YouTube Creators Discover Content Ratings, Including P-score

[Kisai]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You should request that feature then, by Tweeting at YouTube's official handle, or posting on their official Facebook Group.

 

You'd be amazed at how often Corporate brands respond on twitter with rubbish.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

 

You'd be amazed at how often Corporate brands respond on twitter with rubbish.

So have you done that? Or... no?

[Crowbar]

And to no ones surprise, youtube's worst kept secret is confirmed.

 

Either way, with the amount of bullshit advertising in videos these days edited directly into the file itself, many youtube channels ain't all that different from cable TV once you account for the amount of content per ad space. Then you toss in the fact many "content creators" are too afraid to mention anything controversal for fear of having ad revenue gimped and the quality becomes increasingly diminishing.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

You know what would improve Youtube's revenue? a "Never show this channel to me again" button. PewDiePie would go straight into the trash bin, along with all the other crappy minecraft/fortnite/shooty-game channels that I don't care about.

 

I used to have a plugin that did that, however recently my browsing habits seem to mean that these channels never show up in any lists.   I do however get a few annoying top 10 ufo conspiracy channels though,  I can't work out what I look at that causes those to come through.

[ManyCoresGuy]

On 10/31/2019 at 6:16 PM, Ehmc130 said:

Yeah and FOX news (worthless, bias, politically driven crap) is 7th on the list. It shows you what the rest of the list is worth. (Not a crack at LTT)

So CNN is your trusted source?

[SenKa]

5 minutes ago, ManyCoresGuy said:

So CNN is your trusted source?

I tore that quote apart on page 1, still no response. Don't get your hopes up! 

[ManyCoresGuy]

12 minutes ago, SenKa said:

I tore that quote apart on page 1, still no response. Don't get your hopes up! 

Aww shucks! LOL

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, Waffles13 said:

I find it pretty funny that you simultaneously say "they are a private company, they have a right to do what they want" followed immediately by "no one has a right to complain."

 

I'll never understand this mentality of defending a company's actions just because it's currently legal. There are all sorts of despicable, immoral things that I could go around legally doing, it doesn't mean it's good for me to do nor does it mean that I'm immune from criticism if I choose to. YouTube is a product, and while advertisers may be their primary customer they only have any pull because of creators that make content and viewers who watch it. If either of those two groups are incensed with their business practices, not only are they able to complain but it may in fact be in their best interest to complain. 

 

And that's not even getting into the fact that YouTube is an effective monopoly that only exists because it's bankrolled by Google. If the biggest and most popular video platform consistently operates at a loss, how are we supposed to find alternatives with better policies?

 

I'm not saying that there's a clear cut answer or that complaining will necessarily fix things, but it's a whole hell of a lot better than just bending over and letting YouTube have its way with a large chunk of the entertainment industry and play dice with thousands of people's personal income. 

 

I still don't understand what there is to complain about. As a business that derives all it's income from what the general viewer is willing to watch, the content that is promoted will  be by nature the most popular content.   In this regard it is no different to any other tv station or content creator,  they are not going to green light a documentary made in the backyard about the interesting cycle of grasses in a tropical climate, it just won't pay the bills. You tube are not going to promote content that hardly any watches because the advertisers want their ads in front of millions of people not hundreds or even thousands.

[Unixsystem]

Just now, mr moose said:

 

I still don't understand what there is to complain about. As a business that derives all it's income from what the general viewer is willing to watch, the content that is promoted will  be by nature the most popular content.   In this regard it is no different to any other tv station or content creator,  they are not going to green light a documentary made in the backyard about the interesting cycle of grasses in a tropical climate, it just won't pay the bills. You tube are not going to promote content that hardly any watches because the advertisers want their ads in front of millions of people not hundreds or even thousands.

For me it's mostly the fact that they refuse to actually give anyone their guidelines, likely because they don't actually have hard rules in place and just judge everything subjectively (e.g. A TV talk show can get away with minor swearing or raunchy jokes, but an LP channel with similar conduct may get buried by the algorithm).

 

I have no problem with them implementing a rating system and handing out ads based on that. I also have don't really have a problem with them having topics or conduct that is completely demonetizable (I'd personally rather they have a more completely hands off approach, but I know this is silicon valley and I'm not naive enough to think they would allow full chaotic internet nonsense). The problem is that while people can speculate about ratings or the algorithm, no one knows any of the specifics. We have lists of thousands of potentially demonetizable words, we have multiple channels with similar conduct getting different treatment, and on top of that YouTube seems to like to change any or all of their policies on a whim without notifying anyone. 

