Normally, I use YouTube very little (watch a couple videos a month). However, I’ve been in bed with an injury for some time now, which has led me to watch quite a bit of YouTube. The thing is, I subscribe to a small handfull of channels that I enjoy content from, but after a relatively short time I had watched pretty much all the new content from those channels.
Now, I would expect that the YouTube algorithm, which is supposedly designed by competent people to get me to stick around, would be able to suggest some decent content to me based on my subscriptions. However, the past week, I’ve opened YouTube only to find the same old videos being suggested over and over. Even worse: Whenever there’s something interesting-looking from a channel I don’t recognise, it always turns out to be some shitty AI voice over some generic animations or footage.
I know for a fact that thousands of hours of content are created on YouTube daily, but it genuinely feels like there are maybe five creators out there that are making anything worth watching. It’s either that, or the YouTube algorithm is just complete crap at suggesting creators that are in any way similar to what I’m already subscribing to.
What’s going on here? Why does it seem like there’s no real content out there?
As a “funny” side note: What’s with the “aggressively American” AI narrator-voice? I’ve heard it before, but thought it was some dude until I realised it’s the same voice in a bunch of unrelated videos. It reminds me of the Discovery-channel “action-narrator”-voice from back in the day, but now it’s showing up in all kinds of crap videos.
I’m constantly adding and removing subscribed channels. A few I added recently with many hours of content are Contrapoints, Tom Nichols, and Ordinary Things. Very informative and entertaining.
You clearly have the intelligence to spell the words ‘algorithm,’ ‘aggressively,’ and ‘the.’ The algorithm is not meant for you. It is made to suck children and idiots down into machine induced ADHD. If you have standards of any kind, you reject the obvious trash and end up where you are. You have my congratulations and my sympathies.
I hate their setup. The way they recommend the same creators over and over again if you just watch a minute of their content makes it so bland and repetitive.
When the algorithm stops reccomending new stuff I take a look at !videos@lemmy.world or r/mealtimevideos@reddit.com and find something cool that isn’t in my recommended.
Subbed! Thanks :)
The moment I hear the AI voice, I instantly jump to the next video.
Oh, so much this. It’s gotten to a point where I feel physical revulsion when I hear them. The tiktok-woman voice is decidedly the worst, but there are others that make me sick to my stomach as well.
The youtube algorithm used to show users a smattering of all the types of content on the site. Everyone was getting random shit from one public algorithm.
Now, it only shows you the tiny section related to the search data you seeded your own personal algorithm with.
Hey, I get a good selection of content recommended by youtube.
A recent example: https://youtu.be/cNAdtkSjSps
Unfortunately, quality content is hard to find on youtube, especially because the algorithm will focus more on already established creators and channels. Videos under 20k views and creators under 1k subs almost never appear, even if they’re better related to what you’re watching than what’s being shown on the sidebar.
One thing you can try is to check the related videos while browsing incognito, or with Piped/NewPipe or Invidious, as these will ensure the recommendations are as “plain new account” as possible.
My personal experience, whenever I watch anything game related while logged in, YT will throw dozens of Brazilian Roblox/Minecraft videos as related, even if I’m watching english videos. I block them, refresh the site and another batch of similar shit shows up. I check the same video on Invidious and a different set of videos show as related.
A lot of it is AI slop now too
This is probably the biggest factor for me, outside of my subs all the content it recommends is low effort AI content. “Oh cool a video about this historical thing I’m interested in.” Cuts to AI slideshow with bad grammar, pacing and no inflection, click don’t suggest videos from this creator. YouTube suggests similar slop from other “creators.”
The algorithm seems to have gotten progressively worse in terms of just continuing to show you the same stuff, especially recently. What it recommends me isn’t worse, just more repetitive. A page refresh doesn’t make much change.
Exactly! I feel like one getting recommendations for cheap ripoffs of the stuff I follow and actually watch.
People need to learn to subscribe to channels they like and then actually use the subscription tab.
Don’t just let YT suggest videos to you. be active in your content consumption
You can even find extensions to hide the BS that you don’t want. I am using an extension to only show my subscriptions and hide everything I don’t use or want to see such as shorts and the firehose of slop that is now the explore/trending feed.
That’s what I’ve been doing though, and usually it’s not a problem. The issue now is that I’ve been confined to my bed for long enough that I’ve watched all the new content from the channels I subscribe to, and have been hoping that the recommendations would help me find new channels I would be interested in, but alas…
Do you know the “new to you” feature?
It’s agenuinely neat thing by YT, so of course it’s completely hidden away.
In the browser you can find it at the top below the search bar, where you see all the genres:
You just need to scroll aaalllll the way to to right.
