without context. | jjtheblunt wrote: | Is "calculus" a hard core counterexample? | yadingus wrote: | I think the socialization argument is a fallacy, in my | experience there is absolutely no effort to guide or | educate or provide any sort of understanding or framework | of _how_ to socialize, how to cope with interactions, your | own feelings, etc. | | It's just putting them all together and taking action if | something too drastic happens, but there's no actual | dedicated time for teaching how to socialize, you're on | your own. | [deleted] | imbnwa wrote: | Socialization is an artifact, not the purpose, of most | modern schooling in America; not like kids weren't | socializing in mines and factories, though they likely had | way more sense of consequence for their behavior in those | environments. That said, education is also secondary except | for, in urban public schools at least, the tier of students | that are filtered for to benefit. | liendolucas wrote: | I can't understand people paying for streaming services like | Netflix & competition, where all their catalogs are region- | locked and every single one of them producing mostly crappy | shows/movies (at least that's the Netflix I experienced last | time I was able to use someone else's account on someone else's | computer many years ago, so I must assume as everything else, | things get worse, not better). | | What would I pay for? A good streaming service where I can | choose movies that at least for me are worth watching: good | stories, classics, italian, french, spanish movies, independent | productions, low-budget productions and non-mainstream | gargantuan productions. Definitely not a service that literally | invites you to consume whatever crap they produce and put in | front of your screen to keep people paying for subscriptions. | What I would also pay for? A service that after watching a | movie allows me to actually purchase a digital DRM-free copy of | the movie for some extra few bucks. Any suggestions? | | I've heavily switched my screen habit, now I find myself most | of the time reading books, as my father used to say: "You | produce your very own version of the film in your head". I used | to read regularly as a kid, then there's a huge gap where I | haven't touched books for years. The only regret I have is that | I haven't kept this habit all this time. | | Edit: Some corrections. | schrectacular wrote: | You might like the Criterion Collection streaming service. | Not a customer but love their movie collection. | liendolucas wrote: | LOL. I'm currently in Italy and I'm getting: "Sorry. This | is currently unavailable in your region. Type in your email | below and tell the producers you want it in your country!" | (when trying to sign in, don't know if it's worth trying | with a VPN service tough) | BlueTemplar wrote: | My local cinema does that DRM-free movie on USB key thing... | even if you do not watch the movie first ! | | (As you can imagine, it doesn't show _any_ Marvel movies or | the like...) | submeta wrote: | > just cancelled Spotify and got YouTube Premium | | Did this some time ago. Never looked back. | flandish wrote: | My problem with yt music is that certain albums will ask you if | you approve playing, even with age and content restrictions | off. | | Rage Against The Machine's first album has "disturbing" album | art. | | It asks for EVERY song. | | Song in a playlist? | | Playlist stopped waiting for you to ask. | | Terrible UX, imho. | porkbeer wrote: | Its soft censorship, yt is famous for it. | noloblo wrote: | archive link unpaywall : | https://archive.is/20230422002004/https://www.ft.com/content... | alex_young wrote: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline | rolph wrote: | a cavity concealed jewel perhaps? | 1023bytes wrote: | I need to mention how terrible YouTube search has gotten. | | Instead of giving you actual search results, it only gives a 2-3 | relevant videos and then some random recommendations that are | often completely unrelated to the query | harry8 wrote: | Google itself no longer does search and does recommendation in | its place. I hate it so much. They must have such an incredible | moat if they aren't getting smashed by the competition by just | doing actual search, with all the words in the query string, | ensuring every single one of them is actually in each result. | timbit42 wrote: | Yes, I often now use another search engine, such as DDG, to | search YouTube. | mastax wrote: | I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube | algorithm is great. Signing out of YouTube and viewing the | default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, | but my little corner of it is a bit _too_ good. | | There was a period of time semi-recently when the algorithm was | better than my heuristics, too. I had associated too-good | thumbnails with overproduced shallow clickbait videos churned out | by content mills and "grindset" individuals. But at some point | basically everybody started optimizing their titles and | thumbnails and some of the stuff the algorithm was suggesting was | actually good even though it looked "too flashy." | seanalltogether wrote: | I feel like i used to rely on reddit to surface all the new and | interesting content creators on youtube, but nowadays i just go | to youtube itself when I'm looking for something new to watch. | I think all of the new content creators I've found in the past | year have come