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

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

69 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Their recommendations are always a bit shit anyway, so I'm not too bothered about this on a personal level.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Lately I have been spending more time looking for videos that actually interest me than I have been watching videos. It's all either extremely similar, or stuff I have already seen. I often end up just closing the app without having watched anything at all.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Once they had to change the algo because it was shoving people down the right wing pipeline at an alarming rate it got a lot worse. They basically had to nerf it and start over and it’s never recovered to the point it used to be at. The recommendations used to be significantly better, but that also coincided with alt right content doing extremely well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It seems to be getting worse every day. I used to always find something interesting to watch, and now my feed seems to be the same 10 videos or so, and the rest is stuff I've already watched? I feel stuck in such a small bubble!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

same feel.