That's certainly one way to use YouTube. It sounds pretty much like cable TV (but with a very low entry cost for producers).
Very often a channel has a really interesting video that I like, but the other 250 videos are 'junk' to me. Subscribing based on that single video would not give me good quality recommendations at all.
I enjoy discovering new videos, channels and topics, not just watching the same people or staying within a bubble of my own making. That's where a recommendation engine is supposed to shine, not fail miserably as it currently does. I always assumed this is how the majority of people use (used?) the platform.
It sounds pretty much like cable TV (but with a very low entry cost for producers).
Broadly, yes. It's like how I watch TV. Hundreds of channels, I look through, pick things I like, watch them. Or even newspapers/magazines (which I still get) - I skim through and read the articles I like, rather than read the entirety of the thing.
I find on YouTube that having such a wide array of subscriptions tunes the recommendations in pretty well so most of them are up my street.
That's where a recommendation engine is supposed to shine, not fail miserably as it currently does. I always assumed this is how the majority of people use (used?) the platform.
I think it's probably a mix. Twitter might be a good demonstration of the dichotomy in approach. Some people are very noisily in support of seeing every single tweet from everyone they follow in chronological order (which surely only scales up to following 100-200 people), yet the algorithmic feed is the default and keeps Twitter pretty useful if you follow thousands.
Very often a channel has a really interesting video that I like, but the other 250 videos are 'junk' to me. Subscribing based on that single video would not give me good quality recommendations at all.
I enjoy discovering new videos, channels and topics, not just watching the same people or staying within a bubble of my own making. That's where a recommendation engine is supposed to shine, not fail miserably as it currently does. I always assumed this is how the majority of people use (used?) the platform.