from youtube recommendations | mgfist wrote: | It's decent but I feel like it lacks granularity. Everything is | either genre A or genre B or genre C, with each being very | narrow fields - sometimes a "genre" might contain a few select | youtubers, even though there are thousands of channels that | feature similar content. | | Whereas twitter for me is much more nuanced, and I'm constantly | being exposed to the fringes of my interests which helps me | organically grow my feed. | deepzn wrote: | oh wow exactly. When i go on incognito, im terrified at all the | "viral" kinds of news,etc type of vids recommended to me. | deepzn wrote: | btw has anyone tried YT (& premium specifically) on an iPad? | it's like 10x better. I don't use it enough. Just in my bed | haha. | robinsonb5 wrote: | I do have some admiration for the algorithm - but I also wish | that refreshing the home page would show me some more of the | many thousands of videos that I'd likely find interesting, | rather than the same 20 just in a different order. | sebzim4500 wrote: | I think I'd be anxious then that if I saw two videos that I | really wanted to watch I'd have to one in a background tabs, | rather than just trust that the other one will almost | certainly be recommended again. | kccqzy wrote: | That is not what I want. There should be an explicit button | to refresh the recommendations. What I hate is a | recommendation page that displayed what I liked but made them | disappear just because I temporarily navigated away. | TheAceOfHearts wrote: | It's very well hidden, but if you scroll to the end of the | filter tags there's a button to show "New For You", which | shows a screen full of new recommendations each time you | refresh. Sometimes I'll roll the dice a few times with that | page and find really interesting stuff. | mastax wrote: | I'm glad that the home page is semi-stable because I'll often | click on a video and then go back and want to queue up | another that looked interesting but if it were gone it might | be hard to find again. (Yes there are strategies to work | around this but I don't always use them). | | They do have the "New to You" category on the home page now | which you might find useful. | silvestrov wrote: | The should have a page with "recently shown on home page" | like the history page for actually shown videos. | deepzn wrote: | i had this happen to me. ive lost videos I wanted to see | when i clicked one instead of another. | deepzn wrote: | also being new to TikTok, I didn't realize scrolling up at | first would refresh the queue of videos. And I would lose | the vid being watched which was a bit terrifying to lose an | interesting video. | WanderPanda wrote: | Watching one ,,wrong" video can mess everything up for a couple | of weeks though, which always gives me some level of anxiety :D | deepzn wrote: | true, I have to say "Not interested" a couple times | GalenErso wrote: | I open Incognito mode when I'm about to watch a video like | that. | kevingadd wrote: | You can usually go into your history and remove it to fix it. | ur-whale wrote: | >I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube | algorithm is great. | | I agree with the minor caveat that I'd like a "broaden" button | and a "change theme" menu. | | My search algorithm presents me with content that I find quite | enjoyable, but I'd like to be exposed to a little more stuff | that's outside of my bubble. | | It knows what I like based on what I've watched, but it doesn't | _know me_ and therefore can 't infer stuff I don't know but | would enjoy if I was exposed to it. | mastax wrote: | On the top of the home page they have a category control that | lets you look for different genres of stuff from your | algorithm plus a "new to you" category. I think that's | supposed to be what you're after. I hardly ever use it | because I forget it's there or don't need it to steer the | algorithm my way. | natebc wrote: | I always see that when visiting the YouTube site but it's | very inconsistent in the Android app. | crazygringo wrote: | Yup, I'm the same. I've totally given up on navigating anything | except my home page, I'm actually astonished at how good it is. | | The newest videos from my favorite channels are always listed | first, and then it's a smattering of older popular ones from | the topics and channels I watch the most, and a handful of | things "adjacent" to those that are sometimes not for me but | sometimes become my new favorite rabbit hole, so I'm very | thankful they're there. (For me it's a lot of educational | content like architecture tours and urban engineering and how- | it's-made, plus content from certain comedians and sketch | comedy groups.) | | I know there's supposed to be a bunch of clickbait garbage on | YouTube but I just wouldn't know, because I literally never see | it. | | (Plus there are new tabs at the top that actually _list_ the | topics it 's learned I like, so if I want to see 20 | architecture videos instead of just 2, it's a single tap to | filter. It's remarkably clever.) | MichaelZuo wrote: | > I know there's supposed to be a bunch of clickbait garbage | on YouTube but I just wouldn't know, because I literally | never see it. | | Just sort by view count for any common english word and | filter out the music videos. | | Well, even including music videos there appear to be several | dozen or hundred accounts dedicated to reposting the exact | same Indian music