Enshittification

The removal of view counts could empower fringe content. Even the most gullible are far less likely to take a video of an extremist nut job seriously when they have 100 views. Part of how radicalisation works is by convincing people that the radical ideology is far more mainstream than it actually is. It's already easy to inflate view counts but removing them entirely makes it much much simpler for crazies to sell the idea that their ideas are popular.

If the video is about an ongoing event, say the Titan submarine disaster, I'd rather watch videos posted last week them videos posted a year ago, because the new info makes the old content irrelevant.

If a search for videos about how to perform carbon fiber layups shows one with 1.2m views in the last year and another with 5k views from the past 6 years, I will probably watch the better performing video first.

But if I want to see a video about some esoteric subject like how the bathyscaphe triste worked, that isn't really changing much, I don't care about post date or view count.

Youtube is getting shittier by the minute. Come to think of it, many things are.

This is so stupid… I can give a personal exemple that happened to me today!

I just got into Lorcana and I want to learn a bit more about the meta and where the strategies are at. The damn thing got like FOUR expansions in a year!! So a video that came out during release is already WAY out of date!

As someone that prefers to watch series in order… wtf?

You know why they might be hiding upload dates? My theory is, Youtube doesn’t really want you looking at new stuff. (Very apparent by the algorithm) they want you looking at specific news stories, and specific content but not constantly seeking new uploads from independents.

But that is just a theory a plain theory. Thanks for watching.

Enshittification has 3 steps:

1. Make a good platform for users
2. Make the platform worse for users, but better for business customers
3. Make the platform worse for users and business customers to maximize profits

Youtube is past the first step

In the comments for this post i have seen 3 explanations:

Boosting smaller youtubers, which would not make the platform worse for the users, meaning that it couldnt be part of the process

Boosting radical youtubers, which would make the platform worse for business customers, but not increase profits, meaning that it couldnt be part of the process

Making people click on videos more often, which goes against attempts to make people watch single videos for longer

This is just a terrible change, there is no overused word to describe it

I noticed that with music videos. They remove the release date, remove it from the video section of the channel and shove it in something called releases on there. Weird change.

The English language long has started failing me to accurately describe just how trash the entire YouTube situation as a whole to this date really is

This is just one monopoly, all but a glimpse into the dystopia company's want to become

Oh fuck off, the rounded edges on videos was bad enough

They continue to foster a culture of ignorance and dependence.

I suppose this targets viewers like me who refuse to watch large content creators

I watched a creator having a meltdown today, because his views stats weren't seeming correct, nor his monetary compensation.

The cat story is really upsetting.