I don’t use it often, but the feature is basically a recommendation feed on steroids. Videos in the same style that you already seem to like, but from creators that you haven’t or rarely watched.
I found some real nice gems in there. As well as small creators that are geninely good and would later explode in popularity
Thanks! I’ll check that out!
That doesn’t work anymore and I say this as a long time user. In the last 5 years their algorithm has gotten worse and worse. I have an extensive subscription list and the junk they push at me these days never matches any of the videos I currently watch. Deleting history and trying to rebuild it doesn’t help. OP’s feelings here is widely held with many users these days.
that’s literally impossible.
The subscriptions tab has been, and still is, only from channels you actively clicked “subscribe” to. If you see trash in there, it’s because you subscribed.
There is 0 algorithm in there.
This is the feed: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions
It’s not about what you already watch, op wants to find new related videos to watch. YouTube’s algo no longer works that way
Ah, I thought you meant trash stuff showing in your sub feed.
Yes, it has gotten worse, but tbh, it’s not that bad for me. Recommendations still are basically stuff related to what I watch.
There tends to sometimes pop up weird stuff when I click on videos that people send me, but as soon as I remove that video from my history it’s back to normal
People don’t use the subscription tab? Why do they subscribe in the first place?
that was my reaction as well.
I did a non-scientific poll in my friendscircle and fedi followers, and aparently only about a quarter of the people even know that “subscriptions” is an actual tab.
They just assume if they subscribe, that it will show up on the home page / main feed somehow.
It absolutely explains the “youtube unsubbed me from you” comments you always see. They never were subscribed in the first place (always saw releases on the home page when YT felt like it). Or they subbed, but never use the sub tab
I didn’t even “see” the subscription tab because for years the home screen had stuff from my subscription.
Now the subscription tab is my home page, mostly thanks to Technology Connections for pointing it out.
I didn’t know there was a feed. The subscription page is what I have bookmarked, not the home page. People have complained about not getting notified of new videos, but that hasn’t happened to me once in the 15+ years I have been using YouTube.
The latest vids from my subs always show up on my main feed, I sub to give the creator a number boost, let yt know to put these on my feed, and even with notifications off I will see their latest vid near the top of my feed within a short time of release, sometimes I get the vid posted less than 5 mins before I get back.
The algorithm just really sucks. Sometimes it’ll suggest good stuff, but when it next decides to update it’s just all trash for weeks.
Youtube’s algorithm is now Show the user videos like the last two they watched and NOTHING ELSE
The other day I started off watching a video about fixing the vinyl on my center console in my car. Left to check a few things and when I came back it was some right wing BS.
On youtube your always 5 videos away from rightwing propaganda.
Mine autoplays physics concept explanation videos, lol
And it won’t take no for an answer (without actually selecting not interested). If I get a video from someone I kind of like but that video doesn’t interest me, I will see it every refresh of the home page for at least a week. But if i select not interested or don’t recommend channel I’ll miss videos I might want later on.
Google Exec: He clicked “not interested” again! Lmao loser! Have some more!
Sounds like you’re letting the algorithm do all the work. You can’t trust that shit. If you know what genre of content you want then you need to research what actual human creators make it. If it’s nerd stuff, look to see who’s got content on Nebula. If it’s stuff similar to (insert creator here) or on a similar topic, then search or ask around for suggestions on similar creators. And if it’s AI slop or TTS bullshit, just pretend that it doesn’t exist and move on.
I can feel you. YouTube is my “tv” and I’ve been watching it for years. But lately the quality of the suggestions has gone completely out of whack, imo. I scroll through the suggestions and find nothing worth watching. Sometimes i try to improve it by hitting ‘not interested’ or ‘don’t suggest this channel’, but it’s not helping.
Maybe Spez has bribed Google to show us rubbish, so we’d return to Reddit?
It’s actually kind of nice to hear this. You’re the kind of person I was thinking of when I thought to myself that “there must be heaps of decent content out there, because a bunch of people use youtube as their tv”, so if it’s gone to crap for you as well, at least that indicates I’m not just going crazy from lying still for way too long.
I’ve noticed a lot of AI slop being recommended all of a sudden too, not just AI voice stuff but lazy AI generated thumbnails and titles too. I’ve been clicking don’t suggest channel every time it turns up but YouTube is still trying to push it.
99% of channels suck. Its only the select few educational channels that actually have content. Other than watching Youtube, I pirate a lot of TV shows and movies.
This may be a large part of my problem. I’ve kind of just noted that theres so many people spending so many hours watching youtube, that there must be an abundance of good content. Then again, a decent amount of people are probably content with having some slop on in the background, and a major user-base probably consists of kids watching people scream into the camera. With that in mind, it may not be that unlikely that even with millions of hours of content, there may only be a few thousand actually worth watching if you find it…
