YouTube is always struggling to determine my political affiliation and it tries to assume things about me and show me videos that it thinks I will like. Franky, it is insulting.
I watch videos based on the idea of gathering data and not because I believe in their views, or anything larger about what the video is about. That means that often I will get suggestions for videos that I don’t need to watch and frankly find ridiculous. YouTube assumes I am a simple thinker, unable to use critical thought to determine what I learn.
For example, I watched a video that was conservative, and then it started suggesting conservative videos. I watched a liberal video and it suggested more liberal videos. I watch a few channels repeatedly. Almost 99% of YouTube channels are garbage. They are shallow-thinking people who want to convince you of their POV and twist facts to support their arguments. Honestly, as I said before I am finding YouTube videos less valuable as people front and lie just to get views.
Part of the appeal of the internet for me is that it exposes me to things that I would never otherwise know or consider. However what we have seen is that the Internet tends to feed on itself, and become incestuous in its self-promotion. You see channels, ripping off from channels, that ripped off from other channels. You see garbage like “reaction” videos that don’t add anything substantial and just lower the video quality of the original video. You see people who care more about views than substance, and for that, I block their channel and move on. You see people talk about people who are dead YouTube creators and other people ripping off their work with very little original thought.
Listen people, don’t get stuck on labels. Plenty of people say they are a label and they are not. I saw a video of a woman who said she was a feminist but didn’t believe in equal rights for men. She didn’t even believe in equal rights for people who were not from the US. That isn’t being a feminist. That is twisting the meaning to serve your interests. Just because a woman speaks about women’s issues doesn’t make her more knowledgeable than a man who has studied women’s issues academically and practically. An ignorant person never beats someone with knowledge and experience. Don’t let people cover themselves as sheep and act like wolves.
YouTube is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It acts as though it cares about content creators but then clearly is okay with destroying their revenue and audience with hostile customer decisions like blocking ad blockers. I will watch YouTube until they make it too painful to watch anymore. Alternatives here I come!