I use the subscription feed and it's how I've always used YouTube. I certainly don't want it giving me random notifications. It's not like I need to drop what I'm doing during the day just because someone published a video. When I want to watch videos, I'll go check my subscriptions.
Agreed. In my mind every notification is a chore to be dealt with, and I'm not going to let Youtube assign me chores.
I turned off notifications for everything outside text messages a couple of years ago and I could physically feel the anxiety going away. I hate this trend of notifications for the smallest things.
I think most people sadly don't use subscription feed. They just blindly watch whatever youtube algorithm throws at them.
I started with subscriptions and now I like both methods, they’re complementary. The algorithm is really good at suggesting either random stuff I like or new stuff I might like. And I subscribe for stuff I know I’ll want to watch no matter what. Works pretty well!
Wait…. Thats not how people use YouTube? I browse almost exclusively from my subscriptions page.
Same, the front page is a scary place and god help your soul if you click on trending
Really? For me the front page hits almost spot on on what I want to watch. Weird. I use subscriptions tab first and then when im done with it I move to feed to watch new stuff I might not know and almost all of them are interesting.
It is my default page for Youtube. I want to see the most recent content from creators I have subscribed to.
After exhausting the subscriptions page, then I will go to the main page for related content. Shorts and the Explore are avoided at all costs.
Same. My subscription feed is a curated list of creators whose videos I look forward to and probably watch on release. If I notice that I consistently don't watch the new videos anymore I unsub.
I thought everyone used YT like this.
apparently it is a very low count, supposedly 2% of views.
I don't know if the information is accurate any more, I heard it on the Hello Internet podcast quite a few years ago.
I want to know who has seriously ever clicked the notification bell. YouTubers are constantly telling me to and I have never even come close. Why would I want more pointless notifications in my life?
I use them for some YouTubers who only post once or twice a year. Very useful tool. Just because you don't see the value doesn't mean it is valueless.
I use the subscription feed and use the notification bell for my favorite channels. I don't have notifications turned on for YouTube, but it does show in the top right corner of YouTube itself.
I don't always feel like watching everything I'm subscribed to, so this gives me a kind of "favorites of favorites" feed.
That is how i use youtube, but now it is poisined with those crappy shorts. They are changing youtube into tiktok
Shorts ruined the subscription feed.
You can't really blame creators for trying to stay afloat, but fuck Google for not letting me turn off YT Short Notifications
youtube feed is a toddler you're trying to tame. even the slightest misdirection will end you up with infinite crochet videos for 2 weeks because you watched a video about the last crochet artists in cambodia
Yes this, so much this. The worst part for me is that it includes random videos you clicked on the internet with the same weight as videos I personally selected. And since they are mainly about stuff I'm not interested in it gets even more weight.
For example somebody posts on social media "Look at my cool new toy". It's a YouTube video of a guy with a brand new tractor and he's super happy about it. I like his genuine pleasure, so I give it a thumbs up. Go to sleep and wake up the next morning and YouTube be like: "Hey there, good morning. I heard you are super into tractors at the moment, so here are a million tractor vids for you." OK, not a big deal, just pick out the videos that aren't about tractors and watch those. No big deal, the algorithm will figure it out and fix it right? Wrong, it pushes more and more tractor vids. The next day you somehow manage to watch a non tractor video and the doorbell rings. It's your cute neighbor and you make smalltalk with him/her for a while. Oops big fuckup, autoplay was on and it just played 10+ tractor vids for you. Now you're an official tractor superfan and your whole life revolves around watching tractor vids. At least, that's what the algorithm thinks.
I wished when I watch a video embedded on another site it would just not track that as being my interest. On my phone I had it configured to play youtube vids in the browser and not in the app, that helped a lot. But an update broke it, so now I have to delete it from my watch history anytime I open a YouTube vid anywhere.
Same thing with instructional videos. I got me a nice new dishwasher, but how to hook it up? Cool, they included a QR code to the brands site with clear instructions and a helpful video on how to hook it up. But oops, they hosted that video on YouTube. Now the next two weeks it's nothing but instructions on how to hook up dishwashers you don't own. At least it fits well with all the ads you get for the dishwashers you considered buying but ultimately didn't decide on. That's really useful right? Yay algorithms
Yeah, it is weird.
I never watch duck videos. But if I watch 10 seconds of one duck video, YouTube is like:
"OH YEAH, YOU LIKE DUCK VIDEOS!? HERE ARE SOME FUCKING DUCK VIDEOS!!!"
I had no idea people didn't use the subscription fees. It's the only way I engage with YouTube
Thank you for asking this question because this has bothered me too. I subscribe to a bunch of mostly educational Youtube channels and then the only thing I do on Youtube is go to my subscribed feed and watch them.
But then I hear people talk about how channels they subscribe to just don't ever show up on the home feed so they end up missing things. Then Youtube implemented an additional system where you not only have to subscribe but you also have to set it to be notified of new videos. Thus starting the whole problem all over again where the home feed algorithm has too much stuff you are subscribed and notified to for it to all show up.
