I don't even know how it makes sense for it to do what I see it doing!

It isn't as though I would be asked to pay more or less either way, and I can't imagine the ad placements on that malignant pareidolia slurry are worth as much as on actual content: I recall reading that Premium distributions to creators are scaled to predicted revenue on the ads that would've been shown - or actual revenue? I don't actually know they don't auction the slot as normal, and it would make a lot of sense if they did. In any case, I would think that would tend to make the slop worth less to try to divert me into, because whether or not I actually see those ads, they're still going to only sell to fringe psychos and so sell for much less than when I'm watching the LPs and stream VODs that are the vast bulk of what I actually do watch - nothing highbrow I grant, but nothing I or anyone else need be embarrassed to be seen with, either: just plain old 21st-century light entertainment you can sell razor blades or home loans next to, no problem.

I can't model it in my head in a way that doesn't have YouTube hurting itself massively with this, and though it's titanic enough to survive like that for decades, it won't last forever. It would help explain all the new revenue streams we see them lately and somewhat desperately adding. But a really convincing just-so story is always first and easiest sold oneself, and maybe there's something here I'm missing.

My theory is that brain-dead slop gets more view time.

Similar to the theory that Netflix movies are optimized to be mediocre without a satisfying ending because it keeps you unsatisfied enough to keep watching something else

Think of it: challenging satisfying content is like a plate of fresh fruit or veggies. You can only spend so much time consuming it before you're full.

AI-generated viral conspiracy SHOCKING FACE content is like chocolate-coated salted nuts for your brain: no fiber, you can consume unlimited amounts for an infinite amount of time (which means watching aaaaall the included ads)

Well sure, obviously, superstimulus is superstimulus, what I'm saying is I think the engagement maximizer must be running totally unclutched from reality and I think it's started burning down YouTube because it can want nothing in the universe save to transform all matter and energy into wonderfully, infinitely rewarding eyeballs. You know, the classic failure mode.

I guess we've just found what the "paperclip maximizer" will really be maximizing... one AGI paving the universe with infinitesimally short synthetic MrBeast videos, and another one doing the eyeball thing.

Ever thus. This is what Yudkowsky and his whole passel of too-clever-by-half puppies lack the nous to realize they are quite correctly afraid of - more specifically, of when it starts happening to things whose destruction for recycling would be a lot more real and impactful than one video website and a few thousand jobs.

Sorry. I don't really have a joke to play that off with, unless it's what always happens when some of the very cleverest people on Earth get together and stop listening to anyone else for too long. Five to ten milliseconds is enough to get that ball rolling, I think, but everything goes faster these days.

War gaming and anything related to war really seems to have a pull into videos that tend to "Hello, would you like to become a Nazi".

My typical viewing on YT sounds kind of like yours. Wood working, AI, Astro, some rebuilding of heavy equipment. That's all fine. It's when you get into any war tech that it quickly spirals off into some rather insane conspiracy crap, even if the videos you watch are just reasonable documentaries.

Eh, I would say yes and no, for a couple of reasons.

First, it definitely isn't just miltech, though you are absolutely correct it is heavily that. I would say there is also, for example, "light side" and "dark side" machining/mechanical content. Abom79 and Blondihacks are pure "light side". Zip Ties and Bias Plies was "dark side," though as a fellow Borderer-descended redneck asshole, I am sure that as with many former "Canadian American Patriots," he has smartened up pretty damn fast in recent months. AvE started out light side, lost his way for a while, and lately is with genuinely admirable sheepishness comporting himself so as to suggest embarrassed recognition of his prior excesses. And there are lots I just "don't recommend channel"/"not interested" as soon as I see it. I also see the same for gaming - I like some classic Doom mods that some fascist infants also have strongly stupid opinions about, for example - and from this I conclude that there is something in essentially any genre that might support it. I doubt I would observe the same in makeup tutorials, for example, but the days when eyeliner improved my looks lie decades behind me now.

Second, miltech and history content on YT does not remotely for the most part constitute "reasonable documentaries," unless you refer to forgotten VHS and DVD transfers that are never surfaced anywhere unless you search for them by name. Not to indict modern "creators" (screenwriters, actors, directors, artists etc) en masse, of course. But few today even strive for the standard that older stuff, made before mere record-high count of eyeballs was taken as the only end, reached as a matter of course.