Re: algorithmic feeds
I've seen some posts now which make me wonder how people process options available to them. I'm still begging people to use the subs feed on YT and people talked about the For You feed on xitter as if it replaced the Following feed.
And all I can say is ???
I've seen some posts now which make me wonder how people process options available to them. I'm still begging people to use the subs feed on YT and people talked about the For You feed on xitter as if it replaced the Following feed.
And all I can say is ???
Comments
Especially when the algo is hell bend to give you that dopamine hit to keep coming back.
Sorry for yelling, but the subs feed contains *nothing* that you are not subscribed. So either your account has a massive bug or you're confused.
that's why there are two feeds. one is to catch up on stuff you know you want to watch. and the other is for discovering new things.
they do not need to exist in the same space, and your brain should be able to handle that context switching.
It's because a lot of people never check the subs feed at all and don't even know it exists.
Plus, I gotta be honest, I don't understand the complain about the occasional video you've already seen being recommended again
It's reruns!
https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions
But yeah I always found it pretty interesting that people spoke of the For You feed as if there was no other.
It built a network organically similar to how it works in real life. But lately, people don't seem to do this as much and that is what I'm railing against.
Also the cold start problem - when you’re totally new and don’t know who to follow- or you make your first posts and you’re “screaming into the void”
We realized there were real harms to cigarettes and took steps to minimize their use.
At this point I think we need to be having honest conversations about what is and isn't healthy for our minds.
if not cigarettes, at least nicotine patches, or people just won’t go for it
And marketing is very effective at creating and/or exploiting "needs" that addicts will subsequently defend.
That is, I mostly agree with our host, it's insane to use algorithmic feeds for routine *reading* - but they're not without a use case for *browsing*.
Like, no? The point of subscribing is the subs feed. You used to get some notifications by default as well, but it was always optional.
The home feed is for discovery of new things more than it is your subscriptions. Some of your subscriptions will be peppered in there, but that's not really the point of that feed.
The subs feed is the feed where your subs go. I don't find this weird at all.
If I want to see subbed content, it's all right there in the sub feed. It's like complaining that the store doesn't have any of your furniture there.
Unless there's some magic reason I'm the only person that has a chronological feed, it has always been chronological.
Either people have been subject to some weird experiments YouTube tried on only a few people and decided not to roll out to everyone, or they're confusing complaints about the Home feed with the Subs feed.
And surprisingly the "Don't recommend channel" option works a treat. I've only had to see Mr Beast once.
But again, TV interface might make that worse.
YT is less collaborative (a tiny fraction of viewers leave a comment) so the incentive to stay on there longer lines up well with "serving you new content you find interesting"
This is in stark contrast to how most "true" social media functions.
Posts on Twitter-like places don't have that level of craft. The infrastructure simply does not allow it. IMO that's what makes it so adversarial.
I don't worry about "wrecking my algorithm" because I use the subs feed mostly.
If you don't like how the home feed works, don't use the home feed. Just use the subs feed.
my YT recommended is consistently 10/10 bc i rely on my subs tab for my primary content. i subscribe to the folks i want to see more of, so i make sure to go watch their things first! the alg can take it from there on the home tab. it’s easy and creates your ideal algorithm.
I can recall one time I unsubbed from a channel, and a few days later YouTube randomly restored the subscription. I had to unsubscribe again.
At one point, I scraped them all to my home media server, but I stopped when I got Premium. I can back to doing it :P
I spend most of my time on subscribers.
If that's "too difficult" like, I feel really bad for them dealing with non-frivolous entertainment things in their lives.
I think a lot of techy-folks don't understand the culture they build.
If it makes you happy in a year or two we may have working reply control I think. And if not generally available at least on my awful software
Always has.
It's often times easier to look for certain tumblr posts over google then on tumblr itself. :P
At least in my experience.
I sometimes couldn't even find my own posts using it, even tho I'm using the right tags. like wtf.
This is esp annoying on mobile.
I don't think it could be easier to see your Subscriptions by clicking said link.
The RSS feed usually tells me about new videos WELL before I get a YT browser notification, too.
I am more worried about the suggested's on the side when I play anything. I keep getting these weird unremarkable videos, but all under ten seconds, and with weird thumbnails designed for kids. I am 50....
For youtube subscriptions I don't use the homepage, I click on channels separately from the menu
The problem is when you watch 5 minutes of Antiques Roadshow to see one item that's all you get for the next week.
And YT misses a lot of new videos in my feed. Often I'll see the little blue dot next to a name click it and there will be something I hadn't seen.
At some point not so long ago I checked the Subs feed again and was astonished at the amount of channels I straight up forgot about. Brain only has so much room
https://unhook.app
(I also don't watch any shorts/reels/tiktok tho)
If it's not there, that's a hard no for me.
If it's not the default, it's probably still a no.
I do not understand the drive to have an unvetted system designed by strangers control one's access to info.
I see the value in both, and I use the home feed on YT fairly regularly, but SM is chrono-only for me and I use the subs feed on YT a TON
You still get recommendations on the sidebar of individual videos, but nothing on home or shorts.
Subs feed still works as expected though.
It's my ideal way of consuming YouTube.
On the phone app, I just hit subscriptions as soon as I open the app.
But I have visited the Subscriptions page enough times that the "Suggestions" list in Safari goes straight to Subscriptions, so I usually click on that.
