I very regularly block suggested channels with dumbass clickbaity titles, because i feel insulted.

Between the clickbait, YouTube “enhancements”, exploding AI slop videos and the atrocious search facility, the platform is rapidly becoming completely unusable for finding relevant information when you’re looking for answers.

As an entertainment platform it’s forcing creators to make long form content and making viewers sit through more and more low quality content.

It’s evolving, but I’m pretty sure it’s heading towards extinction, rather than greatness.

I paid for Dearrow if that answers your question.

I’m not a fan of it, but if I’m remembering correctly, only up to about 2% of views come from the subscriptions page.

This means a channel has to attract a lot of folks from other areas, and this requires somehow grabbing people. YouTube has tools for A/B testing thumbnails and titles. Channels that have tried clickbait vs normal thumbnails have found normal just doesn’t generate clicks.

So unless YouTube revenue makes up a small enough percent of a channel’s income, the channel is basically forced into using it. Even if they find it just as distasteful as we do.

Source: I think this is something Tom Scott went into at some point. The information is likely a few years out of date, but I wouldn’t expect that it’s changed radically.

I’m honestly more baffled and annoyed at how low usage of subscriptions is, than I am at clickbait. It makes it seem like this problem stems more from an audience desire to be spoonfed by an inscrutable algorithm than from anything to do with clickbait itself, or choices freely made by channels.

Thanks for all the responses!! Some of them really made me open my mind about some things and now I know which is the best way to aboard the theme and do not talk of it as if it were cancer or something like that. Thank you again! I hope upload the video both in spanish and english, with no AI, obviuosly.

Youtube video titles that have been really bugging me lately (as they have become increasingly common) are the weirdly negative ones. Like, “THIS is why you suck at >insert your hobby here<”. It’s annoying because the video could raise a good point, but fuck, dont frame it by negging me. If I’m searching for videos on that topic, I want help, not put-downs.

The bigger problem is spammy shit, stealing content. But Google doesn’t care. So the entire issue is moot.

And click bait is an opinion. There is no way to perfectly filter it. That is Masnick’s Law.

I’m not a good user since I watch at most one YouTube video per week. But knowing the massive amount of videos and all the random crap that is suggested, I guess that 99% of those videos are clickbait one way or another to get ad money.

I don’t think all that crap has damaged the platform. YouTube naturally turned into the old TV that I watched before the internet.

There is no “good YouTube” at all, only a web site that was not monetized to death. Same for most crappy web services that replaced local applications, and added a login and a subscription to use your own data.

Do you use youtube mainly?

Yes, though not through the website or app

Do you care about clickbait?

I don’t often see it as I use DeArrow, but if I do see it, I just move on unless it’s a video that interests me.

Did clickbait make you stop seeing some creator?

Kinda? Part of it was just getting tired of their style/growing out of it.

Did you use youtube but clickbait (among other things) made you to stop using it’s platform?

No, I still use it.

Do you think clickbait is the major of the YouTube’s problems?

I think there are bigger issues than clickbait on YouTube, such as the sex bots in comments and inappropriate ads

Do you see something good in clickbait among the bad things? Like, which ones?

I don’t see anything good in clickbait, but it’s not something real bad either. To me, it’s more of just something that exists and nothing else.

Could we see clickbait as a necessary evil?

It’s a subjective opinion and differs between people. I personally don’t see it as a “necessary evil”, but maybe someone else does.

I use Youtube a lot and I dislike clickbait. I generally avoid videos with obviously clickbaity titles or thumbnails. That said, some of the Youtubers I watch have resorted to using more clickbaity titles in recent years and as long as their content is still good, I tolerate it to some degree. I understand that making money on Youtube is not easy for small creators and if those strategies get them more clicks, I’m okay with it as long as they’re not being manipulative in a blatantly malicious way.

Can I suggest you title your video “How clickbait is ruining the Internet and destroying lives”?

Do you use youtube mainly?

For watching short video, yes. Not as social media.

Do you care about clickbait?

I fucking hate it.

Did clickbait make you stop seeing some creator?

Yes. I’ve seen useful, thoughtful channels turn into life-wasting mouth noise in order to chase clicks.

Did you use youtube but clickbait (among other things) made you to stop using it’s platform?

Not yet.

Do you think clickbait is the major of the YouTube’s problems?

I think that monetisation ahead of any other concern is the major problem, and clickbait is just one symptom of it.

Do you see something good in clickbait among the bad things? Like, which ones?

No.

Could we see clickbait as a necessary evil?

No.

I don’t want to reward clickbait, so I tend to avoid them. I’m less likely to watch a content creator if I think they use clickbait too much.

However, I don’t think it’s a big of a deal. I’m more tired of all the slop content. Videos that pretend it has something important to say, but it’s not any deeper than a Wikipedia excerpt.

And if some YouTuber hits big with one video, expect at least 20 other creators make videos of the same topic with nothing new to say.

The algorithm has been really bad lately.

I think it’s a spectrum. I mostly hang out in fairly nerdy and middle-aged corners of YouTube, so I don’t see the worst of shitty clickbait. If a video from an unknown creator is suggested to me a clickbaity or ragebaity headline will probably make me avoid them.

But I don’t mind an attention grabbing title “These AWFUL ingredients were ESSENTIAL for medieval peasants” or “This IMPOSSIBLE theory lead to the discovery of oxygen”. It’s kinda lame, but it still says what the topic of video is. Worse, imho, are things like “Why do smart people keep believing this” which uses the mystery / anticipation to suck you in. From a creator I like, it won’t put me off (tbh, I probably won’t even think about it as clickbait because I know their work is usually good) but it’s not cool, and would put me off an unknown creator.

Basically, I don’t care that much about headlines (or the stupid YouTube faces), but I hate shitty, shallow content. And a lot of the time, a clickbaity headline indicates a shallow video, so it has a negative effect on my interest.

Clickbait should be considered a type of disinformation. They know they won’t talk about it or that it’s not what they say it is but the title will suggest otherwise on purpose.

Or the thumbnail, of course. Clickbait is on a bunch of platforms besides YouTube. I don’t use YouTube directly, deleted my Google account. I have a plugin called De-Arrow that literally removes all clickbait thumbnails and shows a random screenshot from the video and changes the title to a more accurate one instead of a sensational one.

Completely nullifying the efforts of these stupid click baiting bastards.