• RandomPancake@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I miss the day when you could search YouTube for something like “JFK skyclub” and actually get video of the Skyclub at JFK. Today you’ll get 15-minute videos that are 90% a guy talking about his thoughts on JFK, or Skyclub, or airlines, or whatever. If you’re really lucky, some of them may feature a few seconds of actual footage of Skyclub.

    It’s not just Skyclub or travel videos. If I search for “repair mr coffee” I want to see a howto, not someone’s SEO-optimized long winded lecture about whatever coffeemakers they’re selling.

    • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So the weird thing is you can still do this but only if YouTube thinks you’re the right audience for it. My grandfather looks up all kinds of old things on YouTube and almost always get exactly what he wants on the first hit. However if I do it it ends up more like your example. Interesting and annoying at the same time

      • pirat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sounds like it would actually make sense to have a handful of different accounts, each account optimized (through search/watch history or something) for a specific type of content you want to search for.

        Otherwise, 3rd-party search engines are often better than YouTubes own search for finding obscure/rare/unpopular/unlisted/demonetized videos.

    • Auli@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Yes but it is also way bigger then it was. The amount of data that YouTube has now is just insane. I wonder when they’ll start culling old videos.

      • pirat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think they already began removing old, inactive channels some time ago…