The Youtube problem

Intro

Ah, the internet era. With all the intricacies of the technologies supporting it, we are mostly concerned with that freaking video loading, seeing the latest same old yet new pictures of (in the lack of a better word for Facebook friends, we shall call them friends but we all know that ain't true for all thousand of your contacts) friends or, with playing our game lag-free. Privacy and security issues notwithstanding, that's the whole other story (the one I shall address in due time), the internet is riddled with so many issues and problems, from excessive marketing to over-efficiency. There, I said it. Over-efficiency. And that is the subject I will try to divulge into here, without boring the hell out of everyone. 

How we got here? 

What I mean specifically when I say over-efficiency is not anything good by any means. Over-efficiency is basically when some resource (the internet let's say as a whole but I will work on my case with example from Youtube) is used to the point it becomes a destructive force upon its users or the environment. How is that? For example (he he example again) there is the classical problem of euphemistically named "planned obsolescence". Why euphemistically - because it's a bullshit term for deliberate design flaws introduced in practically everything we use today from light bulbs to keyboards to washing machines, in order to shorten said devices lifespan in order to make consumers (us) buy more of it. There is a great video on Youtube by Veritasium channel on light bulbs and how they were purposefully dialed down in quality in order to make buyers buy more lightbulbs in order to sustain the industry. And why? When there is a light bulb still working which was made in 1901 and it has not been shut down till this very day. It has been burning for a century and nothing happened to it. All the while our home lights go out of commission every now and then. Lights were purposefully designed to have short lifespans. They were becoming too over-efficient for their makers - they couldn't make money off of lightbulbs that last for a century, could they? 

So there we have an example of over-efficiency and why it was bad (for makers of lightbulbs at least). 

The first couple of industrial revolutions all introduced some or other products, and all of them were, over time, pushed to planned obsolescence, giving them poorer quality to increase their quantity and sales. No biggie. We survive, albeit capitalism produces so much waste it is killing our planet, and pushing people into poverty at an unprecedented rate (capitalism will also be a subject of interest later on). 

What about the internet and its over-efficiency? It is efficient in oh-so-many ways connecting people, providing us with new work and enjoyment opportunities, creating marble stones for our future planetary nation (hopefully). But is it in any sense, over-efficient? 

The Youtube problem

There are so many ways the internet is actually pushing our boundaries day by day. From the amount of data it generates (did you know that every click you make is actually a data point in one larger sense of your own click-stream?) to the over-efficient algorithms, to the AI algorithms guiding marketing today. But, I will try to stick to the issue that bothers me the most right now, which of course is trivial compared to the world's and internet's problems, but I cannot delve into all of that right now, though I promise I will in the future posts. 

The most used video streaming platform today is, of course, the Youtube. Billions of videos, billions of users, billions and billions of nasty and nice comments. I may be old, or at least sound old, but I do remember Youtube when it started. I remember it before it was bought by Google and by extension I remember it in its imperfect yet satisfying beginnings. Although it is used to post a wide variety of content, we all I believe use Youtube to listen to music. In the beginning, the algorithm did the following - saw what you were viewing (listening) and suggest similar clips and songs. But then, over time, Youtube got to know you. Youtube thought it thinks it knows you so well in fact that it constantly suggests clips and songs you might enjoy. And it indeed is wonderful. However, over time, your history on Youtube became well known to it. But instead of using your history to suggest new or similar songs for you to listen to, it started suggesting the same songs, thinking you might enjoy them again. And again. And again. Now, what I've come to experience with Youtube is kind of frustration of just songs I listened to yesterday coming to bite my ear off today, and then the next day and the day after it. More and more my Youtube recommendations just went from giving me unlimited new songs, to just giving me the same old ones I've already listened to! Don't get me wrong here. I am not saying I don't like listening to songs I do, it's just that the algorithm for suggestions does not suggest anymore. It just repeats the same songs over and over again. I listened to Tool albums so many times that I think I am spiraling out (Tool fans will get the reference, for the rest of you, well, sorry for this confusing interlude).

And why is it like this? 

The algorithm became too efficient. Instead of actually giving its users the pleasure of discovery, it is now just spinning in circles trying to compensate for knowing you too long. 

If you don't believe me test it out - play a random song, just type whatever in the search bar, play it, and see how many autoplays later will you get to a song you already know. 

For me, the Youtube problem is this - algorithms for search and suggest should be based off of my history not repeat it for crying out loud. If I wanted to listen to the same shit I have been listening to yesterday, I will type it in don't worry. Suggest me something, don't kill me with my own brain, come on it's the last thing I need, seriously! 

It does not stop at Youtube

And if you think that Youtube is the only one problematic in this sense, think again. Instagram is working in a similar manner now. A dude searches for knitting once, and now the search page is full of knitted stuff and the dude needs to explain to his girlfriend not to expect a pair of knitted socks for the winter from him (And that he isn't gay, but hey, that's what you get for being with a bigot, so screw you bro). Ditto Facebook, ditto Google. Every major search engine is like this, but why? Why do they think they know us so well? Is it true they do know us so well? Is it true that we are all trapped in anxious existences that we need the comfort of something already known each day? Maybe we are. Maybe they do know us.

But if I can say one thing, it would be this: The day when the search engines came to know us so well that they could suggest ads to so perfectly fit our needs was the day we knew - they aren't over-efficient, they are like that on purpose. If search engines can tailor ads to fit our needs, but not suggestions - I can freely assert that they must be suggesting our feed like they are, on purpose. 

The purpose being... oh God knows what, and what am I rambling here, and hey, have a nice day even though your song list might suck because you're tired of listening to the same shit over and over again!