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There are healthy recommender systems, like Spotify. YouTube is a _disastrously_ unhealthy recommender system, and they've let it go completely out of control.

by rspeer 7y ago

ariwilson 7y ago
Spotify has 40M tracks total. On YouTube, more than 5B videos are watched by users every day. Different scales of problem demand different solutions.
- amphibian87 7y ago
  I don't know what the comment you are replying to meant, I interpreted it to mean the algo takes you down a rabbit hole to darker content, however for me I miss the days when it actually recommended relevant videos, similar to the one I was watching. My entire sidebar is now just a random assortment of irrelevant interests. For instance I wanted to learn to play a denser piano chord, I learned it ages ago but I still get like 20 videos that explain how to add extensions to a 7 chord, even if I'm watching a video on the F-35 fighter pilot.
ihuman 7y ago
How is Spotify's different from Youtube?
- anticensor 7y ago
  More selective recommendation, all-subscriber environment.
- notriddle 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure all content on Spotify gets manually curated first, so abusive tagging doesn't happen, and some of the worst content simply doesn't get uploaded at all. Spotify also doesn't try to be a news site, so they can afford to have a couple week's lag between uploading a song and having it show up in people's recommendation feed.
posterboy 7y ago
Spotify simply does not have the content over which an algorithm could loose control.
aukust 7y ago
I disagree in some sense. I personally have found the recommending system on YouTube pretty good for the main page of the site. The thing that bugs me is the recommended bar right (or bottom right) of the videos, which can be really annoying and infested with clickbait etc.
throw20102010 7y ago
Spotify's recommendation system is dealing mostly with artists that have recording contracts and professional production- their problem shouldn't be compared to YouTube's which has to deal with a mix of professional, semi-pro, and amateur created content. Also there's more of a "freshness" aspect to a lot of YT videos that isn't quite the same as what Spotify has to deal with (pop songs are usually good for a few months, but many vlogs can be stale after a week). Not only that, but many channels have a mix of content, some that goes stale quickly and some that is still relevant after many months- how does a recommendation engine figure that out? It's better to compare Spotify's recommendations to Netflix's recommendations, which also deals with mostly professional content. Those two systems have comparable performance in my opinion.
- slg 7y ago
  Why the content exists is also important. People create video specifically for Youtube. Very few people create music just to host it on Spotify. This results in the the recommendation algorithm and all its quirks have a much bigger impact on the content of Youtube than Spotify. Also having that many people actively trying to game the recommendation algorithm can pervert that algorithm. That simply isn't a problem for sites like Spotify or Netflix.
restingrobot 7y ago
I completely disagree, my children have a wonderful time following the recommended videos that youtube provides. I'm interested to hear your reasoning on why it is "disastrous".
jasode 7y ago
>YouTube is a _disastrously_ unhealthy recommender system, Can you explain with more details? I use Youtube as a crowdsourced "MOOC"[0] and the algorithms usually recommended excellent followup videos for most topics. (On the other hand, their attempt at matching "relevant" advertising to the video is often terrible. (E.g. Sephora makeup videos for women shown to male-dominated audience of audiophile gear.) Leaving aside the weird ads, the algorithm works very well for educational vids that interests me.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  Yes. Elsagate is an example - the creepy computer-generated violent and disturbing videos that eventually follow children's content - or the fact that just about every gaming-related video has a recommendation for an far-right rant against feminism or a Ben Shapiro screaming segment. There's also the Amazon problem - where everything related to the thing you watched once out of curiosity follows you everywhere around the site.
  - jasode 7y ago
    >Elsagate is an example, Yes, I was aware of Elsagate.[0] I don't play games so didn't realize every gaming video ends up with unwanted far-right and Ben Shapiro videos. I guess I should have clarified my question. I thought gp's "unhealthy" meant Youtube's algorithm was bad for somebody like me that views mainstream non-controversial videos. (Analogy might be gp (rspeer) warning me that abestos and lead paint is actually cancerous but public doesn't know it.) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20090157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20090157
    - ilikehurdles 7y ago
      Some of the child comments of your thread mention the nazi problem.
      - jasode 7y ago

There are healthy recommender systems, like Spotify. YouTube is a _disastrously_ unhealthy recommender system, and they've let it go completely out of control.

by rspeer 7y ago

There are healthy recommender systems, like Spotify. YouTube is a _disastrously_ unhealthy recommender system, and they've let it go completely out of control.

ariwilson 7y ago

Spotify has 40M tracks total. On YouTube, more than 5B videos are watched by users every day. Different scales of problem demand different solutions.

amphibian87 7y ago
I don't know what the comment you are replying to meant, I interpreted it to mean the algo takes you down a rabbit hole to darker content, however for me I miss the days when it actually recommended relevant videos, similar to the one I was watching. My entire sidebar is now just a random assortment of irrelevant interests. For instance I wanted to learn to play a denser piano chord, I learned it ages ago but I still get like 20 videos that explain how to add extensions to a 7 chord, even if I'm watching a video on the F-35 fighter pilot.

ihuman 7y ago

How is Spotify's different from Youtube?

anticensor 7y ago
More selective recommendation, all-subscriber environment.
notriddle 7y ago
I'm pretty sure all content on Spotify gets manually curated first, so abusive tagging doesn't happen, and some of the worst content simply doesn't get uploaded at all. Spotify also doesn't try to be a news site, so they can afford to have a couple week's lag between uploading a song and having it show up in people's recommendation feed.

posterboy 7y ago

Spotify simply does not have the content over which an algorithm could loose control.

aukust 7y ago

I disagree in some sense. I personally have found the recommending system on YouTube pretty good for the main page of the site. The thing that bugs me is the recommended bar right (or bottom right) of the videos, which can be really annoying and infested with clickbait etc.

throw20102010 7y ago

Spotify's recommendation system is dealing mostly with artists that have recording contracts and professional production- their problem shouldn't be compared to YouTube's which has to deal with a mix of professional, semi-pro, and amateur created content. Also there's more of a "freshness" aspect to a lot of YT videos that isn't quite the same as what Spotify has to deal with (pop songs are usually good for a few months, but many vlogs can be stale after a week). Not only that, but many channels have a mix of content, some that goes stale quickly and some that is still relevant after many months- how does a recommendation engine figure that out? It's better to compare Spotify's recommendations to Netflix's recommendations, which also deals with mostly professional content. Those two systems have comparable performance in my opinion.

slg 7y ago
Why the content exists is also important. People create video specifically for Youtube. Very few people create music just to host it on Spotify. This results in the the recommendation algorithm and all its quirks have a much bigger impact on the content of Youtube than Spotify. Also having that many people actively trying to game the recommendation algorithm can pervert that algorithm. That simply isn't a problem for sites like Spotify or Netflix.

restingrobot 7y ago

I completely disagree, my children have a wonderful time following the recommended videos that youtube provides. I'm interested to hear your reasoning on why it is "disastrous".

jasode 7y ago

>YouTube is a _disastrously_ unhealthy recommender system, Can you explain with more details? I use Youtube as a crowdsourced "MOOC"[0] and the algorithms usually recommended excellent followup videos for most topics. (On the other hand, their attempt at matching "relevant" advertising to the video is often terrible. (E.g. Sephora makeup videos for women shown to male-dominated audience of audiophile gear.) Leaving aside the weird ads, the algorithm works very well for educational vids that interests me.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

ilikehurdles 7y ago
Yes. Elsagate is an example - the creepy computer-generated violent and disturbing videos that eventually follow children's content - or the fact that just about every gaming-related video has a recommendation for an far-right rant against feminism or a Ben Shapiro screaming segment. There's also the Amazon problem - where everything related to the thing you watched once out of curiosity follows you everywhere around the site.
- jasode 7y ago
  >Elsagate is an example, Yes, I was aware of Elsagate.[0] I don't play games so didn't realize every gaming video ends up with unwanted far-right and Ben Shapiro videos. I guess I should have clarified my question. I thought gp's "unhealthy" meant Youtube's algorithm was bad for somebody like me that views mainstream non-controversial videos. (Analogy might be gp (rspeer) warning me that abestos and lead paint is actually cancerous but public doesn't know it.) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20090157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20090157
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    Some of the child comments of your thread mention the nazi problem.
    - jasode 7y ago