Friendly suggestion: Substitute video's clickbait title with something more informative like "Variable pricing using AI algorithms are increasing grocery prices."
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2025
-25 points (34.6% liked)
Privacy
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I can't believe anyone would think that clickbait is something people want. There is no purpose to it here - no affiliate monetary gain, no cash for clicks - just a Youtube video. Note that my quarrel is with the video uploader, not OP
Clickbait is probably not something that people want, but their prevalence seem to indicate that they work, unfortunately.
It is exactly what people want. You are overestimating the lowest common denominator.
From what I can tell as someone who detests clickbait as well, the stupid algorithm for YouTube shows it works so while I also wish there shouldn't be any more clickbait, creators somewhat have to do it or risk their video getting lost in the vast ocean of other daily uploads
I’ve also heard YouTube creators talk about how they think a certain style of thumbnail is stupid, but they do it because it generates clicks.
YouTube offers random A/B testing of titles and thumbnails now, and unfortunately the clickbait/red circle/soy face stuff absolutely does work. Everyone seems to agree that the "metric has ceased to be a good measure" when it comes to the algorithm, but it's so opaque and omnipotent that people who can't afford for their videos to be buried have no choice.
YouTube doesn't just reward you for doing it, you are actively punished for not doing it. The same way one "underperforming" video can have cascading negative effects on your entire channel.
I can't imagine relying on it for my family's income. Google basically has hundreds of thousands of people doing spec work for them.
I'll consider that next time here. Sometimes people feel that the title should stay.
That was a rule in some subreddits. I've found that, on Lemmy, de-clickbaiting headlines is generally appreciated.
It depends on the community/instance for the most part. This is a great piece, but I almost didn’t click on it because of the shitty title.
More Perfect Union is great. Consumer Reports still does some good work; they used to be even better, but they don’t have the funding they used to.
but I almost didn’t click on it because of the shitty title.
I mean I cannot know what any given person thinks is a good title. I just find things I find worth sharing and post to comms I think are relevant. It is up to the people here to decide if they care for it. I've had lemms ask me for summaries on a 10min video. I can see why they might want one for an hour long, but at a certain point its not up to me to "sales pitch" and I do have other things I'd like to do as well.
Still I think this is a good video and one that we can share with our loved ones that are not at the level of understanding that we are.
A good title gives you information about or summarizes the subject. A shitty title hides that information to force people to click to discover what it is, and 99.99% of the time it's some low-quality crap. I won't be clicking that video and will never know if it's good, because just from the title I lost all respect for its creator, whose name I don't even want to know. Clickbait is a cancerous culture pushed by content farms and predatory engagement algorithms. I refuse to submit to it.
You can maybe add the context on the body of the post instead, if you (or the community rules) need to use the original title verbatim.
I prefer this method anyway. The title got me to click because I'm interested, but the lack of context reduces the likelihood of me actually clicking on the video. Plus on Lemmy I want the discussion.
This. If I can’t get the basic premise of something in a few seconds, I move on. I assume if they had something useful to say that isn’t an ad or a ploy to get me to look at ads, they’d get to the point as quickly as possible and then fill in the details.
If I can't get the basic premise of something in a few seconds, I move on
Honestly, great summarization of how knowledge, society, and understanding is crumbling.
All the important, hard, things take concerted effort to understand.
Edit: This has nothing to do with the clickbait title
I’m referring more to how information is presented. Don’t tell me you have “one simple trick” and make me watch a 20 minute video to find out it’s something stupid you could’ve told me the basic premise of in 2 seconds and then described in more detail afterwards. Going beyond the basic premise and gaining a working knowledge of most topics takes a concerted effort, correct.
Journalists used to use the inverted pyramid for a reason. Direct marketers reversed that principle to create what evolved into clickbait. So clickbait, to me, automatically implies the opposite of journalism (advertising and/or propaganda) .
Ah, yes, the inverted pyramid. You can stop reading at any point and rest assured you’ve already read the most important information. I suppose that works well in a newspaper where both you and the advertisers have already paid, so it doesn’t matter if you actually look at the ads.
I suppose this is one area where LLMs could help. I’d like to have an “inverted pyramid reader” browser plug-in.
Edit:
If you call in the next 10 minutes, we will double your order! That’s right, we will give you 2 of these things for $19.99!
Really? Why didn’t you just say in the beginning that this is a $10 item and the only option is to buy 2? Oh, it’s because you’ve reversed the reverse pyramid. Got it.
Didn't watch it, downvote because of the clickbait title.
Yeah, I don't feel like being part of the reason algorithm pushes shit titles like this on youtube.