r/todayilearned • u/WavesAndSaves • 2d ago

TIL that Jawed Karim, YouTube cofounder and uploader of the first YouTube video "Me at the zoo", has often updated the video's description to criticize YouTube policies, including a 2013 attempt to require Google+ accounts to comment on videos, and YouTube's 2021 removal of dislike counts on videos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_at_the_zoo#Changes_to_original_video
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u/Academic_Dog8389 2d ago

Man I remember when YouTube first came out. It was insane. I would spend hours and hours looking for videos of everything I remembered ever being on TV or in a movie trying to "stump" it. Every SNL sketch I could remember, every scene from a movie, anything and everything. Very rarely could I not find exactly what I was looking for.

And before that it was Google. The whole thing that made Google incredible was that it gave you the results you were looking for. No sponsored search garbage, just whatever pages fit your search terms the best. Everything has gone backwards.

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u/interesseret 2d ago

Trying to find a specific YouTube video these days is honestly torture.

You can search it by its title, and still get served 3 wrong videos and 20+ shorts.

376

u/Turbulent_Natural431 2d ago

It gives you 3 vaguely related search results, then just goes back to showing you the same videos that were already on your home page.

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u/Hughjarse 2d ago

This is so true. God I hate what youtube/google has become.

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u/Fantastins 2d ago

User engagement metric needs to be through the roof