Why does YouTube feel completely devoid of content? (clarification in body)
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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.
Youtube's algorithm is now Show the user videos like the last two they watched and NOTHING ELSE
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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...
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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
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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
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.
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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.
What’s with the “aggressively American” AI narrator-voice?
I hate the AI voiceover feature. It's genuinely baffling that YT released it. It sounds worse than microsoft sam and is one of the buggiest messes I have ever seen on the platform.
For the people who don't know: you can deactivate it by selecting a different audio track. And it will mostly remember the selection.
I know creators who started to deactivate it for their channel, as it genuinely made people unsubscribe, because they thought it was done by the channel
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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
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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
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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
wrote on last edited by [email protected]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
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]There are some extensions that make a big difference.
"Blocktube" sounds like one you'd get a lot of use out of - all it does is add a block video and block channel option to the drop down menu of each video.
Get that AI voice or any other content that indicates the entire channel is garbage, just block the entire channel in one click. Be aggressive with blocking channels, and you'll start noticing much less trash in your feed.
Block video is more useful for the channels you're subscribed to -once you've watched a video, block it as a kind of "mark as read" button. That way your recommended videos won't keep showing you shit you've already seen.
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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 know you just came to ask about the algorithm but I’d be happy to suggest you some great channels (100% human in content) if you could tell me your interests!
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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.
Stuff Made Here
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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.
My recos are great.
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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.
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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 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.
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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!
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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.
There is a lot of garbage out there, but also some really good stuff. I like to stay logged out and clear history occasionally to try to keep from getting too algorithm bubbled. It's not just automatically filtering content by subject matter, it also filters by length if you watch mostly long form videos you'll get more long recommendations, and same for short videos. Try using more generic search terms for hobbies, interests, topics, etc you'll get a little more variety in search results and won't rely as much on the algorithm to filter recommendations.
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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.
my experience is that is def not made by competent people, and i have to train the algorithm by selecting garbage and tell it to shove it up and never recommend it while im alive...and MAYBE in the future im gonna get a watchable video
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People don't use the subscription tab? Why do they subscribe in the first place?
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.
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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.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]O tempora, o mores! A lot of it is Gen-Z/Gen-Alpha youtuber/streamer trash but I've found that the recommendations improved after I started subscribing to channels I liked. Once I'd fed the algorithm enough of my tastes it's started to do a reasonable job of recommending things. Like there's this Louis Theroux/Vice knock-off called Channel 5 News which have a couple good videos that it just inferred I would enjoy from my history.
Music recommendations surprisingly good too. Like it knows to go from Aesop Rock -> Lupe Fiasco -> Danny Brown -> Death Grips -> INSERT PUNK BAND HERE
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