There is this nice little feature that shows you a chronological view of subscribed video releases that everyone ignores for no reason.
Dude I've had that exact same thought. Like, yeah, the subscription is where everything is. I never use the regular home page, my bookmark for YouTube goes to my subscription.
There's zero need for me to use the bell. I never understood why people complained about videos not showing up, etc.
I've heard that the subscription feed doesn't always show you uploads from the creators you're subscribed to.
I must not be subscribed to enough people for that to happen.
Otherwise, I don't let a non-subscription video live in my history unless liked it, and I generously block channels for the slightest click bait bullshit, so my home feed is pretty consistent as well.
I use an RSS feed. I never miss a video and it always keeps my backlog in tact for me to comb through later.
This is the way. While YouTube has a subscription feed it is very basic. It has no organization, no way to filter watched videos and of course it only has videos from YouTube. Using the RSS feeds I get a much better interface and can follow all of my video sources in one place even if they are on different sites.
I always use the subscription feed, in fact, my custom homepage has a link to specifically that page. However, my husband didn't even notice that there was such an option and only uses the recommended feed (we talked about it recently). I personally can't stand recommendation engines. These have destroyed my art business in social media platforms. I need chronological.
Personally I remember when the main page used to be the user's subscription feed. After they changed it, I just updated my bookmark and continued to land on the subscription feed. At some point everyone else seems to have forgotten that that happened and started pushing the bell.
TBH I don't use the subscription feed often. I subscribe to many channels and rarely clean them out after not watching them for years. So that feed is full of videos that I'm not really in the mood for right now but I might watch some day. My home feed is filled with videos that I'm currently in the mood for - from subscribed channels and new ones I can then discover.
I use the subscription feed. Definitely don't use the bell. Bell is so cumbersome where you get a email for a new video, then you get that pop-up preview on your browser, and push notifications on your mobile device. Too much for me, especially since I'm at a point where I subscribe to 600 channels or so, which makes it hard to play favorites. That's sort of what the bell is for I guess, determining whose content you value the most.
I just use subscriptions as a super-like: please keep putting this channel's videos in my feed.
I'm generally not interested in seeing all the updates for every channel I like in one place, especially not per-artist. I just want a mix of stuff I'll probably like in with stuff I might like, so I stand a good chance of finding something cool.
I have zero notifications enabled and use the sub list exclusively (about to switch to RSS), although I'm probably an outlier since I have a habit of sacrificing comfort just to stick it to big tech.
I very much use the subscription feed. I don't know how alone I am with this, but I usually only subscribe to channels when I want to watch almost all videos they post.
A lot of the time if a creator gets a little bit popular they start to spam videos and that's when I unsubscribe, even if I generally like their content. I feel like I cannot ever keep up anymore so I just watch their videos sporadically from then on.
I use it consistently. I, however, do not like the shorts panel taking up a ton of space in the feed now. My subs feed shouldn't have shorts from people I am not subscribed to, but it does.
I use it almost exclusively - I've bookmarked Subscriptions instead of any other page. But it does feel like I'm unusual in this sometimes.
I almost exclusively use the subscription feed. The front page is a mess of terrible recommendations on videos I have no interest in watching.
I just use RSS feeds of the YouTube channels I want to follow. I am sure that will be taken away from us soon to force us to do things the way they want. Until then ... go RSS!
The one thing I hate about the sub feed is that I can't seem to filter out shorts. I have no interest in shorts, and they make up more than half of my feed.
Creators both put out so much dogshit that I have to cherry pick and also my sub feed doesn't account for actually good content.
So yeah I stopped paying attention to it. Even as a YouTube premium member.
The peak of garbage was when YouTube enforced a 10 minute watch time for max profit. They rolled it back but dude there used to be 8 minutes of fluff for a 2 minute video.
If you turn off history, it is very important and definitely shows in your Home feed, actually, it is the no.1 reason to turn off history
I use an extension called PocketTube to manage my subscriptions into categories. I'm sure there's a better way, but it works for me.
I only use the Subscriptions feed, and use an extension that blocks recommendations and shorts.
Additionally, before watching any video I'll check the channel page to see if YouTube is hiding any of that person's videos from me (which they do even on the Subscriptions feed sometimes).
Fuck the algorithm.
I used to, but then I got so many subs it wasn't really practical anymore. Now I just let the algorithm recommend new vids. Just too much great content creators, what can you do.
I have seen myself times where someones video just is not in my sub feed, but I can see it on the Youtube channel. Happened twice in the last year with Louis Rossmann for some reason?
There was a short time when YouTube was removing videos from the feed, and the only guarantee was the bell. But that is not true for like 4 years now.
I guess those people still erroneously believe that's how it works.
I use it all the time since the main feed is full of fluff half the time.
I don't rely on it at all because it likes to omit things I assume it thinks I won't like. Plenty of times I'll see a new video from a subscribed creator on the home tab to head over to subscriptions where I can't find it but see previous ones.
If it worked that would be great, instead I use third party apps to manage it and would just stop using YouTube if those tools were unavailable.
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