It feels like I stumble upon gems in spite of their UI and have been trying to spend less time there to avoid the timesink otherwise. If it's not saved on my watch later / in my subscriptions or recommended to me credibly, it's probably a waste of time.
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Youtube is actually really good for finding new, non-mainstream music in my experience.
No, you soon realize it’s promoting the same ‘niche’ videos to a large cohort. You and half a million people worldwide have that video recommended from the same unknown Russian indie rock band
Consider that your experience isn’t universally applicable to everyone.
As a lifelong musician, I find it to be a great resource for discovery. I really lean into curating what I do and don’t want to see and it delivers amazing results frequently.
It’s also a nice counterpoint to recs I get from other sources: streaming services, friends, strangers, and good ‘ol fashioned digging.
So what?
Either it appeals to my interests or it doesn't. Why should I care if a million other people get it recommended as well?
Well it won't be 'non-mainstream' for one
Sure it would. No matter how many people see, say, Shpongle on their timeline, they're never going to be mainstream. No one is going to be talking about 空夜coo:ya in the same conversation as Taylor Swift or Bruno Mars. Being slightly more visible in the algorithm for a brief period isn't going mainstream.
And even if that were the case, again, so what? If Youtube makes good non-mainstream music more popular, that's still a good thing. That's exactly what one should want a recommendation algorithm to do.
I'm trying to see the problem here and I can't.