by AJB Temple » 15 Aug 2022, 03:30
You Tube is mainly entertainment. It's designed to sell stuff. Advertising and paid film subscriptions. It is increasingly moving in the direction of "shorts", probably driven largely by the popularity of Tik Tok et al. Anyone aspiring to make money from YT needs to catch the attention very fast, keep it brief, and be ad friendly. Essential to put out content frequently, at least weekly, to keep subscribers coming back. Suspect all rankings are algorithm driven hence working out what drives them presumably helps. Choosing a specialised area of a minority hobby makes viewing numbers a challenge. I am interested in woodwork, have no interest in jigs, and watching woodwork stuff on YT is rare for me despite my interest. Tool reviews and tedium mainly so does not reel me in.
If I look at my own YT behaviour as a user, I rarely "like" anything now as the entreaties to do so are too blatant (content needs to be very good) and although I may subscribe, if I don't watch much other content from them then I cull the subscriptions pretty often. I almost always skip through a YT vid quickly to see which bits are worth watching. I know the algo system monitors this, but I suspect it's pretty typical behaviour from YT users at large: short attention span and no tolerance of waffle. The algo also measures what triggers repeat viewing of sections in a vid and ranks that positively apparently.
Interesting how it all works.
Don't like: wood, engines, electrickery, decorating, tiling, laying stone, plumbing, gardening or any kind of DIY. Not wild about spiders either.