A slightly unusual video from the fantastic Technology Connections channel. It articulates a lot of my own thoughts on social media, “algorithms” and AI.

What surprised me the most was the statistic that only 3% of author’s views come from the subscriptions feed. This is wild to me because subscriptions are pretty much the only way I have ever used YouTube.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      7 months ago

      YouTube prefers you use the home feed

      I’m not all that sure; don’t they get the same amount of money from ads no matter how you find them? And they get a hefty chunk on “Join” and “Thanks” payments (a 30% cut, IIRC), which people are less likely to spend on non-subscribed channels.

      • Stepos Venzny@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        7 months ago

        If you look at your Subscribed page and don’t see any updates, there’s a good chance you’ll leave YouTube without watching anything.

        The Home page has a higher likelihood of tempting you to watch something you hadn’t planned on.

      • zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 months ago

        I think that youtube wants to maximize watch time, if you just watch subscriptions you might get “done” at some point but with the home feed you can just keep watching forever