 

Why is there not a page in their creator studio labeled "rating guidelines" that lays out exactly what is okay and what isn't? Why don't they send out a press release a week before they make a massive change that says "next week we are modifying search, if you notice a dip/increase in views/ad revenue here's why"? Imagine if TV stations just started randomly getting fines from the FCC for breaking rules that they were never told existed, or that changed two weeks ago with zero fanfare or communication.

 

Youtube has an incredible amount of power in this space and yet it feels like it's run by a group of children playing a game before agreeing what the rules are going to be and making it up as they go along. 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Waffles13 said:

For me it's mostly the fact that they refuse to actually give anyone their guidelines, likely because they don't actually have hard rules in place and just judge everything subjectively (e.g. A TV talk show can get away with minor swearing or raunchy jokes, but an LP channel with similar conduct may get buried by the algorithm).

 

I have no problem with them implementing a rating system and handing out ads based on that. I also have don't really have a problem with them having topics or conduct that is completely demonetizable (I'd personally rather they have a more completely hands off approach, but I know this is silicon valley and I'm not naive enough to think they would allow full chaotic internet nonsense). The problem is that while people can speculate about ratings or the algorithm, no one knows any of the specifics. We have lists of thousands of potentially demonetizable words, we have multiple channels with similar conduct getting different treatment, and on top of that YouTube seems to like to change any or all of their policies on a whim without notifying anyone. 

 

Why is there not a page in their creator studio labeled "rating guidelines" that lays out exactly what is okay and what isn't? Why don't they send out a press release a week before they make a massive change that says "next week we are modifying search, if you notice a dip/increase in views/ad revenue here's why"? Imagine if TV stations just started randomly getting fines from the FCC for breaking rules that they were never told existed, or that changed two weeks ago with zero fanfare or communication.

 

Youtube has an incredible amount of power in this space and yet it feels like it's run by a group of children playing a game before agreeing what the rules are going to be and making it up as they go along. 

They very likely don't tell anyone how it works so the system isn't abused for clicks.  From what I have read google don't decide what is popular based on their own appraisal, they work it out based on how many people view it, how many people share it and sub and so on.  Lots of hard data points that are not subjective from googles end.

 

It's actually a very basic (and likely the least biased) way to structure such a business and make the most out of it.

 

 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Waffles13 said:

For me it's mostly the fact that they refuse to actually give anyone their guidelines, likely because they don't actually have hard rules in place and just judge everything subjectively (e.g. A TV talk show can get away with minor swearing or raunchy jokes, but an LP channel with similar conduct may get buried by the algorithm).

 

 

They don't have have to, and do not because then it becomes something like this (and I'm being facetious, but this is exactly what happens if guidelines were solid and well known/published.)

 

YT'er uploads a 2 hour video with 3 seconds of woman in a tiny bikini.

YT'er: Hey my video was demonetized, why?

YT (rep1): You show'd da tiddy.

YT'er: ok, I'll just put a fig leaf over it

YT (rep1): That's not good either. You show da Tiddy, you no get da money.

YT (rep1): Fine I'll just crop it

(2 hour video is censored, time passes)

YT'er: Why is my video still demonetized?

YT (rep2): Oh you were demonetized for nudity

YT'er: But I cropped it out!

YT (rep2): No Nudity, you can not even censor it.

YT'er : FFS, fine.

(3 seconds of video with a woman wearing a bikini top is cut from a two hour video)

YT'er: why isn't my video monetized now?

YT (rep 3): Dude, man you can't 420 that.

YT'er: ARG you guys suck

(several edits to the video referencing drugs are cut, video is now 1hr 58 minutes), following that the YT'er reports every video they know of with a drug reference in it, including that which is on Youtube Red.

 

This will keep going until every offensive thing gets cut from the video. Now my experience, not with Youtube, but eBay is that anytime a representative tells a user a guideline, it sets the expectation that is true for everything on the site. No hypocrisy allowed. The result is, yes, the angered user will report hundreds, or thousands of things on the site, from user-generated content, to comments, to stuff sold BY the brand itself. It quite frankly creates more work. So it's better for the human component just go "we think this is isn't brand-safe, so no money."

 

So that's why support staff can't tell you the guidelines, they likely exist, but every time they leak they have to start over again. Like at eBay the Chinese powersellers would routinely call their powerseller managers who would then leak the entire counterfeit takedown criteria to them. So suddenly what was easy to remove 5 days ago is now harder to take down because some representative, probably in an outsource call center, felt it was a good idea to take down a listing an explain exactly why they took it down. Now every chinese-originated listing has "adapted". Great, now people will complain why we aren't taking down this obviously fake crap now.

 

With that said, advertisers are super-fickle, and "monetization" on youtube is all about offering the blandest brand-safe videos to soak up the most valuable ads, and leave all the crumbs to the "edgy" edgelord youtubers.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

 

With that said, advertisers are super-fickle, and "monetization" on youtube is all about offering the blandest brand-safe videos to soak up the most valuable ads, and leave all the crumbs to the "edgy" edgelord youtubers.

 

I think the problem with those guys is they have no concept of their audience or the society they live in.    Successful business knows you market your product to the people that will provide the most revenue, if they are ultra polite,  non-swearing anti nudity types then that is how you have to present your content.  Where half of youtube (and most of this forum by the look of it) think that their own standards are acceptable to everyone and they can't understand why business would want to ensure their advertising isn't associated with it. 

 

This whole P-score is no different to a supermarket promoting the products with the best profit margins at the end of the aisles, or small shops only advertising certain brands and prices when they stock a lot more than that.   It is just business making sure the product (in this case videos) that bring the most viewers to the site are up front and visible.

[Kisai]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

This whole P-score is no different to a supermarket promoting the products with the best profit margins at the end of the aisles, or small shops only advertising certain brands and prices when they stock a lot more than that.   It is just business making sure the product (in this case videos) that bring the most viewers to the site are up front and visible.

 

Those are actually called "Profit Panels"

 

No seriously.

[mr moose]

14 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

Those are actually called "Profit Panels"

 

No seriously.

Yep, and they are at the entrance doors to small shops, and prominent places in cafe's etc as well.   You will never find the least valuable stock in them while something of higher value is on the bottom shelf around the corner.

[The1Dickens]

22 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

Those are actually called "Profit Panels"

 

No seriously.

 

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Yep, and they are at the entrance doors to small shops, and prominent places in cafe's etc as well.   You will never find the least valuable stock in them while something of higher value is on the bottom shelf around the corner.

Except none of that is naturally or organically organized. It's all paid for. Tide pays to be at the eye-level shelf. Dawn pays to be at the eye level shelf. And not because they are more popular. The 'profit panels' are there because Tostitos paid for that display spot in the middle of the store, not because it was more popular.

[mr moose]

Just now, The1Dickens said:

 

Except none of that is naturally or organically organized. It's all paid for. Tide pays to be at the eye-level shelf. Dawn pays to be at the eye level shelf. And not because they are more popular. The 'profit panels' are there because Tostitos paid for that display spot in the middle of the store, not because it was more popular.

Depends solely on the shop.  There are many examples and many different situations.  This one is just an example that highlights the reason such product scoring occurs. 

 

To highlight, What you tube are doing in this situation is noticing that when tide is at the end of the aisle they get 50% more customers through the door, thus they are going to promote tide more often.  They are not artificially shaping who is popular, they are simply leveraging who is popular for more custom.  

[Kisai]

34 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Depends solely on the shop.  There are many examples and many different situations.  This one is just an example that highlights the reason such product scoring occurs. 

 

To highlight, What you tube are doing in this situation is noticing that when tide is at the end of the aisle they get 50% more customers through the door, thus they are going to promote tide more often.  They are not artificially shaping who is popular, they are simply leveraging who is popular for more custom.  

When I once worked at a grocery story, the Profit Panels were a mixture of things in the flyers and things that were high-margin sellers. Like that's why the stuff closest to the check-out counter is candy and gossip magazines. 

 

Youtube's equivalent is the recommendation of certain high-traffic videos (eg the P-score), no matter what you've been watching. Like. I seriously never want to see a PewDiePie video, get guess what gets recommended to me every time I watch a tech video? PewDiePie is the gossip magazine at the checkout.

[Founders]

5 hours ago, ManyCoresGuy said:

So CNN is your trusted source?

When did I mention CNN buddy?

5 hours ago, SenKa said:

I tore that quote apart on page 1, still no response. Don't get your hopes up! 

I didn’t respond to you for a reason. You detailed a project you did in college which had nothing to do with the thread. I find most broadcast news networks to be a complete waste of time. If you care to discuss the matter further just send me a message.

