YouTube will soon require watch history to be enabled to show video suggestions

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.

GreenMario,

Maybe they should stop recommending videos I’ve already watched. And if I reroll give me a brand new list.

zoe,

they now they run out of interesting content when they recommend you already watched stuff. Youtube™ is overblown

reddithalation,

Yeah, 70% of my reccomended is just videos I’ve already seen, and 29% is clickbait trash, but every now and then I do get a very good reccomendation, that I simply would never know about without it, so I’m not sure if I want to turn recommendations off yet.

I_Miss_Daniel,
I_Miss_Daniel avatar

Not always their fault. Seems the dashcam channels have started copying each other's content and rebranding it.

Would be nice if videos 90% watched would bugger off though.

daveyeah,

Holy shit there’s a way to avoid recommendations coming soon???

Can this be the social media trend for the rest of 2023? Please?

library_napper,
@library_napper@monyet.cc avatar

Good thing my browser destructs all history every day

meathorse,

Do they think this is some kind of threat?

Fuck the recommendations - all I get is the same 15 suggestions across multiple categories, most of them I’ve already watched or in my subscriptions.

The beauty of YouTube used to be the random jewels of clips that would surface, now it’s just corporate friendly pop stars latest music videos and the same shitty content over and over and over again.

It’s impossible to just stumble across anything unique on yt now.

Potatisen,

Totally agree, there’s so much good content on there but all I see are the same 10-ish content creators and it fucking sucks.

Any 3rd party site that gives better YT recommendations?

nephs,

I just miss grouping channels together to have curated independent feeds. They removed it for algorithm based shit.

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

Thank goodness! Finally, I won’t have to suffer through “suggestions” that are unrelated to anything I’ve watched and are just pushing clickbait. It does make sense though. They can’t suggest anything, if they can’t digest what you’ve watched.

EssentialCoffee,

I feel like folks have a very different YouTube experience than I do. My suggestions are all already related to either my watch history or are from my subscriptions.

It’d be nice if they would stop pushing Shorts though.

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

I usually use yt on a wifi network with upwards of 200 other people, so I’m sure the suggestions are relevant to us as a unit, but not so much to me as an individual.

And, yes. The shorts can die.

EssentialCoffee,

Certainly possible! My husband watches a completely different type of content than I do and I never get recommendations from his feed unless we watch something that we’ve watched in a shared chromecast feed, and then only very rarely.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Well, they could suggest popular content, which seems to be mostly what I get. It’ll be good to not have a bunch of nonsense I’m going to ignore anyway I guess.

mub,

I already curate my own watch history and occasionally go on a remove spree when my recommendations get stale or full of shit I don’t really care about.

slug,

youtube suggestions are genuinely terrible for the individual and humanity as a whole

Thorny_Thicket,

I disagree. Spotify and YouTube are the only platforms that actually do a good job recommending me content I’m interested in. Other places like instagram, twitter and lemmy needs heavy curation to be usable.

tgxn,
@tgxn@lemmy.tgxn.net avatar

Cool cool cool, disabled watch history and cancelled YouTube premium. GG YouTube.

Death_Equity,

They could at least add a filter to remove shorts; but no, they do this.

Thorny_Thicket,

No? I’m seeing zero shorts in my feed

hypelightfly,

They did the opposite and shoved a pointless shorts section in the middle of your subscription page so you can’t see what you actually want to look at.

g0zer,

I know I’ll catch shit for this but I kinda don’t mind shorts. Sometimes I don’t have anything specific to watch and I just wanna waste 10 mins…

The content quality varies wildly and it doesn’t seem to have a very good algorithm but it succeeds in helping me burn 5-10 mins while I’m waiting on someone or something.

I think YouTube expects people to burn hours on it like TikTok but I don’t see that happening.

hypelightfly,

I don’t mind them existing either. My issue is with how they show up in the subscription feed now. I’d prefer separate feeds for shorts.

LoreleiSankTheShip,
@LoreleiSankTheShip@lemmy.ml avatar

Still, it sucks that they’re pushing them so hard on everyone. I tried to see the appeal, but I can’t stomach short form content at all. I get whiplash!

sugar_in_your_tea,

That’s what I use lemmy for.

Tygr,

Huh. This presser just taught me I can disable watch history. That’s awesome. Unintended consequences of them trying to force people to turn it on will be teaching others that this setting exists.

awwsom,

i don’t want video suggestion. they are shit.

Nalivai,

They become good if you use youtube a lot and subscribed to a lot of channels. After some time they become really, scary good.

NuMetalAlchemist,

I am borderline worshipping the algorithm for constantly bringing me new music to dig. A good 80% of the artists I’ve picked up in the last few years came as recommended by youtube or GPM/YT Music. And we aren’t just talking well known artists, either. Lots of good indie shit too! Idk, I guess if the internet is going to be allowed to know anything about me, it’s gonna be my music tastes.

KrimsonBun,
@KrimsonBun@lemmy.ml avatar

I just use newpipe, subscribe to all the channels I care about and watch them. To discover new people I use the fediverse

mtchristo,

This is youtube being salty about people not wanting them to keep track of their watch list. because even without it youtube could make a lot of bucks by just suggesting based of other parameters. They are betting on nudging people the way they want.

glacier,
@glacier@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

As long as NewPipe still works, I do not care.

Monomate,

My history log has been shit lately. When I search this log, it seems many of the videos I’ve watched are missing, but if I search my browser history I can find them normally. That’s the only reason I turn on my watch history, as my browser’s history gets deleted automatically after 6 months.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • technology@lemmy.ml
  • tacticalgear
  • DreamBathrooms
  • cisconetworking
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • Durango
  • thenastyranch
  • Youngstown
  • rosin
  • slotface
  • mdbf
  • khanakhh
  • kavyap
  • everett
  • provamag3
  • modclub
  • Leos
  • cubers
  • ngwrru68w68
  • ethstaker
  • osvaldo12
  • GTA5RPClips
  • anitta
  • megavids
  • normalnudes
  • tester
  • JUstTest
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •