this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Enshittification

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What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

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Has YouTube experienced enshittification?

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[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 4 points 59 minutes ago (1 children)

Wow, your algorithm shows the exact same videos that mine does. I've never seen that before. Every time I check out someone else's YouTube, their homepage is completely different from mine.

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 1 points 33 minutes ago
[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago

I guess they really want to get rid of users huh.

I watch tech videos. If I can't see when a video is from, I'm not going to waste my time on watching it.

Conspiracy time: Google is purposely making their video platform worse because they're sacrificing it for a tax loss in 5 years when they shut it down. In those five years they're going to "ramp up" development and write off all that "work" to pay for other projects.

Their UX and design choices are amateur at best and clearly they have no interest in maintaining the product(much like all of their retired line).

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 13 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

What would removing the dates accomplish except making things more confusing and harder to find? What advantage to YouTube is there?

[–] SpeakinTelnet@programming.dev 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

My guess is that it makes it easier to suggest you older content that wouldn't be interesting when you can see at a glance how outdated it is.

[–] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 1 points 43 minutes ago

I don't understand why the hell I would want to watch an old ass YouTube video unless I sought it out.

[–] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 25 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Well, time to install two new add-ons: Return YouTube View Counts and Return YouTube Upload Dates.

Somebody please make those.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Would you chip in to cover the development expenses?

[–] nepenthes@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Yes, please! Also, would the add on make the date searchable again?

Because anything that has had an update is now a clusterfuck.. say I want to see how to change a calendar setting in godforsaken Outlook, searching by date is necessary b/c who knows what the version number is.

Or games like Path of Exile, where three months can render some information obsolete because it's a league system.

[–] Tuxman@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 hours ago

This is so stupid… I can give a personal exemple that happened to me today!

I just got into Lorcana and I want to learn a bit more about the meta and where the strategies are at. The damn thing got like FOUR expansions in a year!! So a video that came out during release is already WAY out of date!

[–] w3dd1e@lemm.ee 35 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I can’t stand YouTube’s feed. It’s so bad. This does not help. I know many others already said it, but this is not an improvement.

The date can matter a lot. Especially, when it comes to tech learning. That world moves too fast. If you’re learning programming on YouTube, you need to be sure you have current info.

I desperately with YouTube had real competition.

[–] Joeffect@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

So I just installed Linux on a new computer and during the short install I went to YouTube for something but it didn't even give me a list of videos to watch instead it told me I had to search so it can build a list of videos to recommend.

I'm not sure if this is a new change or what but along with this and taking away information I'm ready to just drop YouTube altogether probably better for my health... There is one service that was created by the people who do jetlag I might give them a try at this point.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 points 2 hours ago

There is one service that was created by the people who do jetlag I might give them a try at this point.

Nebula is pretty good, and has a lot of creators on it, but I personally have had issues with videos buffering or not being playable until 5-10 seconds after clicking on them. It might just be my browser (I use Firefox with a ton of various extensions and settings changes that affect rendering and content loading), but it's something to note depending on how much you care about the user experience.

I think they let you view a video or two for free though, so you can test that out beforehand if you wanted to.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

The date can matter a lot.

The original algorithm rewarded engagement absent dates, but this resulted in old classic hits mopping up revenue while newer stuff struggled to grab anyone's attention. You'll never make a music video more popular than Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, so why bother trying?

Then the algorithm shifted to fresh-first bias, which incentivized streamers to constantly churn out new content. But it still contended with users who stubbornly wanted to see the old content. So you got a bunch of content that tried to imitate historical hits or play on trends. This ended up producing 10,000 videos named some variation of "Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, Explained" with a digitally edited picture of the singer with big eyes and a soy face.

Now we've got this deluge of AI generated crap that nobody wants to look at or search for, piling up in YouTube's back catalog. The only way to justify hosting it is to jam it into someone's feed. So every user is being A/B Tested once again, with a new procedurally generated wall of garbage that will eventually narrow down what any given individual is most likely to click on and watch. Then we can solve both of the problems above. Always have new content, but its technically "fresh" rather than a rehash of some prior release.

We are doing Monkeys On Typewriters because someone at YouTube HQ decided it was better than letting anyone watch the Rick Astley video one more time.

I desperately with YouTube had real competition.

There are other places to host video, but they tend to be very boutique or with an abundance of very low quality content. That, plus YouTube leveraging economies of scale and the networking effect means there's nowhere else you'd ever want to try and host a video, unless you were looking to reach a very boutique audience or you were putting out material you didn't really expect anyone to watch.

[–] net00@lemm.ee 13 points 5 hours ago

Has YouTube experienced enshittification?

Ummm, only for the past decade?

[–] TheV2@programming.dev 12 points 6 hours ago

Hopefully they'll remove the length, the channel name, the thumbnail, the title and the entire video, too.

[–] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

It's because users are less likely to watch old videos. They do this on TikTok. You'll see videos that are years old on your feed because they have a lack of new content. You watch the new videos and then move on with your day. Now you're getting shown more videos and more likely to stay.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago

They do this on YouTube shorts too. Just check the comments..

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I suppose this targets viewers like me who refuse to watch large content creators

[–] papertowels@lemmy.one 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Or more likely viewers who just go with large content creators.

[–] Rob200@lemmings.world 5 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

You know why they might be hiding upload dates? My theory is, Youtube doesn’t really want you looking at new stuff. (Very apparent by the algorithm) they want you looking at specific news stories, and specific content but not constantly seeking new uploads from independents.

But that is just a theory a plain theory. Thanks for watching.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Youtube doesn’t really want you looking at new stuff

I think they do want you looking at new stuff. Its just going to be AI generated stuff, and you'll get spooked if you realize it was produced hours or even minutes ago with virtually no other engagement to speak of.

[–] smokebuddy@lemmy.today 1 points 6 hours ago

YouTube's search filter sort by "Upload Date" has been broken for awhile now so this is very plausible. It will serve it's favourite creators' irrelevant content in with relevant videos and not display at all some actual relevant videos.

If you filter sort by upload date and filter by Uploaded Today you'll see different results quite often which really makes no sense

[–] meep_launcher@lemm.ee 11 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Side note:

I like to do a semi-anual audit of the information sources I use, and last year I removed the infographics channel from my feed. It turns out it's a content farm that puts quantity over quality. Some of their videos may actually be good, but they don't have the fact checking safeguards that more reliable channels like kurzgesagt does.

You'll notice Kurzgesagt has several videos that delve into how they do their research, and how the funds they receive from individuals, governments, and corporations affect their videos. Check to see if any of your channels have a "how we make our content" page. If they don't, it's for a reason.

Also, be wary of channels that use the kurzgesagt visual style, or an aesthetic that is similar to a notably trusted source. I've noticed a lot of false info that has an easier time being passed off as good due to using animation that we might associate with quality educational content.

[–] recklessengagement@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

They continue to foster a culture of ignorance and dependence.

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 39 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Sometimes I watch videos of The Daily Show and it drives me bonkers that they upload old episodes from a decade ago and it's impossible to tell if it's current Daily Show, or the classic one. If the whole service was like that... I'm completely gone.

[–] Spezi@feddit.org 13 points 13 hours ago

Yeah, same with outdated tutorials, old news etc.

[–] Cossty@lemmy.world 35 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Return YouTube dislikes will change to

Return YouTube dislikes + view count + upload date

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 11 points 13 hours ago

Until they shut down / lock down the APIs that allow querying this information.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 12 hours ago

For fucks sake. This will do wonders for video tutorials and won't backfire in any way due to the content being outdated /s

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 25 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

view counts, I'm okay with. I do want to see how old a video is and how long a video is.

I watch niche stuff on Youtube. I watched a guy copy an old ISA adapter card for the very first CD-ROM drive. That's not gonna do BeasTiePie numbers, and I don't care. It isn't information I use to select a video. I think it's useful information to have generally available, but I don't necessarily need it on the home screen. It should maybe be displayed on a channel's Videos page, where there's more screen real estate per video, and in the video's description header.

Date uploaded is pertinent information. Is this a recent entry in a series I enjoy? Is this breaking or old news? Has ANOTHER 10,000 people died in a hurricane or is this just a month old? Is this from before ThE iNcIdEnT, or after?

[–] Maalus@lemmy.world 19 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Why do you think they are getting rid of the date of upload? UX reasons? No, they want to be able to serve you the same video, especially for news. Generates more clicks when you need to check if something is a year old or not.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Engagement, people are probably less likely to click on an old video, especially if they are looking for relevant and up to date information.

[–] Maalus@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago

Well, or the opposite. Why click on a new video pointing out the errors / fallacies in the old one, when you only see the old one and don't know it's outdated

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

I figure less text on the screen = more room for the thumbnail. If they invented Youtube today they wouldn't think to show you titles, channel names or other metadata, just the video thumbnail.

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[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 43 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't YT the poster child of enshittification?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Facebook set the bar high, but Google is rising to the challenge.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 29 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

The optimist in me hopes this will be used to give smaller channels a push in views and attention, even years later, when they may have been skipped over or ignored previously.

The realist in me knows this will be used to push garbage that would otherwise be self-filtered by users due to the red flags of dates/views.

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[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 7 points 12 hours ago

Enshittification has 3 steps:

  1. Make a good platform for users
  2. Make the platform worse for users, but better for business customers
  3. Make the platform worse for users and business customers to maximize profits

Youtube is past the first step

In the comments for this post i have seen 3 explanations:

Boosting smaller youtubers, which would not make the platform worse for the users, meaning that it couldnt be part of the process

Boosting radical youtubers, which would make the platform worse for business customers, but not increase profits, meaning that it couldnt be part of the process

Making people click on videos more often, which goes against attempts to make people watch single videos for longer

This is just a terrible change, there is no overused word to describe it

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 22 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

Date is how I go by whether or not someone I'm interested in has put up a new video or if YouTube is just showing me an old one I forgot about.

So I'm finally going to have to start fucking subscribing?

Ugh.

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[–] DeLacue@lemmy.world 18 points 16 hours ago

The removal of view counts could empower fringe content. Even the most gullible are far less likely to take a video of an extremist nut job seriously when they have 100 views. Part of how radicalisation works is by convincing people that the radical ideology is far more mainstream than it actually is. It's already easy to inflate view counts but removing them entirely makes it much much simpler for crazies to sell the idea that their ideas are popular.

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