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Is anyone actually happy with the current state of Youtube?

The Cockatrice

Gold Member
A very expensive solution...
The alternative is buying youtube premium. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars per year for it, use it to get an android tv and not just for the sake of youtube, but you have so much more freedom on them regarding apps you can install instead of closed environments.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Laptop + Youtube Enhancer extension with tweaks + 2x speed as default

Youtube is great.
 
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NinjaBoiX

Member
Judging from the comments you’d think YouTube premium was some kind of luxury exclusive membership out of reach for us plebeians. It’s 12 dollars a month guys. Yes, it used to be bearable without ads, but times change. Either get an ad blocker like several people here have suggested or just suck it up and pay 12 dollars a month and your problems are over.
It’s too expensive, simply as that, it should be half the cost. By virtue of its inception as a platform, and it’s MO thereafter of being a place for people to create and share their own content, it’s simply unrealistic to charge what they do.

I willingly pay my sub to all the other main platforms (bar Paramount+, purely by being LTTP, I eagerly await them to convince me) because they actually produce their own content; I’m paying them as content creators.

YouTube? They simply provide a platform for others to produce content on their behalf, their sub should reflect infrastructure costs and nothing more.

Yet they’re coming in far more expensive than everyone else simply to remove the ads from the content other people have created?

It’s like the dictionary definition of racketeering.
 
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Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I love Youtube and happily pay for Premium every month. These days I primarily love videogame/anime longform analysis videos and reaction videos (shut up I like them). I still have some purely videogame footage channel subscriptions as well (as in no commentary just game footage)

It is so much better than cable tv ever was. Entertainment-wise I grew up with Cartoon Network and G4/TechTV; YouTube handily beats those offerings. If you’re watching Angry Joe in 2022 you’re doing it wrong. Shit you were doing it wrong if you were watching him in 2012 lol
 

Jsisto

Member
I get where you guys are coming from, but from an hours of use standpoint, I use YouTube way more than any other streaming platform, and I assume most of you probably do as well. As a consumer, it’s an Incredible bang for my buck. I have about a 40 minute drive to work and regularly listen to stuff on YouTube on my way. I don’t want to stop and cancel ads while I’m driving. Should it be as much as it is? Obviously not, but there comes a point where if you use it enough it just makes more sense to make my life more convenient.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
It probably is harder for the hobbyists to get views if they don't track the trends and make their videos recognizable via clickbait titles and thumbnails, but it's not impossible. I see suggestions from small and new creators in my home feed all the time. The hobbyists definitely have to work hard to make their content compelling to keep viewers engaged, though. The ADHD-riddled people who grew up on social media can't stay focused long enough so you have to get to the point and capture them in the first few seconds or they're gone. I don't think that's an intrinsic problem with the YouTube revenue model, though. I think the evolution of social media has shaped the model into what it needs to be to stay relevant.

Monetization is so key to social media these days. People spend time making the content on YouTube and time spent on that is time they could be spending on other things that could make them money. There's no reason Google should keep all of the money it generates. So I'm not upset by the profit motives of content creators or the way YouTube incentivizes them. It is funny sometimes when they publicly complain about demonetization, especially the ones who make money off of other people's IP. There does seem to be a growing sense of entitlement that just because they made a video that they deserve to be paid for it and I usually don't watch videos they make griping about it.

I think in general the quality of content has increased because of monetization. With a couple of notable exceptions. The people who make compilation videos of other people's content or make videos just reacting to other videos should be dropped off the monetization cliff, at least in my opinion.
 
Yes, I love YouTube.

Not only do I think your complaints are fucking stupid, but flat out wrong.
You can't find people making videos for the love of a hobby, or passion anymore, but rather how much money it can make them.
I can't believe you actually posted this sentence. You and many others in this thread clearly don't have any hobbies outside of mainstream shit. It's not YouTube's fault you are stuck in your own content bubble and community. I'll just post one channel as an example, but there are literally millions of small YouTube communities out there like this:


Edit: Jesus, even a quick Google search would tell you that 97% of YouTube channels have less than 10,000 subscribers.
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I am happy with it. It is a fucking huge compilation of millions of videos, it allows 4K content and 60 Fps content.
You can pay to get rid of ads if you want or by other means depending on the device. You can find videos on pretty much anything, it's a shame that the people who have the best videos are often not the ones making money, but that is the audiences fault.
 

PSYGN

Member
You mean the Internet in general today as far as not giving spammy search results, shoving ads into every nook and cranny, having to scroll over a bunch of suggested videos to continue where you left off, and having to sift through an essay about the history of topic X when you're just searching for a specific thing related to it. I absolutely love it!
 