[The1Dickens]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

When I once worked at a grocery story, the Profit Panels were a mixture of things in the flyers and things that were high-margin sellers. Like that's why the stuff closest to the check-out counter is candy and gossip magazines. 

 

Youtube's equivalent is the recommendation of certain high-traffic videos (eg the P-score), no matter what you've been watching. Like. I seriously never want to see a PewDiePie video, get guess what gets recommended to me every time I watch a tech video? PewDiePie is the gossip magazine at the checkout.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Depends solely on the shop.  There are many examples and many different situations.  This one is just an example that highlights the reason such product scoring occurs. 

 

To highlight, What you tube are doing in this situation is noticing that when tide is at the end of the aisle they get 50% more customers through the door, thus they are going to promote tide more often.  They are not artificially shaping who is popular, they are simply leveraging who is popular for more custom.  

Yeah, but the difference between a brick-and-morter store and a "digital store" is that each user can have the store catered to their 'shopping habits'. Kisai, to your point, if a 'shopper' (viewer, for this example) uses the 'not interested' button on Tide (PewDiePie), the online shop (YouTube) should learn/adjust that 'shelf space' is better suited to a product you actually might want to buy, or are interested in (Downy or Gain). By keeping Tide (PewDiePie) on the shelf, they are getting zero value (or negative value) to that shelf space. This also artificially inflates Tide's (PewDiePie's) P-Score, which is based on how much shelf-space he has (not how many people are 'buying Tide' (watching PewDiePie).

 

Mr. Moose, to you point, YouTube is selling advertising based on these P-Scores that are not reactive. It is poor science to claim one subject superior or inferior if your testing directly interferes with the subjects under test. By saying Tide (PewDiePie) is the superior detergent and warrants central shelf space (channel, P-Score) because its on everyone's shelf (top suggestion, playing next, etc.), but everyone's shelf (feed) is based the P-Score, which is affected by how many people have it on their shelf (feed), which is based on the P-Score... it's a circular argument.

 

Out of anyone to be angry about this, advertisers should be front of the line. They are being told that Tide (PewDiePie) is on the shelf of 20,000 stores, and shelf-space is worth 5 dollars, so they have to pay 100,000 dollars. If 4,000 stores' shelves are being ignored or avoided, because they refuse to buy Tide (watch PewDiePie), then the reality is they are only reaching 16,000 shelves. That means the shelf space that used to be 5 dollars is now actually 6.25, and the supermarket knows this full-well, because they are watching how buyers (viewers) are navigating the stores and what they are buying (viewing).

 

It gets convoluted, though, when you realize that Tide is having coupons shoved into it by the supermarket (not by Tide), and that the supermarket is pulling Gain off of shelves to put Tide there (throttling), and Gain was not told why they lost their shelf space, or how to get it back, because they only got a final P-Score, not a breakdown, so they can't know if they need to lower their ethanol and raise their citric acid to increase their P-Score, or just increase their citric acid, or by how much, etc., and somehow, Tide was just found to be full of heroin, but they are still proudly and prominently displayed on shelves...

[SenKa]

40 minutes ago, Ehmc130 said:

I didn’t respond to you for a reason. You detailed a project you did in college which had nothing to do with the thread. I find most broadcast news networks to be a complete waste of time. If you care to discuss the matter further just send me a message.

I used the college project as proof of my point, which was directly addressing your point. Infact, you just made my point as I said "I found almost all of them equally shite".

[mr moose]

45 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

 

Yeah, but the difference between a brick-and-morter store and a "digital store" is that each user can have the store catered to their 'shopping habits'.

Not really, both stores only have one goal,, and that is to sell as much product as they can.  Neither are arranged for your convince unless it mean more sales for them.

 

45 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

Mr. Moose, to you point, YouTube is selling advertising based on these P-Scores that are not reactive. It is poor science to claim one subject superior or inferior if your testing directly interferes with the subjects under test. By saying Tide (PewDiePie) is the superior detergent and warrants central shelf space (channel, P-Score) because its on everyone's shelf (top suggestion, playing next, etc.), but everyone's shelf (feed) is based the P-Score, which is affected by how many people have it on their shelf (feed), which is based on the P-Score... it's a circular argument.

