That's a bingo. Any "trending" algorithm is designed to get you to click on it. It's not a source of accurate information.

It's the same with search results. You're searching for X? Here's something X-adjacent we've been paid to show you that you might click on while looking for X. We're going to call it "what others buy" and hope you do, too.

I don't get why the streaming services would care what media people watch. Are they pushing stuff that is cheaper to license?

I believe that they have said the top 10 is based on views, but haven't given the windoww for that count or whether the thimbs up/down ratings factor into it. That seems plausible as it is promoted as a popularity indicator and tends to have recent additons and already popular stuff listed.

Now the trending category is most likely the stuff they are trying to promote.

the absolute blessing of never seeing Mr. Beast's face whenever I am signed in.

It's still garbage, but you're 100% correct about it being 1000x worse logged out, at least it's like that for me.

I started getting a shitload of recommended videos based off an app I played for 5 minutes and deleted.

I never looked it up on youtube or google, and I didn't even search for it in the play store, I just saw it listed as similar to a different game that I did look up.

And after a week of constantly telling them to stop recommending me these videos because I don't like them, I'm still seeing them.

Again, played the app for a few minutes and deleted, have now spent more time telling youtube to stop showing it to me than I spent playing.

The original recommendation engine was amazing. Showed me stuff I loved that I would have never found myself. My favorite example is the French claymation acid trip called "A Town Named Panic"

Now all I get recommended are shows that are cancelled and that I've already watched.

I feel that way when I see YouTube shorts. Some of them are big titted girls doing shit which I can understand why those get clicked on but a lot of it I can't even figure out what is supposed to be happening.

You know I've worked on these sorts of bullshit features (under protest) as a developer (special sorting algorithms that bump up the score of monetized entries over organic (aka real) ones) and somehow I never stopped to think that everyone was likely doing the same.

Naivety, I guess

Absolutely. Ever since shitflix removed the star ratings and reviews that were done by real people, I stopped believing any of that "top list" bullshit.

That's pretty much the rest of the planet whenever US people talk about "world famous" people

Rebel Moon. Oh yeah, they're so bad. And apparently a third one is on the way, and the extended cuts for all of them.