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Kacho

Gold Member
Strong disagree. 60% of my phone usage is YouTube. I also use it for background noise while I work or play games. This is why I happily pay for premium every month. I get so much out of YouTube every day and it’s infinitely more valuable than any of the dopey streaming services with their trash content.
 

Jsisto

Member
The more I think about it, it’s absolutely bonkers how much content is on YouTube. You can find probably hundreds/thousands of people who are passionate and/or experts on any given topic/hobby and regularly put out content. Fitness, politics, news, comedy, podcasts, music, history, philosophy, gaming, cooking, movies, books, fashion…long form content/short form content…it’s practically endless. Imagine years ago in the early internet if we were offered such a service with all the content currently on it and asked to pay 12 dollars a month. It’s a steal.

Like anything, there’s trash on it, but if that’s the only stuff you’re being exposed to, the problem really is you. I mean that in the nicest way possible, you’re really missing out on what the platform has to offer. Look for better creators.
 
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Dev1lXYZ

Member
When I was partially disabled (recovered) some years back, I became introduced to YT. Because I wasn’t able to get out at all, I was addicted to urban exploration videos. I began watching Adam The Woo’s channels as well as Jordan The Lion, Jacob The Carpetbagger and Tim Tracker. A little roadside/theme park and Hollywood history mixture. I remember when YT raised the bar and these guys were pumping out so many videos their quality took a big drop. Since then, I ran into Tim Tracker at Hollywood Studios and just watched him taking b roll footage and meeting fans. My kids wanted to be YouTubers until that day. I pointed out that it wasn’t all fun and games, and that going to theme parks over and over and having to plan out your shots, etc alone is pretty tough. No kids, he is at work and on a tight schedule. 😂 Dreams dashed!
 
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I ran into Tim Tracker at Hollywood Studios and just watched him taking b roll footage and meeting fans. My kids wanted to be YouTubers until that day. I pointed out that it wasn’t all fun and games, and that going to theme parks over and over and having to plan out your shots, etc alone is pretty tough. No kids, he is at work and on a tight schedule. 😂 Dreams dashed!
I used to watch him a lot, but stopped when they started bringing up politics in some of their videos. Adam the Woo still makes great stuff, though it's different from his abandoned places vids of the past. For sure it takes more time and effort to put together those clips than people might think.

I can see what OP is saying though. Some people really do chase the trends and seem to be in it for the money more than anything. It's pretty hard for people with simpler setups to break through, and they need to bring their A-game right from the start or they'll fail. But I think the massive quantity of videos means there's something for you out there. Ashens still makes the same videos of him reviewing junk on his dirty sofa. Others were able to increase the quality of their videos significantly. I watch YT a ton but I don't pay for the subscription. It may just be 12 dollars a month, but that equals 140 bucks a year. I can't justify that.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Im fine with it. If streamers want to monetize it go ahead.

My biggest issue is needing thumb through all the spam videos, low quality vids and repetitive videos.

If I want to search a longplay game clip, it'll likely bring up at the top all the videos that have been around a long time with tons of views. Even though a much better 60 fps/HD version is available but might be way down the list. Technically that version is a better video for users, but the ancient ones get top rankings. So for searching I got ensure I put in HD or 60 fps to get a better clip right away.

Or I search for a sports clip and it's not even a clip, but someone narrating watching it or it's still photos with a robot voice. These should be all junked by YT. Or the clip is someone playing EA FIFA when I want to watch a real FIFA clip.

YT could probably delete half the videos to clean things up and it would be a much better site.
 
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Dev1lXYZ

Member
I used to watch him a lot, but stopped when they started bringing up politics in some of their videos. Adam the Woo still makes great stuff, though it's different from his abandoned places vids of the past. For sure it takes more time and effort to put together those clips than people might think.

I can see what OP is saying though. Some people really do chase the trends and seem to be in it for the money more than anything. It's pretty hard for people with simpler setups to break through, and they need to bring their A-game right from the start or they'll fail. But I think the massive quantity of videos means there's something for you out there. Ashens still makes the same videos of him reviewing junk on his dirty sofa. Others were able to increase the quality of their videos significantly. I watch YT a ton but I don't pay for the subscription. It may just be 12 dollars a month, but that equals 140 bucks a year. I can't justify that.


