YouTube will soon require watch history to be enabled to show video suggestions (support.google.com)

submitted 1 year ago by soyagi@yiffit.net to c/technology@lemmy.world

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On the flip side, this also means users have the option to have a cleaner, less cluttered interface.

Full text:

[AUGUST 8, 2023] A new viewer experience that better corresponds to your YouTube watch history preferences

One of the benefits of having YouTube watch history on is that it enables YouTube to provide video recommendations you may be interested in; however, we know some prefer to clear and turn off your YouTube watch history. Starting today, we’re changing how you see recommendations on YouTube, based on your Watch History settings:

Starting today, if you have YouTube watch history off and have no significant prior watch history, features that require watch history to provide video recommendations will be disabled – like your YouTube home feed. This means that starting today, your home feed may look a lot different: you’ll be able to see the search bar and the left-hand guide menu, with no feed of recommended videos thus allowing you to more easily search, browse subscribed channels and explore Topic tabs instead.

We’re rolling these changes out slowly, over the next few months. We are launching this new experience to make it more clear which YouTube features rely on watch history to provide video recommendations and make it more streamlined for those of you who prefer to search rather than browse recommendations. You can change your YouTube watch history settings at any time based on whether you prefer us to provide video recommendations or not.

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[-] ApeNo1@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I wonder if this means for people who watch YouTube without being logged into their google account that recommendations also stop. YouTube already uses IP addresses, etc to track watch history and provides recommendations based on this to a device. Is this also a means to push more people to log into their google accounts when on YouTube?

[-] reversebananimals@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Is this also a means to push more people to log into their google accounts when on YouTube?

Clearly yes. There's definitely some project manager at YouTube whose "KPI" is "logged in view hours" or something similar, since that's where the targeted ad revenue comes from. They are doing everything they can to game that number to get a raise/promoted, and this is an easy way to bump the number in the short term.

I'm guessing it might also be an attmept to simplify some legacy logic in YouTube. Having to maintain two ways to track people that can both seamlessly feed into the recommendation generator is probably a lot of extra work, and its cheaper for them to axe the one that makes less ad revenue.

[-] ApeNo1@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Fair point and most likely a significant proportion of their salary will be a variable/bonus component linked to this type of measure. Allows a low base salary and Google only need to pay more if they hit their KPIs.

this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023

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