You tube is selling advertising space, in order to do that they need to show the advertisers where the ads are being placed.  Just like a billboard the points directly down a major motor way is going to attract a premium price, so is an ad before a video that has several million subs, views, shares etc.  It is nothing more than a way for youtube to appraise the value of each video.     The whole thing is driven by how many people watch the content, not what you tube thing about the content.  It is not circular, if people stop watching kimmel his score will go down and it will no longer end up in trending etc.  Whether that means anything or not to kimmel is irrelevant, as the whole point of the scoring is to maintain web traffic for the advertisers. 

 

45 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

Out of anyone to be angry about this, advertisers should be front of the line. They are being told that Tide (PewDiePie) is on the shelf of 20,000 stores, and shelf-space is worth 5 dollars, so they have to pay 100,000 dollars. If 4,000 stores' shelves are being ignored or avoided, because they refuse to buy Tide (watch PewDiePie), then the reality is they are only reaching 16,000 shelves. That means the shelf space that used to be 5 dollars is now actually 6.25, and the supermarket knows this full-well, because they are watching how buyers (viewers) are navigating the stores and what they are buying (viewing).

That's not how it works.   Youtube know how many views his videos will get, so it is both the advertisers interest to be in front of his videos and for youtube to push them to the home page and on recommended lists to maintain that traffic.  

 

 

[The1Dickens]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Not really, both stores only have one goal,, and that is to sell as much product as they can.  Neither are arranged for your convince unless it mean more sales for them.

To clarify on that, I meant to point out the difference between digital space and physical space. A physical shelf has to be optimized for the the general, digital space can be optimized for the individual (such as targeted ads, and 'advertising profiles').

 

11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The whole thing is driven by how many people watch the content, not what you tube thing about the content.

But the P-Scores are a collection of what appears to be 5 key areas, of which nobody except YouTube/Google knows what that balance is. According to the paper, anyways, if I'm reading it right. A P-Score of 300 could be any variation the 5 values. It's appears to be subject to what YouTube thinks about the video if only they know what the split/balance is, and is based on stuff that is apparently not defined. I don't know if advertisers are made aware of that balance/split, either, so that's all speculation at this point.

 

15 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It is not circular, if people stop watching kimmel his score will go down and it will no longer end up in trending etc

But a large channel can deal with losing a couple (thousand?) points in the P-Score and not be too much affected by it. The smaller channels need views to get visibility, and need visibility to get views (not accounting for other variables). Not saying YouTube should cater to small channels, but the paper states that channels with 'higher ratings' get "throttled", i.e. not put into the shuffle or added to advertisers' lists. But since those scores are only known internally, the affected channel can't make any corrections. Kimmel could lose 300 points in the 'Viewers' category, but if they pick up 300 points in the 'Interactive' category, the final score is the same.

 

24 minutes ago, mr moose said:

That's not how it works. 

Fair enough. I probably borked that analogy on the last bit, because I couldn't figure out how to squeeze advertisers into the supermarket analogy.

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

To clarify on that, I meant to point out the difference between digital space and physical space. A physical shelf has to be optimized for the the general, digital space can be optimized for the individual (such as targeted ads, and 'advertising profiles').

Which is fair enough, but no digital shop is going to only present you with product similar to what you have already bought when they can flash up high profit products in hopes you'll make an impulse buy, in this regard both digital and physical shops are identical.  In fact of the several digital shops I frequent, none of them present me with products on the home page that are related to my searches or previous purchases (anymore similar than they are within the realm of the type of shop I am at).

10 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

But the P-Scores are a collection of what appears to be 5 key areas, of which nobody except YouTube/Google knows what that balance is. According to the paper, anyways, if I'm reading it right. A P-Score of 300 could be any variation the 5 values. It's appears to be subject to what YouTube thinks about the video if only they know what the split/balance is, and is based on stuff that is apparently not defined. I don't know if advertisers are made aware of that balance/split, either, so that's all speculation at this point.

That is correct, a channel could score very high in 4 of those areas but if they have excessive swearing, satanic rituals or loads of conspiracies then that one area could easily be enough to ruin their score.   The score is about how the well the video sells the advertising space before it. 

 

10 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

But a large channel can deal with losing a couple (thousand?) points in the P-Score and not be too much affected by it. The smaller channels need views to get visibility, and need visibility to get views (not accounting for other variables). Not saying YouTube should cater to small channels, but the paper states that channels with 'higher ratings' get "throttled", i.e. not put into the shuffle or added to advertisers' lists. But since those scores are only known internally, the affected channel can't make any corrections. Kimmel could lose 300 points in the 'Viewers' category, but if they pick up 300 points in the 'Interactive' category, the final score is the same.

