I regret watching 72% of YouTube videos

I went through my YouTube viewing history and bucketed it into 3 categories:

1. Good
2. Neutral
3. Regret

Here’s the results:

Regret = 72%

Neutral = 10%

Good = 18%

Some thoughts from this data:

1. YouTube is like having to walk through a degenerate nightclub (home page) to get to the world’s greatest university (search function)

2. YouTube home page is one of the worst uses of my time.

3. YouTube search function is one of the best uses of my time.

4. Using will power to compete with the world's best data scientists is like taking a pen knife to a nuclear war.

5. The YouTube home page is low agency. It keeps me stuck in the past.

It's a machine learning algorithm based on my past behaviour. A never-ending filter bubble of similar content.

6. The YouTube search function is high agency. It moves me forward.

It forces me to have agency over the content I want to consume. I have to enter problems I'm trying to solve or new ideas I want to explore.

7. 90% of the value I got from YouTube I could get from Spotify

Here’s what was included in the positive results:

• Long-form podcasts - Education or Comedy
• Deep house playlists
• Manual search around curiosity topic

All are available on Spotify or Audible.

8. All the content I regretted consuming, I’d still rather consume on Spotify. At least then I could also simultaneously go on a walk, life admin, or reply to emails.

9. There’s 4-5 accounts I should visit manually per week vs wait for the algo to serve me their content - E.g. Modern Wisdom, Alex Hormozi etc

Probably one of the best rules of thumb on whether you’re creating great YouTube content:

Would people manually visit my page if there wasn't an algorithm?

10. Practical way to avoid the YouTube abyss:

• I now use the Block Website extension on Chrome.

• The YouTube hide homepage extensions don't work because my monkey brain knows how to unclick it.

• If I want to search for something on YouTube, I open Safari where my email isn't logged in. The generic YouTube home page isn't personalised so it doesn't pull me in.

• I've got YouTube set up on the TV if I want to go wild on a Friday or Saturday so I still capture some optionality. Cocaine Algorithm time.

11. Positive externalities so far:

• Walking and Audio consumption is up massively.
• Rinsing through books on audible that I always wanted to read.
• Turning YouTube into a search engine has 10x'd it's value.
• "Winners listen to audio" -
@FoundersPodcast

12. I still love YouTube... I just want to decrease my regrettable consumption.

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If you want to run this experiment yourself, click the watch history on your YouTube account.

Put the last 100 videos into Regret, Neutral, or Good.

I warn you: If you stare into the content abyss, the content abyss will stare back into you.