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sheepscreek | on: Dopamine Fracking
I love this term - I think it beautifully describes the direction that at least, YouTube is heading towards. Take for example, this racket where a channel copies popular (non-kids) creators’ parody work, splits the screen in half with the content on left, adds a completely random DIY type video on the right half, and lo and behold its content for kids who are too young to know any better[1].

Another one: AI voiceovers on videos taken from Asian apps, with some made up emotional story, followed by “if you love your mom, like and subscribe” - which kids (< 8yrs) actually do![2]

Or for that matter that YouTube makes it so hard to block channels and impossible to unblock specific channels (at least for kids). The platform has been unwilling to do anything about it for years. I suppose maybe this isn’t the best example but it’s definitely along the lines of a corporation prioritizing profits over all else, especially disregarding the wellbeing of their users.

1. https://youtu.be/VF4V7bRjjdo https://youtu.be/UoGuLabqgrk

2. https://youtube.com/shorts/B2ZNFiix8JA https://youtube.com/shorts/0eYYKRRcYrA

skwirl | parent | next
It is crazy to me that any parent of young children would let their kids watch YouTube videos on their own. Maybe this happened gradually enough that some parents didn't notice, but we had our first kid a couple years ago and I nope'd out of YouTube pretty quickly when I saw what was there. Even the channels known for being good - which we occasionally let the kids watch as long as we were present and choosing the videos - started to clearly optimize for engagement over quality, and so now we're done with it entirely. The stuff there for "kids" legitimately horrifies me.
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ghurtado | parent | next
The problem of 8yr olds watching too much YouTube is definitely not one for YouTube to fix.

We're quickly getting to a point where all parenting is delegated to people and institutions that have nothing to do with raising children.

And then we complain that our kids are not being raised properly. We don't even know who to blame for this any more.

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smallmancontrov | parent | next
It's wild that the same easily detectable spam formula from a decade ago is still active beneath every finance video today: "I'm confused! Well I gave my money to Mr. Scammy McScamface and he gave me 1000% returns! Google Scammy McScamface now!"