Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

In my experience, YouTube is a lot less spammy and attention-grabbing than facebook. It may be that my usage pattern is completely different to most users, but I almost always use YouTube by actively searching for stuff (I don't have a feed of "YouTube news", like it happens on facebook). There are no "This man wanted to surprise his wife and you'll never guess what happened" links in YouTube. I only get notifications about channels I'm subscribed to. Very occasionally -- almost never -- after watching a video I will click on suggested videos, because they are almost always relevant (besides music, I'm interested in hobby/miniatures/boardgames and the suggestions I get are almost always relevant).

Disclaimer: I use YouTube with uBlock, so I never have to see unskippable ads. In my opinion, this is the only way to use YouTube (and the only way which makes listening to playlists feasible); if this possibility ever goes away, I'll likely stop using YouTube.

edit: a sibling comment mentioned autoplay. Autoplay is indeed one of YouTube's spammy features, and I wish it went away.

With Facebook, it's almost constant spam about stuff I'm not interested in. People -- my contacts! -- share all kinds of crap. And Twitter is even worse, with lots of spam and with ads I constantly need to remind Twitter I don't want to see.



Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: