Technology

Removing the homepage entirely, replacing the entire UI with the shorts-style format of "view video right now, tap button to see next/previous video". If you want a specific video, you must search for it.

Gemini Ai makes up a title for you.

That's as cursed as I can make it.

The title will be text to speech on mouse over.
The future is here.

Remove the user generated videos. Only title, videoads and comments allowed.

It's currently a race-to-the-bottom in big IT & tech, where they don't look how they get you to like them but how much they can get away with, without repelling most of their userbase.

Is YouTube doing it with small creators actually in mind? Who knows, other than them?

I am pretty confident in guessing that they are not doing it for selfless reasons. Imo the reason is that the less information they give the user, the more you are beholden to the algorithm choosing for you.

But depending how they hide it it actually might not just be users, but also companies that e.g. buy ads from them. The less information they get, the more they need to trust whatever metric google offers them

I don’t like this idea for the opposite reason. I'm one of the people who are suspicious of videos with millions of views since most of them look manufactured. We all use view counts to gauge if a video is something we’re after, probably in more ways than we can come up with.

If it gives you any encouragement - I’m not discouraged by view counts. I know I like niche stuff and give small channels a try. It’s a chance at having more genuine interaction. As long as a video is not off-putting due to bad diction or very bad production then I’m not going to back out and see what it is about. This can work to your advantage too.

That makes sense. Youtube has mixed more and more small channels with low views into my feed for a couple of months.

MBAs

In 20 years, "YouTube was an online video sharing platform...."

I doubt they can make it to the next 20 years, the way they are controlling everything.

In 20 years:

Users can no longer upload and YouTube becomes just a CDN for Adsense.

(and the only way to watch old videos is through the Internet Archive)

"We can sell 80 percent of the screen before inducing seizures!"

But it is better for people not to be so focused on numbers like removing number of likes on Instagram.

Is my mental health really something I want Google managing?

I don't mind seeing vids with small numbers (many are genuinely cool) but I avoid 500k and above (except music) because the mainstream is mostly clickbait.

I don't know what's up with the algorithm pushing these lately. If it's a video with 4 views from a channel with no subscribers I'm probably not interested in it. Sometimes they have a good thumbnail/title so I give them a chance but 9/10 times it's terrible. Also often extremely right wing for whatever reason.

Wouldn’t the YouTube creator need to see views for ad revenue? Are they removing them for viewers or creators too?

Personally I find the highest viewed videos on YT to be the absolute shittiest ones.

They want to decide what you like and don't like. You WILL watch what THEY show you.

They removed the star system a long time ago. They removed the down votes again a few years back.

They want their algorithm to be the only thing that decides whether you watch a video or not.

This is inane but damn if it didn’t give me a good laugh :D

Intern - "You could at least give me reacharound while you're doing that"

That's why you need to pay for premium so you can get the 1080p premium bitrate.

I thought I was imagining this until I put a 1080p episode on one monitor and a 1080p YT vid on another. The difference was night and day.