I have kept up with Adam throughout the years and consider him the godfather of quite a few channels. His framing is top tier and enjoyable to watch. He reminds me of John Ritter and his Jack Tripper character from Three’s Company. To me that’s his act: Jack Tripper at place X. 😂
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I miss seeing the downvotes……
The best feature to weed out bad videos. And right just about every time. Click on a movie clip and if it had a lot of downvotes (or big ratio of downs vs ups), I knew it'd be a shit video, misleading video, or the user added some dumb editing or trolling to it.

Skip. I'll find a different video.
 
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nemiroff

Gold Member
You have to work the algorithm a bit to make it good.. Anyway, I don't watch TV so youtube is my goto place. And doubly so after paying for a premium sub. Love it.
 
It's the same with streaming. Same with any kind of revolution. There's always that honeymoon period when the disruptive technology/new leader is leaps and bounds better than the old in all ways possible, and you think this time, it's gonna be different. This time, it's gonna be better. Progress is being made. Civilization, society is progressing. Then once they've killed all competition, saturated the market, won the hearts and minds of all, has everyone adoring and listening to them, the people behind it start to do all the old shit of whatever/whoever they replaced, the same exploitative practices under new terminology.

The king is dead, long live the king. The new boss, same as the old boss.

Youtube and Google both suck now. Completely useless.
I remember the short period when you could type something you had in mind, seen before, remembered, wanted to find, etc into either of these and very quickly find EXACTLY what you were looking for. Those days are gone now. Google (which owns YT so that makes sense they both changed the same way) no longer has any interest in you finding exactly what you want, but rather exactly what it wants you to see about this particular topic thing you're looking for, rounding you up into one of their bubbles so they can feed you to/into their algorithm. Fucking 95% of the time now I swear google is ignoring my search terms and just reinterprets them into the closest thing that seems to be the hot topic or big topic of the current cultural moment, from the biggest sites or personalities what have you.
 

bad guy

as bad as Danny Zuko in gym knickers
I love YouTube as a consumer, so much good stuff, I can ( and must) be picky.

I have my own low-effort channel with silly drawings and home-made indiegames. Only 4 subscribers but I don't care that much.
 
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nkarafo

Member
It became much less useful the day they removed dislikes. Other than that, i don't care much since i only use it with an adblocker and only the channels i subscribe to myself.
 

DAHGAMING

Member
Yea I do use it alot for football content, tech and game reviews/info still but I miss the start of youtube when it was more innocent. The good old days of happy slap videos, Halo and Call of Duty montage vids and of corse LEE ROYYY JENKINSSS.
 

Tams

Gold Member
Nah, pretty much none of the YouTubers I follow pull the silly faces.

I often stop following them if they do them several times in a row. The only exceptions I have to that are LMG and Colin Furze as I know that I like their content.

I do hate that the algorithm very readily bombards you with similar videos. Watch an animal video to relax a little and bombarded with 'rescued, super cute, goat' stories or the like. Or I recently looked at a watch video and now have to clear out a load of watch videos.
 

obie

Neo Member
It’s what you make it. If you watch that kind of content, you will be recommended that type of content. If you use enough YouTube that you’re bothered by ads, I gotta say you might as well just get premium. Given the amount of time I spend on YouTube vs other streaming platforms, it’s the best bang for my buck possible and totally worth it.
The o.p. seems to have rose coloured glasses. I have YouTube premium and haven’t looked back.
How can you paint such broad stokes too? Its totally what you make it.
 

Laptop1991

Member
Not really, when they monetized it, it wasn't as good, content has been affected by this over the years, disappearing full films and documentaries people wouldn't buy anyway, ads all over the place and elongated, round the houses videos made longer to get views etc rarther than just getting to the point, i wonder how many videos have been deleted over the years as well, when i search for game walkthrough's or topics etc, there are less than there use to be, and a lot more censoring as well.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
It became much less useful the day they removed dislikes. Other than that, i don't care much since i only use it with an adblocker and only the channels i subscribe to myself.
I didn't see a change at all after the removal of dislike count. To me it only seemed to remove the incentive to join dislike bandwagons where people received instant gratification for being a part of the vigilante brigade. It didn't actually stop anyone from disliking/downvoting a video. It sure didn't change anything about my feed.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
qq0oKhU.jpg
 

nkarafo

Member
I didn't see a change at all after the removal of dislike count. To me it only seemed to remove the incentive to join dislike bandwagons where people received instant gratification for being a part of the vigilante brigade. It didn't actually stop anyone from disliking/downvoting a video. It sure didn't change anything about my feed.
I watch a lot of tutorials and troubleshooters for software, especially Pi stuff. The dislike ratio was useful there to avoid time wasters.

Also, funny how its only the dislike bandwagon you care about. How about the other way around? Why not completely remove the likes as well? Whats the point if theres no ratio?
 

