Comment by randomdata
7 months ago
More likely it is the inverse: Selecting a random video at scale is the costly problem.
You can certainly fake it as a workaround. For example, you'll notice that "I'm feeling lucky" on Google simply follows the first search result. Streaming services could take what is already computed as the first result on the "Home" page and use that, for example.
But at that point why not just click on the first video? Unlike Google, which doesn't give you much until you enter a search query, all of the streaming services I know of have already given you your "lucky" matches by the time a "I'm feeling lucky button" could be presented. Two buttons side-by-side that do the exact same thing doesn't offer much.
> More likely it is the inverse: Selecting a random video at scale is the costly problem.
if that feature existed it would never be a random video from all the available videos. It'd be a random-seeming video from a carefully curated selection of videos that youtube wants to push at certain users, and in some cases were paid to promote. Users wouldn't know and wouldn't care anyway because they pushed a button and got content without thinking.
Users probably don’t want a random video, they want a video which is from the smaller subset of videos they were already likely to enjoy.
The reason that might be preferable to just clicking the first result is that the second actually involves a choice since you’ve seen the second item.
You're going to see the second item no matter what, unless streaming services give up showing any videos on initial interaction. But I expect that really is the best user interface for most users.
That all makes sense and I never really considered the selection of the video being the costly problem at scale. Thanks!
The only response I have is that purposefully-clicking the 'random' button has a psychological effect over clicking the first video returned which (gut check) makes me think it will be more easily tolerated if it ends up being "off-beat" since I didn't explicitly click the first selection (thus choosing it).