yt thumbnail slop feels like it cheapens the quality of the content in the video

you got real sophisticated thinkers, producing great stuff but then the thumbnail, ie first entry point to the content, is on the same playing field as everyone else w the same visual gimmicks

last bit is ironic bc now you have defeated the purpose of a thumbnail which is to grab the viewers attention

but default is now to gloss over the slop thumbnails cuz they all look the same

Enjoyed this video a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng

I think this happens on a lot of the scaled platforms, where people see the success of others & try to adopt it. Over time, you see things converge on "best practices", but that can also be seen as a race to the bottom.