YouTube has always been useful; since its founding in 2005, it has been a pillar of the internet. But over the past year or so, for me anyway, YouTube had started to seem weirdly good.
Channels no longer dominate YouTube as they once did. Open YouTube on your phone today and you’ll find them hidden away in a separate tab. Instead, the app opens to a feed featuring a mix of videos tailored to your interests.
Videos watched per user remained flat, but a change made the following spring finally moved the needle: instead of basing its algorithmic recommendations on how many people had clicked a video, YouTube would instead base them on how long people had spent watching it. Higher-quality videos, which are strongly associated with longer watch times, surged. Watch time on YouTube grew 50 percent a year for the next three years.
The Brain algorithms also work faster than YouTube has before. In past years, it might have taken days for a user’s behavior to be incorporated into future recommendations. That made it difficult to identify trending subjects, the company said.
