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YouTube Music staff laid off in middle of meeting about employment rights with Austin City Council (completemusicupdate.com)

submitted 9 months ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 89 points 9 months ago

I'm sure this was labor retaliation or something but watching YouTube music eat google music and then steadily get worse. I don't know. Fuck google and their lack of support. I don't like Spotify particularly but now I use it because i really hated youtube music's suggestion algorithm.

[-] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

Time for a rebrand!

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

Google Music with Podcasts™️.

In the store it's of course advertised like just about any app from a large company, as something like "Google Music, fast&secure". Seriously, why do all big apps want to desperately sound like really bad chinese malware?!

[-] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

gMusic here we come!

[-] doors_3@discuss.tchncs.de 22 points 9 months ago

Youtube Music's interface is a cluttered mess and I much preferred the spartan UI of Google Play Music. It took much time for the former to reach feature parity as well. Oh, and now they shutdown their dedicated Podcasts app in favor of merging It into YT Music. It is a disappointment, to say the least.

[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Yeah play music looked good, it was easy to find full albums by genre, and their suggestion algorithm played stuff I liked but had never heard.

[-] yamanii@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

The podcast app sucked anyway, couldn't even download episodes to the SD card.

[-] dan@upvote.au 1 points 9 months ago

I don't think it's even reached feature parity. I think YouTube Music still doesn't let you upload your own music to your account?

[-] doors_3@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 9 months ago

One can upload their own music to Youtube/Music's servers via their web client.

[-] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

I really hated YouTube Music’s suggestion algorithm.

Interesting! I’ve often been really impressed by the playlists it throws together (but I recognize my experience is certainly not universal).

I hate YouTube Music for other reasons, like how they fucked up my Google Play Music library, and how playlists and even legitimate albums will have songs that won’t play because the same song is elsewhere on YouTube (like in the Top Gun Maverick soundtrack Danger Zone won’t play, because it’s in the original Top Gun soundtrack).

[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Whenever I say (OK google, play xxx radio) within twenty songs all the playlists end up being The Band or electroswing. Which are things I like but I'm trying to find novel music not stuff I already like

[-] bramblepatchmystery@slrpnk.net 2 points 9 months ago

It is interesting you say that, because no matter what genre of song I originally start on, within 10 songs, the algorithm is going to start throwing in The Band and Fleetwood Mac.

Now, do I generally want to listen to either of those two groups? Yes, but probably not when I specifically turned on a Bonobo playlist.

[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah that's my thing exactly. I don't think most people who start out with swisha house radio end up with rjd2 even though the genres are related. Maybe enough people only listen to songs they know they like to skew suggestions for people looking more for discovery than previously liked?

[-] bramblepatchmystery@slrpnk.net 1 points 9 months ago

There is something wrong with the algorithm, where even when it does force you to listen to artists it knows you likes, there is no second layer which says, "this person loves Fleetwood Mac, I can disregard their top 5 most popular songs and allow a selection from their too 50 songs now."

It's not that google knows I love Fleetwood Mac is the issue, it is that they don't know that. They think I just love 4 songs off Rumours.

Same with The Band. Google wants me to listen to the band once every 3 or so hours, but only the weight and the night they drove old Dixie down. If I search a specific song, it never gets added into rotation.

I haven't noticed this issue with newer artists. The algo gives them much less priority, but seems to be willing to play more of their catalog.

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Same. Always hated Spotify, always avoided them.

But the absolute shitshow of an app that was/is early Youtube Music drove me to Spotify regardless. Good work, Google, I was a happily paying customer for years.

[-] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Same same. I'm thinking of trying tidal next when my introductory pricing on Spotify ends. I tried just using other apps for Spotify that uses youtube but my family is addicted to voice control through the smart speakers.

[-] henfredemars@infosec.pub 54 points 9 months ago

In the future, Google will cycle products and employees so quickly that they will create a new product and hire someone to run it for each individual app session.

[-] over_clox@lemmy.world 31 points 9 months ago

Wait, YouTube had/has staff?

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 32 points 9 months ago

Supposedly they’re actually employees of some notorious contractor that YouTube hired.

[-] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 53 points 9 months ago

These workers are for all intents and purposes clearly google employees, google just doesn't want to pay them google wages.. so they stick a different name on the door and spend a lot of time lecturing employees that they aren't in fact google employees when the work they do all day every day is for google and under google's direction.

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes, that’s pretty standard for the industry. Everyone complains how gig economy jobs should be treated as employees, but the real scandal is contractors and H1B visas in tech labor.

[-] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

I mean... it is pretty awful and the conditions are bad and you have no hopes to ever change anything because you're forbidden from ever contacting anyone from the parent company... but at least you're an actual employee of the vendor

(the structure may be different for Cognizant, I can only talk from my experience)

[-] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

It was sort of like this when I worked for Cisco, although they'd generally hire you officially after a little while. For me it only took around 6 months but for most of my coworkers it was around 3 years.

[-] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes, that’s pretty standard for the industry.

🤮 🤮 🤮

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

Yep, it's Cognizant, and they don't have a particularly good reputation.

Still sucks for those workers, though.

[-] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 15 points 9 months ago

This is Youtube Music. Of course they have staff. Who else would implement TikTok shorts in a glorified mp3 player interface?

Hey, does anyone know what the fuckn point of "samples" are? Like, I'm on the app to listen to music, not watch 1 minute clips of vertical strips of music videos. I'm gonna cut off this rant and say actually, I'm glad the youtube music staff got laid off

[-] slingstone@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago

[-] LifeOfChance@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago

I feel like Google just needs to give their employees the list of employees they're keeping at this point just rip the Bandaid right off and be done. It feels like every other week there's enormous layoffs from these big tech companies....

[-] PigsInClover@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

There’s a percentage (of their workforce) that if companies cross it while doing layoffs, they are required to give a pretty big notice to the employees before laying them off. I think maybe 60 or 90 days?

There’s several other criteria as well, such as the company being a certain size, and it has to be a high enough percentage of employees at that specific location. But this is part of why you’ll hear about several layoff cycles within a year at one company instead of all at once.

Most companies that do meet the criteria just pay out the employees in lieu of the notice, which is allowed, but avoiding paying at all is definitely a motivator to avoid doing bigger rounds of layoffs.

[-] dan@upvote.au 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Most companies that do meet the criteria just pay out the employees in lieu of the notice

They just see it as the cost of doing layoffs.

This notice is called the WARN Act.

The pay out isn't in lieu of the notice. What they do is lay off employees on the same day they publish the notice, and just keep the laid off employees on the payroll for 60 or 90 days, depending on jurisdiction (New York requires 90 days whereas most other states only require 60 days). This complies legally, but it's questionable ethically given the whole point of the act is to give employees advance notice of layoffs.

What's funny is watching tech companies try to apply this US-centric approach in other countries. Some European countries have a layoff process that takes multiple months to complete, and requires the employer to have just cause. They can't lay off people just because they want to. Some big tech companies that wanted to lay off employees in European offices failed to do so because of the strong protection of workers.

[-] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It's probably too complicated to do it all at once. By the time they finally figure it out, they already want to do more and the cycle repeats and never ends... although maybe thats the solution. They want to do so many layoffs that they can't do them all at once (but have to) and end up in a perpetual never ready to do layoffs situation, so no one gets laid off!

Magic!

this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024

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