15 votes

My video went viral. Here's why

3 comments

  1. vektor
    Link
    "I challenge you to find a better way" - break up YouTube - or at least, get a third-party recommendation engine going. With all the platforms of the web giants, I'd much rather the platform be...

    "I challenge you to find a better way" - break up YouTube - or at least, get a third-party recommendation engine going. With all the platforms of the web giants, I'd much rather the platform be non-profit and open. Imagine a non-profit website that takes in your view history and recommends material to you. Not in order to get you to watch as much as it can, but in order to serve you content you won't regret having watched 3 days after the fact. YouTube can't be that, they have a conflict of interest. YouTube can't do the best (by your standards) recommendations simply because their capitalist interests lie elsewhere. Amazon-the-marketplace has the same problem with how they treat amazon-the-retailer on their marketplace. Dating platforms inherently have to drip-feed you semi-successful relationships in order to retain you as a customer. If they knew the perfect match for you, they wouldn't show you, because they'd lose a customer.

    4 votes
  2. Adys
    Link
    Wow, Jesus... When he told the story of the guy who said "are you still making them?", my heart just broke. It's crazy to think YouTubers have to deal with this. And it's crazy to think users have...

    Wow, Jesus...

    When he told the story of the guy who said "are you still making them?", my heart just broke. It's crazy to think YouTubers have to deal with this. And it's crazy to think users have to deal with this.

    More and more I think rational decisions that drive up satisfaction actually drive it down, and we just don't understand the full cause and effect. This is something I see a lot in video games I work with as well.

    3 votes
  3. DonQuixote
    Link
    Excellent video. Breaking up YouTube wouldn't work, because we're dealing with some core concepts which this guy does a great job of covering. The comment about Yellow Journalism was especially...

    Excellent video. Breaking up YouTube wouldn't work, because we're dealing with some core concepts which this guy does a great job of covering. The comment about Yellow Journalism was especially telling, outlining a very similar situation that is widespread now and why? Because the environment is unstable.

    Thinking out loud here, is that going to change? Well, how long can it go on? A very good example of this is probably to be found in Television shows. Netflix did something very radical. It took the commercials completely out of its streaming and kept it out for a long time. It actually went backwards from the way media has been going for decades, with more and more ad revenue driving the direction of the artists. What did it do? It provided a subscription base and stuck with it. The result was a creative rebirth of the televideo arts.

    Why does this quit working? Because it's not enough to have a loyal customer base, for either netflix or youtube. In a capitalistic system, especially one that requires revenue growth, you run into the exponential problem, the law of diminishing returns.

    This isn't totally bad, because it drives innovation and change. If I make pencils and am a billionaire, someone is going to figure out away to take my market, eventually by replacing the pencil. That's innovation. The problem comes when, as in YouTube's case, the replacement is accelerated to the point where stability is out the window. Machine learning and AI can only help this happen.

    How do you slow down and create stability again? With a crash of the system and a way to regrow, jumping back on the logarithmic curve to the point where humans can keep up again.

    3 votes