How TikTok and YouTube decide what you see next
Clickbait vs watch time: why YouTube stopped trusting the click
In 2012, YouTube started to count how long people watch each video. At once, views on the site went down by 20%, and YouTube did this on purpose. What was wrong with counting clicks?
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1
Picture yourself on YouTube in 2011, looking for the Wimbledon highlights. The preview picture of a video promises the best points of the match, and you click.
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2
Instead, someone in their bedroom talks about the match. You leave after a few seconds. Too late: your click was counted, and back then, clicks were what YouTube counted most.
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3
So the next suggestion is another one like it, and then another. Counting clicks rewards the best picture, not the best video. A picture made only to get the click has a name: clickbait.
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4
In 2012, YouTube began to count watch time too. The video you leave after a few seconds stops looking good, and the highlights you watch for twenty minutes rise.
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5
Views on YouTube dropped by 20% at once. YouTube kept the change anyway: it wanted videos people watch, not videos people only click. Ever since, how long people watch has been one of the main signals of video feeds.
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6
Back on your bus, the clock has told the app one thing: you like Miva's bowl. To show you more like it, it first has to know which videos are alike.
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Quick check
A thrilling picture, or a long watch?
Show the answer
The one with the dull picture. The time people stay counts more than the click on the picture.
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Go further
Valued watch time, and what YouTube's engineers wrote.