 

In fairness we don't know what the throttling reference means.  Suffice to say how it effects smaller channels versus bigger channels is outside the scope/purpose of such a system.  The system is clearly designed to allow youtube and advertisers to place ads in front of content that will retain both viewership and bolster the value of the ad space.  That is after all what an advertiser is paying for (content that is popular and not bad for their PR).    Which sort of comes back to what we were saying earlier,  if a channel wants to gain viewers and be advertiser friendly then they have to make their content acceptable to the most viewers. It seems to me that means, make it family friendly, avoid controversial topics, make it the highest product quality you can and be entertaining.    By doing that they are already starting the in the right direction to get a larger P-score by virtue of their actions appealing to larger numbers of viewers. 

 

 

10 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

Fair enough. I probably borked that analogy on the last bit, because I couldn't figure out how to squeeze advertisers into the supermarket analogy.

I personally don't like using analogies on forums, they get too tricky to quickly as we have a tendency to read context differently when the communication is text based only.  Sometimes what we want to write requires thousands of more words to qualify and communicate than we can with verbal discussion.

 

[CarlBar]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Which is fair enough, but no digital shop is going to only present you with product similar to what you have already bought when they can flash up high profit products in hopes you'll make an impulse buy, in this regard both digital and physical shops are identical.  In fact of the several digital shops I frequent, none of them present me with products on the home page that are related to my searches or previous purchases (anymore similar than they are within the realm of the type of shop I am at).

That is correct, a channel could score very high in 4 of those areas but if they have excessive swearing, satanic rituals or loads of conspiracies then that one area could easily be enough to ruin their score.   The score is about how the well the video sells the advertising space before it. 

 

 

In fairness we don't know what the throttling reference means.  Suffice to say how it effects smaller channels versus bigger channels is outside the scope/purpose of such a system.  The system is clearly designed to allow youtube and advertisers to place ads in front of content that will retain both viewership and bolster the value of the ad space.  That is after all what an advertiser is paying for (content that is popular and not bad for their PR).    Which sort of comes back to what we were saying earlier,  if a channel wants to gain viewers and be advertiser friendly then they have to make their content acceptable to the most viewers. It seems to me that means, make it family friendly, avoid controversial topics, make it the highest product quality you can and be entertaining.    By doing that they are already starting the in the right direction to get a larger P-score by virtue of their actions appealing to larger numbers of viewers. 

 

 

I personally don't like using analogies on forums, they get too tricky to quickly as we have a tendency to read context differently when the communication is text based only.  Sometimes what we want to write requires thousands of more words to qualify and communicate than we can with verbal discussion.

 

 

The problem here is what you've been describing is a business model whose primary purpose is to serve us the consumer ads. Except watching ads isn't why any of us use youtube. We use it to watch youtube content by youtube content creators that where interested in. Watching the ads are how we pay for that.

 

In the supermarket analogy the purpose of the store for both the supermarket and the customer is the same. Sell you your groceries or whatever your there for. the supermarkets preferences on what you buy and your preferences on what you buy may not align but your marching the the same general tune.

 

With youtube a system for providing videos based on how much money that video can earn youtube the most can and does run into flaws in that it isn't necessarily in line with it's purpose for the consumers of being a place where they can find content they want to watch.

 

To continue the supermarket analogy. A supermarket may encourage certain brands and products by making them highly visible, but they never actively hide products. If you go into a random store looking for a specific item of a specific brand, it will be on public display somwhere 99% of the time, (Some specialty medicines may be behind the counter items not advertised anywhere, but thats an extreme exception that proves the rule), you never have to go upto a staff member, (the closest equivalent of asking youtubes search algorithm) and ask them to get specific brand of specific item X out of the back for you. If Supermarkets started doing that both consumers and groceries manufacturers would lose their collective minds with the supermarket that did it.

 

Don't get me wrong Youtubes sheer size makes it impractical for them to promote everyone and still provide extra promotion of select lines the way Supermarkets do it, but at the same time the current system Definetly biases against even trying to come up with an alternative solution.

 

And this all comes back really in the end to the whole issue of is Youtube a Service or a Business.

[ManyCoresGuy]

On 10/31/2019 at 6:16 PM, Ehmc130 said:

Yeah and all Mainstream news/talk shows (worthless, bias, politically driven crap) that is on the list. It shows you what the rest of the list is worth. (Not a crack at LTT)

 

Fixed that for you.