Jsisto

Member
Nah, pretty much none of the YouTubers I follow pull the silly faces.

I often stop following them if they do them several times in a row. The only exceptions I have to that are LMG and Colin Furze as I know that I like their content.

I do hate that the algorithm very readily bombards you with similar videos. Watch an animal video to relax a little and bombarded with 'rescued, super cute, goat' stories or the like. Or I recently looked at a watch video and now have to clear out a load of watch videos.
I’ve been down the watch rabbit hole, lol. That’s the only complaint I really have. It’s heavily skewed towards what you most recently watched(no pun intended I swear)which is not always the best representation of your interests. I wish there were multiple options for how to display your recommended videos.
 
The Ads on YouTube are ridiculous. I watch maybe 6 videos a week and they are killer. Two 15 seconds ads at the start of a video, and then ads during, it’s just too much.

So I try to avoid YouTube in my searches. I don’t use it enough to pay for premium. But they definitely have the strategy of killing you with ads so that you go premium.
 
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March Climber

Gold Member
The entire internet is absolute fucking garbage now
Nope.
I am just browsing YouTube short, and it's shit at most.
Old YouTube short were nice.
Now I am being bombarded with Andrew Tate and his other shit friends.
My other channel is filled with sobranos, breaking bad, Ozark, Rick and Morty, friends, and big bang theory.
I steer clear of the trending and shorts sections which are nothing but pure crap with horrendous TikTok-type music. Only just stick to what I'm subscribed to and the occasional recommendation.
there still are tons of garbage on the platform.


It’s what you make it. If you watch that kind of content, you will be recommended that type of content.
tumblr_static_tumblr_static_4llopqdd4we8wgcog8w0so08k_focused_v3.jpg


Has anyone here ever played with a Tamagotchi or the Dreamcast VMU pet? The algorithm is the tamagotchi. If you're feeding your tamagotchi egg a bunch of trash, then you're not going to get a rare tamagotchi. If you're watching trash videos or videos to piss you off, the algorithm will think that you like trash and enjoy being upset. It's doing it's job.
 

Wildebeest

Member
tumblr_static_tumblr_static_4llopqdd4we8wgcog8w0so08k_focused_v3.jpg


Has anyone here ever played with a Tamagotchi or the Dreamcast VMU pet? The algorithm is the tamagotchi. If you're feeding your tamagotchi egg a bunch of trash, then you're not going to get a rare tamagotchi. If you're watching trash videos or videos to piss you off, the algorithm will think that you like trash and enjoy being upset. It's doing it's job.
Isn't anyone on this forsaken Earth who doesn't like watching trash and being upset. Easy job for YouTube.
 

March Climber

Gold Member
Isn't anyone on this forsaken Earth who doesn't like watching trash and being upset. Easy job for YouTube.
Yes, but those same people always end up surprised when they discover the other sides of youtube. Those sides were always there, it's just that the individual chose a different path to go down.
 

Esca

Member
They are scummy. We turn it on for abc's and other learning for my nephews and they legit put 6-8 min long single ads in it and most of the time it is not kids rated content but like a rap video or other crap that kids should not watch.
 

Lucumo

Member
Yep, started using Youtube in mid-2005 and it just got better and better over the years...until the first sign of the downward trend came: No longer being able to sign into Youtube with your Youtube account. You now had to create a Google account to do that, fuck them. That was what, around 2010/2011? At the same time, the UI also started getting worse, slowly but definitely progressively to eventually become the atrocity it is nowadays. They also got rid of social functions like private messaging, video responses and the like.
Well, I basically stopped using Youtube altogether and fully embraced livestreaming which had already been occupying most of my free time before that, as I got into it relatively early...in the days when livestream was king, until eventually ustream ruled and then justin.tv which split off twitch.tv and own3d on the side and so on. Too bad Twitch.tv eventually went the way of Youtube, starting around 2015, when the first camwhores arrived and then the UI getting worse over time, eventually allowing non-gaming content etc. I only rarely watch on Twitch nowadays, as it's just too annoying to deal with. The website is utter crap. It lacks proper filter options (just like most websites on the internet, be it Youtube or something like Amazon), so finding what I'm looking for is basically impossible.

The entire internet is absolute fucking garbage now
In the end, it comes down to this ^
 

joedan

Member
YouTube has great content. I spent most of my time on YT.
However, about two months ago, something changed and they increased the number of ads toa point that using YT is unpleasant.
I've stopped consuming YT content because of the volume of ads. I've started watching more Netflix, Prime, Disney+ etc because of YT's volume of ads.
 
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