Youtube probably knows me more than my Mother

Out of all sites in the world, Youtube is probably knows me best owing to my extensive use of it over the years. One thing I noticed though, it recommends me the sites I follow and suggests videos that I might like based on my most recent Youtube stream. If they used my 6 month’s data, then you will probably not see some chinese drama floating in this image because the previous 6 months I was watching Kdrama not Cdrama.

Most often that not they would recommend me videos that are really something I wont normally consider but its something new and hits some sweet spot on what intrigues me. I remember last year, I stepped into this CNBC Make It channel because I was watching personal finance videos heavily. After watching videos in that channel, several other CNBC vids pop out in my home as you can see in the image above too.

It is good I get to watch something else but creepy because Youtube probably knows me better than my own mother. Even the ads that shows up in my videos are sometimes related to the videos I had watched or sites I follow. It had become a normal thing for me to see Datacamp or Monday.com ads in the videos I stream in a day which is more relevant to the sites I follow than the videos I watch.

I know I am data for youtube, hopefully my data is used to something good and not just a revenue stream. For instance maybe they could use the data to identify people who are mentally suffering or abuse victims based on the data to alert or provide assistance. Maybe if this was the case for those people, youtube would instead recommend stuff geared toward enticing the person to get help instead of more abuse or mental health related videos that does not talk about how to get help. Till the next article.