For example, let's consider the following search-phrase:

Beauty And The Beast Final Scene

To anyone(!) of my age, that search means exactly one thing: a clip from the 1991 Disney animated movie, beginning with the point where Gaston goes on the attack and ending when Belle and the Prince dance off into the sunset.

But today, YouTube can't decide between any of "18,700(!) results," especially featuring material from Disney's live-action sequel but also including any number of thousands of "fan mash-ups" that are of no possible interest to anyone but the one fan who contributed it.

But, even just a few months(!) ago, YouTube would bring it right up.

Now, let's try something harder:

"A Shot In The Dark."

"If You Were A Woman, And I Was A Man."

Alas, both of the amazing 1980's-era videos which used to be readily-obtainable are also now entirely gone ... filled instead with a cloud of incoherent rubbish.

Many other sites have suffered a similar fate. For instance, Google long-ago stopped being a search engine, and started becoming a "great sucking sound" for information – which was on-paper a wonderful business strategy except for one wee thing: the fact that, "in the process of becoming what they now are, they ceased to be a thing that anyone would go to, except by habit."

In the day, the Internet was an "out-of-media resource" that enabled people to make-available information for other people to find.

Today, increasingly, it is de-evolving into a resource that is useless as a source of any media whatsoever. A thing that you "just turn off."

- - -

So, faced with yet-another thing that has "nothing to watch that I want, and it's too hard to find what I do want," what's next?

- - -

P.S.: Somewhere out there ... c'mon, Disney® ... there must exist a copy of the original Star Wars film that I once saw!

googlebookfacetube

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture.

ggaaaahhhh!!! Spoilers, man!!!!

I think the biggest problem with YouTube is that everything's devolved into clickbait titles just for the purpose of getting views (monetization). The front page is full of garbage like "You won't believe it UNTIL YOU SEE THIS!!!" or it's just celebrity videos.

I've also encountered the same problem with searching. I've always been a slight weather nerd, so one of the things I like to watch are storm chasing videos. I'd literally put in the word "tornado" and YouTube would pretty much give me what I wanted. But over the past 2 years, I've noticed that the results got worse. The search results are either all-caps clickbait titles with little content, v-logs that have nothing to do with the weather or people ripping off others content and adding their uninformative narration on top of it. That, or a combination of all 3. The only way I've been able to follow original content is to find individual channels and just monitor them. Which sucks because the people who are putting out interesting things don't show up.

There's also the problem of video takedowns. Because the the uploader is guilty before proven innocent, there's a lot of clips that get yanked even if they were there for years.

https://www.eff.org/issues/intellect...utube-removals

I understand the paranoia about "takedowns." Copyright laws are, by design, very draconian. "Triple damages" is only the barest beginnings of what can happen to you.

Personally, I think that YouTube began to die when people saw it as "a way to make money," and when they decided that they knew better than you did what you wanted to find. For instance, Disney® produced a new live-action version of Beauty. Therefore, they decided that, if you were asking for that topic, you must want to see their advertising material – not the 1991 animated film.

Incidentally, if you're curious about the If You Were A Woman And I Was A Man video that I was referring to, there is still one web-page that refers to it, although as far as I know the actual video has become lost.

the worst change is that the video can't cover the search bar
I want to see the video and will scroll to do a search or cover the search bar

not with you is the google-force
"If You Were A Woman, And I Was A Man."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT_I7X_AWdg
"A Shot In The Dark."
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1v...vie_shortfilms
"Beauty And The Beast Final Scene"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDp4oepipjs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDQNOSJvh1k

stronger make google-force must you
BUT
"original Star Wars"
sorry dude but for somethings the only way is pay to play

I can't find it for free
sometimes you have to forget the youtube search and use a real search engine

as far as adds there are browser add-ons for that block them but not for the backed in adds

i guess you just have to adapt your search terms.
try this instead:
Beauty And The Beast Final Scene 1991

Weak in the Force are you.

A video showing a still photo of Bonnie Tyler as she is merely singing the song is not the same as the video I was referring to. (And if you'd ever seen it, you'd know.)

Likewise, that's not "A Shot In The Dark."

Pieces of the animated movie's final scene can still be found, but most refer to the live-action movie now.

"The Original Star Wars®" was titled, "The Star Wars" on the crawl – not "Episode IV." It had not been butchered by George Lucas' constant efforts to "improve" it. Furthermore, I watched a 35mm film print of it, with the definite color-cast that is typical for such film stock.

Now, everyone dreams of making money from their stuff on YouTube. It never seems to occur to anyone that, if a million people post a video, the odds become a-million-to-one that anyone will ever find it, much less choose to watch it. The same is true of e-books, songs, and so forth. (And "apps." It was said that 60% of the material on the Apple App Store has never been downloaded even once.)

And this dilutes the value of the site. If you no longer think that you can find what you're looking for, you stop showing up. You and a million other hopefuls are all standing on the beach, waiting for your ship to come in.

^ not sure if you're replying to my post, but that search term gave me exactly (first result) what you demanded it should give (in post #1).
i guess it just once again shows how google(video) creates a personalised search bubble based on usage habits.

Very long ago, I gave up on their search-engine.

^ what? your op states the opposite.
you do know that youtube == googlevideo ???

The Centos distro has done the same