Let's talk about YouTube.

[mk1995]

In an attempt to bring back the activity somewhat (gosh, this line is so overdone), I decided to open a discussion about YouTube and how it went downhill the very moment it was bought by Google.

So, I first joined YouTube in October 2007, when it was still all well and good, even though it was already bought. Sure, there were those copyright issues, but they were minor. At the worst, your videos got auto-muted.

And then it happened: YouTube Channel 2.0! It was slightly forced upon us, because every channel went to that design, but we were allowed to switch back - which probably a lot of people did, including myself. Things weren't so bad until they FUCKING FORCED THE CHANNEL DESIGN ONTO US WITHOUT OPPORTUNITY TO SWITCH BACK EVEN THOUGH THE MAJORITY WAS HATING THAT PIECE OF SHIT.

Later came a change to the video watching page. It was so horrible, I hoped it to be an April Fool's joke. It wasn't. My greatest gripe about it was the replacement of the previous star rating system with a fucking primitive and idiotic like/dislike rating, which you couldn't even see until it was too late. Worse yet - that thing was and IS STILL BUGGED. Really, Google forced YouTube to make things worse than they already were. And the promotional videos about those two abortions had such unconvincing excuses, low ratings and negative comments (like, only 0.01% was liking this shit), it's simply not thinkable that YouTube didn't see the critique.
And to add insult to injury, one day I was browsing a Google help page about this particular case. The staff was asked to change back to the old channel design, but the reason for their "inability" is the most inexcusable thing I ever saw in my life: They fucking said they couldn't revert that because their shit's 100% public now.

Everyone, please... Take cover and shut your ears.



ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

What is FUCKING GOING THROUGH THEIR RETARDED AND EVIL MINDS?! The previous design was ALSO 100% public, and they had NO GRIPE WHAT-SO-FUCKING-EVER with changing that. This is HORSESHIT!!! Age - Oh - Are - Ass - Eee - Ass - Age - Eye - Tea!

Months later, I noticed a button on the index page, beckoning me to check out the new index page design. Is this for real?, I thought to myself. Skeptical, I looked around - and I couldn't find SHIT. Oh lookie, there's a survey button. Let's give 'em a tasty, juicy speech of how much their newest monstrosity sucks! Turned out it didn't help, and now we're stuck with another unnecessary change.

Inbetween and after that were several smaller changes, ranging from annoying (feed bar obscuring a good chunk of the window) to actually remotely useful (bugfixes, like/dislike bar being visible at least before voting).


I think I know why they don't listen to us - because they know we won't leave no matter what. But why those unnecessary - and at times absolutely evil - changes that piss us off? Seriously, why?

With that, I pass on the word to the next one to post below me. I hope I could spark a long conversation with my introductory rant.

[Norbert]

My greatest gripe about it was the replacement of the previous star rating system with a fucking primitive and idiotic like/dislike rating, [...]

My guess is that they noticed that almost everyone was voting either 1 star or 5 stars. When I feel like voting, it is either because I really like something (5 stars) or I really hate it (1 star). If it is an 'in between' kind of video, I'm usually not thinking about voting at all. To be honest, I think their new like/dislike rating system might be an improvement. Previously it was basically pointless to 1-star a popular video or to 5-star an unpopular video, because it didn't have an effect on the overall score. Now, it's very clear when there are people who think something is over- or underrated.

[mk1995]

To be honest, I think their new like/dislike rating system might be an improvement. Previously it was basically pointless to 1-star a popular video or to 5-star an unpopular video, because it didn't have an effect on the overall score. Now, it's very clear when there are people who think something is over- or underrated.

I was one of the people to use the other three stars, thus the change pisses me off. Not to mention the 5-star rating system was pretty much something associated with YouTube. But now you can either dig a video, or absolutely fucking hate it. No in-betweens anymore. Just stupid "x people are y" (x=amount of dislikers on a good video, amount of likers on a bad video; y=a person, or a lame joke (probably including Justin Bieber)) jokes that somehow always make it into the highest rated comments.