YouTube: Difference between revisions

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YouTube has introduced multiple features that are designed to make the user stay longer on the platform and watch more videos than they intended, thus increasing ad revenue. They come at the cost of making it harder to watch the content the user actually wants to watch.

This includes the introduction of a feature called ~~autoplay~~ that resumes playback of another video (chosen by the platform) immediately after the current one ends (after a delay of about 8 seconds), in the hope that the user gets hooked and continues to watch. This feature is activated by default (opt-out instead of opt-in).

This includes the introduction of a feature called Autoplay that resumes playback of another video (chosen by the platform) immediately after the current one ends (after a delay of about 8 seconds), in the hope that the user gets hooked and continues to watch. This feature is activated by default (opt-out instead of opt-in).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-04-04 |title=Autoplay videos - YouTube Help |url=https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6327615?hl=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250401080124/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6327615?hl=en |archive-date=2025-04-01 |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=YouTube Hep}}</ref>

Another feature like this is the inclusion of irrelevant videos in search results. If the user searches for something and scrolls down the list too far, the likelihood of them finding what they were looking for decreases since results are generally sorted by what the platform deems relevant to the search query. Hence, if the user scrolls down too far, it is likely that they give up and leave the site. Therefore YouTube stared to add random videos out of its recommendation list for the user into the search results, increasing the probability that they see something they will click and watch. This makes it much harder and more inconvenient to find relevant search results since the user has to scroll past all the noise that is designed to distract them. It also means that videos that actually relevant content is discovered, especially if it still has low view counts since unrelated videos are promoted in search in its place.

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 YouTube has introduced multiple features that are designed to make the user stay longer on the platform and watch more videos than they intended, thus increasing ad revenue. They come at the cost of making it harder to watch the content the user actually wants to watch.
-This includes the introduction of a feature called autoplay that resumes playback of another video (chosen by the platform) immediately after the current one ends (after a delay of about 8 seconds), in the hope that the user gets hooked and continues to watch. This feature is activated by default (opt-out instead of opt-in).
+This includes the introduction of a feature called Autoplay that resumes playback of another video (chosen by the platform) immediately after the current one ends (after a delay of about 8 seconds), in the hope that the user gets hooked and continues to watch. This feature is activated by default (opt-out instead of opt-in).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-04-04 |title=Autoplay videos - YouTube Help |url=https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6327615?hl=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250401080124/https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6327615?hl=en |archive-date=2025-04-01 |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=YouTube Hep}}</ref>
 Another feature like this is the inclusion of irrelevant videos in search results. If the user searches for something and scrolls down the list too far, the likelihood of them finding what they were looking for decreases since results are generally sorted by what the platform deems relevant to the search query. Hence, if the user scrolls down too far, it is likely that they give up and leave the site. Therefore YouTube stared to add random videos out of its recommendation list for the user into the search results, increasing the probability that they see something they will click and watch. This makes it much harder and more inconvenient to find relevant search results since the user has to scroll past all the noise that is designed to distract them. It also means that videos that actually relevant content is discovered, especially if it still has low view counts since unrelated videos are promoted in search in its place.