videos, film trailers, clips, etc... | | Not even small variations of the same content, the exact same | video. | | Some of the accounts look like plausible media | distributors/producers in India but quite a large fraction | seem to be bots or individuals spamming. | Waterluvian wrote: | Yeah, I really have no complaints. Of all "we feed you content" | thingies online, YouTube has been the most adequate. | | The only complaint I have is what human behaviour forces even | the intelligent creators to do: have a title card with an | excited looking person. | fsckboy wrote: | this is how low we've sunk, you don't even say that youtube | is adequate, you say it's the most adequate | | Just to add my anecdata to the mix, I'm waist deep in | logging-in to gmail and workplace apps, etc, but to | compensate have abandoned android for iPhone, and I never use | google search, and while I watch plenty on youtube, it's | never required me to log in so I've never logged in, I don't | even have any idea how much it "integrates" with other google | logins or not at all. Am I missing out on something, is there | some benefit to logging in? | | My main complaint about youtube is that it used to be fun and | quirky and have lots of "raw" content, and now everything is | overproduced, festooned with graphics and clickbait. So many | channels I would like to blacklist but nothing like that is | possible. Technologically it works well, and I know there's | content out there that I'll like, but unless I have a link to | it or know exactly what to search for, it's very hard to find | things. If there are channels I like and watch regularly, I | sure don't need the algorithm showing them to me, but any | sort of "maybe you'd like this too" seems totally broken, or | at least completely lowest common denominator. | disntthinkthis wrote: | YouTube has been showing me a ton of channels with low | Hundreds of views recently, and they're very to my taste. | Ymmv but they're doing well at exactly what you're | complaining about in my experience | gambiting wrote: | Same here. I pretty much only watch car channels and some meme | compilations and that's exactly what YouTube shows me, nothing | else. | smeagull wrote: | If I hear "not what you think", "may surprise you" or "what | happens when" then I just close the tab as a reflex. | wwarner wrote: | btw the feynman lecture mentioned in the article is first rate, a | bit mind blowing | kubectl_h wrote: | Over the christmas holiday I was surprised you couldn't purchase | youtube premium as a gift card for someone else. Seems like this | would be a non-trivial source of revenue for YT. | verall wrote: | You can pay for YT premium from Google play dollars which have | gift cards. It's a little bit annoying to set up though. | loloquwowndueo wrote: | YouTube will pull you towards controversial clickbaity crappy | content since that's what generated clicks. These days I just | surgically search for what I need, watch that, then get out, | ignoring all recommends because invariably they are crap. | | And YouTube is poison for young children who don't know better | than to follow what the algorithm tells you. You like super | Mario? Here, 500 ways to die in Mario. And next - what would | happen if all Mario characters killed each other bloodily? And it | starts getting worse. | | We banned YouTube for our kid and couldn't be happier - the | damage that thing was doing to his mind was noticeable and no | amount of guidance or curation was able to keep him away from the | cesspool. | sebzim4500 wrote: | Youtube only gives you what they think you will click on. If | you don't click on the crappy content (or at least leave the | video immediately) then they will stop recommending it. | | I guess this advice doesn't apply if you are sharing an account | with your kid, then you're screwed. | Zetice wrote: | Yeah but if you're immune to the most obvious awful shit (not | your kids) it's kind of the only drawback. | | I get the occasional "lets debunk flat earthers" but a) I don't | find that content interesting and b) I know that's the lip of | the rabbit hole, so if I just avoid those kind of videos, my | feed is fine. | | Your problem is legitimate and your response is understandable, | but what would you think of YouTube if that weren't a problem? | doublerabbit wrote: | > What would you think of YouTube if that weren't a problem? | | Not op, however I avoid YT at all costs. I would sing a tune | of a product giving back to the world. Education, knowledge | and entertainment. Quite a dream compared to the current as | of the moment; corruption of education, knowledge and | entertainment. | Zetice wrote: | No, YouTube is not a corruption of any of those things. | | You can't have the things you like without some way of | allowing the people who created those things to no have to | do other things to survive. | jasmer wrote: | What is truly astonishing is that there are not many other | competitors that are consistently as good. | logicallee wrote: | (via Google): Nearly 17 years ago, Google purchased YouTube for | the hefty sum of $1.65 billion. The actual date the news hit was | Oct. 9, 2006. The transaction closed on Nov 13, 2006. | | Can you imagine if there had been any snag in the paperwork or | with the legal team or the deal fell through? | cypherpunks01 wrote: | Sans paywall: | | https://t.co/ZyQ4Xz9zX9 | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-23 23:00 UTC)