Both is good, different tools for different jobs
Meh, I suggest it's more "barrier to entry" to understand how to self-curate.
Anyone remember RSS? I still use it constantly, and see https://inoreader.com.
In a word: iPhone.
It's two buttons. I think incuriosity is a bigger problem than people understanding how to do this.
And yet, I've noticed many people don't bother. Certain folks only visit YouTube with a search in mind, and then they surf from there. Some never even log in...
Apropos, this is why I'm calling for a general strike: people do not change until they miss something they took for granted, loosely speaking.
ever think about how massive "generational" changes now happen every few years not just once a generation & how that creates tons of subcultures that consider their generation the best. Now we have these extremely hyper dimensional social spaces w very asynch awareness dynamics?
i do.
https://www.techradar.com/audio/spotify/spotify-has-been-filling-your-recommendations-with-fake-artists-and-music-it-barely-pays-for?utm_source=perplexity
But Twitter's for you was just baaaad. Brainrot.
I suspect the attention economy is such that many ppl are drowning in so many notifs or apps they only see content if they're pinged. Ugh
That said, I've started having to use the Subs tab to remind YouTube I do, in fact, want to watch channels I subscribe to
I don’t get it either. But it be how it be. 🤷♂️
Older iterations of the FB feed actually did that well.
There are people who are naturally inclined to curate and organize fir themselves and people who just want stuff in front of them.
Sometimes the algorithm can tame the selection fatigue, though. Speaking as someone who indecisively spent hours at Blockbuster.
that's almost the opposite of how ATProto interprets "decentralisation"
it's not that bsky attracts people who want algorithms by allowing them to exist, but that AP and masto simply do not do social networks in a way those people would ever want,
and this curation difference is really apparent when you look at how people who choose to stay on fedi, interact with the system itself
"efficiency of finding new stuff to watch" feels like a really strange concern. I don't care to make my entertainment efficient, and in fact I limit my watch time because there's a lot more to life.
You're veering into my crotchety thoughts re: "optimization"
There's a wonderful inner peace you can find when you find your own answer and stick to it.
You're probably not trying to get this deep, but this is why apps that suck you in scare me.
The idea of spending hours every day basically saying "show me something, from any time, from anyone, just anything" feels so bleak.
I like the algo at times to see new things that i wouldn't have searched for, but i like the sub feed as a foundation.
My subs view is full of different types of videos, hard to easily prune it.
In fact, the only place I have ever seen community posts is in the mobile app, and since I almost never use the mobile app, I almost never see community posts. Horribly implemented feature by YouTube
(Idk I think he was thinking he was getting some 'default' feed like traditional broadcast)
Idk if different yt accounts behave differently but I can't explain how everyone I know has such a different experience on the platform.
That shit changed my life, btw. I think I’m still only on the second box of detergent since that fateful day and my dishes have never been cleaner.
make it a habit once in a while to check for a blue dot next to their name on the sidebar, that indicates New Video
One thing that I do think might be worth considering is that, in general, YouTube creators do not produce content at nearly the clip found on other sites. It will usually be pretty easy to get through it all.
Or even something as simple as they don't realize they are not on the sub feed
SNL seems to use that a lot I think because people complain about clutter on Sunday morning.
On Twitter I even disabled retweets for each account I followed. Still waiting for this option on BS. :/
I probably should curate my subscription list better though....
Back in my day i either had to be in front of the tv to catch a broadcast or program my VCR to record it, yada yada
Toktok doesn't replace cds, it replace radio
These algorithmic feeds *do* know my sock preference and are designed to get me to *engage* as much and as long as possible
I also probably overuse the "don't recommend channel" feature. Most channels get one shot and a single YouTube-face thumbnail means you are gone forever
I would unfollow them, but once in a while they create something that reminds me why I subbed to them in the first place.
When I was on Twitter, it was the same. The chronological following feed was the only way the place made any sense.
Subscriptions when I want content from channels I've followed.
YouTube home feed for when I want to watch something new.
One of many reasons I left that place.
I hate it when people on Facebook complain about never seeing their friends' posts. I'm like... there's a Friends feed *right there*.
That was always there on Twitter, you just had to select Following at the top of the app/webpage. I know they would reset everyone to "For You" every now and then, but one click and fixed.
I'd really like to control whether or not that's possible on a post-by-post basis.
I still mostly use my Subscriptions page on YT though
I don't think our brains were meant for this.
I'm also that person who has like 500 tabs open on every device so 🤷🏾♀️
Haven’t heard back, so I’m assuming that did it 🙃
I've been very confused in the past when I've temporarily disconnected from the internet and it "helpfully" reloads the home page when the connection resumes.
I STILL don't get how people praise Twitter's "For You" feed. For what little time I used it before I eventually left, it NEVER showed me anything good.
Sure, sometimes I will take a look at what is suggested to me and sometimes the algorithm knows what it's about, but mostly I look at the stuff I'm subscribed to.
They stop being social and become automated publishing in a fundamentally different way.
More like radio and television, than strangers and acquaintances chatting on the town square, and should be regulated as such.
(Also does anybody actually „hit that little bell“? You couldn’t pay me for that. My notifications for YouTube are off.)
Its a bit better nowadays but they definitely have glitches with smaller channels.
I like the categories you can split recommended videos into, having that for subs specifically would be 🫶
And that in itself is horrifying.