I'm confused. Was anyone really considering that Youtube didn't keep a log of what every account watched even if their history was off? Being cynical, this seems to only add functionality: removing recommendations.
I guess a CEO opened the YouTube frontpage while logged out and went "what is this shit".
But seriously, this seems like it's a good thing overall. The "default"/empty history algorithm recommendations are truly, truly horrifying more often than not. It's almost entirely low-quality clickbait and I can't imagine many people actually appreciate it like that.
And after three or four clicks, you’re immediately stumbling through horrible right wing ragebait
Or spoilers after spoilers if you search up some media you are interested in. I hate those youtubers so much who put the spoilers right in the tile and thumbnail.
It’s pretty scummy behavior
Good. Now, extending this logic, if I have ZERO WATCH HISTORY of shorts videos on my account, then... STOP CLOGGING MY SUBSCRIPTION FEED WITH SHORTS!!!!!!!!!
Sounds like a positive to me. One of the worst things is looking up content for a game or tv/movie show you're interested in then getting suggested similar content that increases the chance of spoilers due to people who put it in their thumbnail or titles.
Don’t threaten me with a good time
Does anyone else like turning history off just so they can see random new stuff?
Sometimes I use Youtube in a private browser just so I can actually be exposed to new information and channels.
Its so annoying that the algorithm is always trying to pigeon hole my feed (facebook and spotify are the same)
I can definitely agree, I hate YouTube's recommendation algorithm and would prefer it was set to maybe a 10% algorithmic, 90% random mix. Every time I use it, I avoid clicking on things because I know if I do and forget to delete it from my history, it's going to be surfacing the same show/IP/creator nonstop for days. It's so goddamn aggressive.
So promote peertube more?
I wish, the content needs to get much better. I wish some good YouTube channels would also upload their videos to PeerTube
YT channels who claim to be libre culture should promote PeerTube in every fuckin video.
Genuinely, what motivation does any professional content creator have for using peertube? It's just crypto shit and conspiracy theorists and doesn't pay content creators
The best years of YT before 2017, there was an advanced maker and DIY tech culture revolving around people sharing projects and content just to share it. That died. This all pro CC thing has an up side to some extent, but it also lobotomized YT. Peertube might eventually get to the same kind of utility level, but it needs a lot of time and momentum to get there.
Peertube needs a couple (or more) large instances to be anything to start with. Right now it's no man's land, sadly.
Even if youtube wasnt already recording watch history under the table, all the data that youtube needs to generate meaningful recommendations is already there in my subscription list.
"Either help us feed the algorithm, or we will make your experience worse"
Is removing the suggestions really making the experience worse though?
From their perspective, yes
Depends.
If you watch mostly technical videos and practical how-to stuff, do you really want to have the home page full of gamers and Mr.Beast wannabes?
Their algorithm sucks and I'm perfectly happy minimizing my exposure to it, but the whole premise behind video suggestions is that it's based on what you like. You could try to replicate it with subscription lists instead, but the bottom line is the feature as it is doesn't really work without knowing what you watch.
They have better information than what I watch: what I click like/dislike on. I've watched a number of videos someone recommended that I hate, videos I click on accidentally. Sometimes I don't watch all the way through, but sometimes I'm not sure until the end that it was a waste of my time.
It was years ago, but my feed got much better when I disabled watch history.
It's okay with me, I don't rely on personalised algorithm anyway. Find what I need and off I go.
This seems very confusing going into the comments, because it doesn't sound like the feature would actually work without enabling this, and it's more or less curbing the feature when you don't have anything to go on.
It sounds like if anything it's reducing it's presence until you've actually used youtube, and having it enabled is the normal state we're currently in.
I don't get it
This is what happens when you let VCs and capitalists into a corporation. They will screw over there families for just another dollar.
I'm not clear on why some people have a problem with this. If Youtube's algorithm doesn't know you from Adam it can't recommend things that might be relevant to your interests and just feeds you the popular crap, which artificially inflates the popular crap even further and creates an additional incentive to publish click-bait and rage-bait garbage.
This just seems like Youtube cutting that feedback loop. I don't see what's bad about people having to actually look for content they want rather than feeding from a trough.
Youtube knows I have subscribed to 515 channels, I have liked 2364 videos and favourited 685. It already floods the recommended videos with others based on "Users who follow<creator Y> enjoy videos of <creator X>".
They for sure do not require my watch history to be able to recommend videos to me.
I can’t speak for everyone else, but the only recommendations I want to see are ones directly relevant to the video I have pulled up in front of me. I can get why that is not exactly what everyone wants though.
I want no sidebar recommendations period.
I actually like the sidebar, but only for videos related to the one I'm currently watching.
@TheButtonJustSpins I also remember the times before the Algorithm™️, when the sidebar actually showed relevant videos to the one you watched.
If Youtube's algorithm doesn't know you from Adam it can't recommend things that might be relevant to your interests
Having watch history off doesn't mean having no history at all. I have my watch history filled with only the videos I enjoyed (mostly videos with fit girls) before I turned it off. Youtube only recommends me stuffs based on those (and my likes/subscriptions obviously). I can watch whatever random videos I found while pooping and never have to worry it might screw up yt recommendations.
So… How do I enable this feature without deleting my watch history. I just want to be able to tell what vids ive seen when I’m popcorning through a channels back catalog.
If you smash that like button, you'll add the video to your favorites list.
Isn’t this how it already works? I’ve had watch history off for a few years now and the only thing that influences my recommendations are new subscriptions; which I’m totally fine with. (I don’t thumbs up videos)
I might not want to watch everything on my home page but it’s very spot on for me.
So by keeping all my google history's off I now get the simple search UI I've missed since Melissa Meyer left (albeit on Youtube instead of Google search)? Can I sign up get this rolled to my account faster please?
To avoid recommendations, I just use invidious.
So stupid.
It has already shown up for me and I don't really mind. The only thing I do on YouTube now is look up a creator and watch a video I want based on my Newpipe feed.
Is the homepage just a search bar or something?
Yep, basically all the space that was occupied by video thumbanails is now empty with a graphic explaining why. I would attach a screenshot but I no longer seem to have that graphic anymore and it's back to normal.
I've switched to watching youtube from my rss feader anyway
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