• RegalPotoo@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    For some reason, the 4th video on my “home” feed is always a video with ~300 views from some small account I’ve never heard of on a topic I’m only passingly interested in.

    For a while YouTube got weirdly fixated on showing me videos about steam trains. At the moment, it’s a video called “20 Random Yet Interesting Facts”; a 5 day old video with 220 views from a channel called “The Fact Files”

    • Dutczar@sopuli.xyz
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      9 months ago

      I actually watch those small accounts (they tend to be short and related to games I know), it feels a bit more comfy when the guy actually reads and replies to my comment.

      I think I also came upon aftermath of some personal quarrel between the account and a commenter, they were talking about how sorry they were and the guy accepted the apology. It was wholesome, and probably as memorable as other videos I waste time on watch.

    • yggstyle@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The algo is breaking down. They rested on their laurels and were caught sleeping. Lots of services are looking to poach viewers and are far more willing to take risks and innovate. Web indexed yellow pages are long in the tooth and tainted with people abusing that algo or buying rank. Maybe 2-3 more years left in that tank. I genuinely think Google is starting to panic.

      It’s good they are suggesting smaller channels, they should do it more.

      Fresh isn’t another carbon copy of one of the mega channels with the same content.

      Fresh isn’t a sea full of reaction faces all trying to game the algorithm.

      Fresh is someone having fun on camera, someone bearing their soul to whomever will watch, someone with passion for what they are doing and the desire to share it.

      YouTube needs to start finding the people that made it interesting in the first place and lose the mindless drones gaming the system.

    • FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Pretty funny how YouTube gets stuck on topics for a while haha

      Yours was steam trains, mine was Soviet nuclear accidents

      • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Recently I got alot of videos about reindeer on ice, and how to remove ticks. I have no idea why YT suddenly recommended me these types of videos

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      I think they added that to help smaller channels get a start. In principle it’s actually a nice idea, but those small channels have no data to tell them what videos are similar to theirs, so they end up being recommended to people who don’t care about their content

    • IndiBrony@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      My fellow train enthusiast!

      I think it’s because I watched this good old viral video literally one time that YouTube decided I must be HUGE on trainspotting and suggested every trainspotting channel under the sun for months.