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.
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.
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.
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!
This is nice because one of the most annoying things has been to randomly watch a video and then they start suggesting all of this content that is not relevant or is bothersome. Like, watch a video on certain topics one time and all of a sudden “check out Ben Shapiro!”
Surely Google is still tracking watch history for analysis for ads and profiling though, right?
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.
The only thing I’ll potentially sort of miss is the cynical comedy of the absolutely godawful shit they recommend when they don’t have a watch history to base anything on.
This initially sounded like they were forcing users to their history under the guise of providing suggestions, however it really just means “no history, no suggestions”
Technically couldn’t they do this without “history”… Isnt that what cookies are for? I mean they can already show me shit based of what I say with my phone in my pocket, lol.
Cookies are a way of establishing persistence between a device and a site (most commonly a server session).
They could technically put some of your history in the cookie, but it wouldn’t be retained between devices nor if you logout/clear-cookies.
To keep it consistent and build those suggestions across devices and logins, it needs to be saved on a server somewhere, which is essentially… history tracking.
Not legally because of various data tracking laws around the world. Maybe they can where you life, but then then need to be 100% sure they have that right. By making this clear they can argue in court they need to track this data, and that you have the option to not have it tracked.
Yes, I do wish it had a longer memory. It feels like only the past few days of watching has any impact on suggestions, if you’ve neglected to watch videos about a certain topic for over a week it’s basically ancient history and never comes up again. I’d love to get a varied mix of things I’ve been interested in for the past 6 months or even longer.
I’d even like a ranking scheme like we have here on the threadiverse. Show me videos with a lot of activity, ones that have been showing a lot of promise, what’s been happening over the past 12, 24, 48, or 72 hours.
I guess what I’m saying is I want long form video content like YouTube to be delivered and ranked like comment threads on Lemmy and the older link aggregator(s)
I see no downside here I hate suggestions 90% are crap. I prefer to discover things on my own. I don’t want your suggestions and turning off autoplay be cherry on the top.
They could go back to suggesting only videos related to the one you’re watching but they really want The Engagement Algorithm to be the only one available :(
On the flip side here, almost everything I watch is from recommendations and this is going to be a change that drastically changes how I use the platform. I’m probably just going to have to turn watch history on, which is what they want, but it’s also apparently now the only way to get a decently curated YT feed.
No, the subscription box doesn’t do that. I don’t want to only see things I subscribe to. I specifically want to be recommended things to watch on my homepage.
I just use the Subscriptions feed and skip the algorithm altogether. Combine a bookmark of the subscriptions feed (With Ublock origin , ReturnYoutubeDislikes and sponsorblock) with NewPipe (a fork of newpipe with sponsorblock, specifically), and you get a good YouTube Experience. Otherwise, you can just forget it.
Edit: RSS is also an option if you want to go that route.
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.
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Their recommendations are always a bit shit anyway, so I’m not too bothered about this on a personal level.
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.
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.
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!
same feel.
This is nice because one of the most annoying things has been to randomly watch a video and then they start suggesting all of this content that is not relevant or is bothersome. Like, watch a video on certain topics one time and all of a sudden “check out Ben Shapiro!”
Surely Google is still tracking watch history for analysis for ads and profiling though, right?
Maybe they should stop recommending videos I’ve already watched. And if I reroll give me a brand new list.
they now they run out of interesting content when they recommend you already watched stuff. Youtube™ is overblown
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.
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’m perfectly fine with that. I don’t want recommendations, I want a search engine.
The only thing I’ll potentially sort of miss is the cynical comedy of the absolutely godawful shit they recommend when they don’t have a watch history to base anything on.
You can get that experience any time by going to Trending.
You could also pour milk in your boots.
this wasnt already the case?
Yes I’m a bit confused as well, how are they supposed to know what to recommend if they don’t know what you’ve been watching?
Sounds like they kept a watch history anyway but in secret, and turning it off just means that the user can’t see it anymore. Exactly like back when turning off location history on Google apps just meant you couldn’t see it anymore, but Google still collected and kept the info.
This initially sounded like they were forcing users to their history under the guise of providing suggestions, however it really just means “no history, no suggestions”
I’m ok with this
Technically couldn’t they do this without “history”… Isnt that what cookies are for? I mean they can already show me shit based of what I say with my phone in my pocket, lol.
Cookies are a way of establishing persistence between a device and a site (most commonly a server session).
They could technically put some of your history in the cookie, but it wouldn’t be retained between devices nor if you logout/clear-cookies.
To keep it consistent and build those suggestions across devices and logins, it needs to be saved on a server somewhere, which is essentially… history tracking.
Not legally because of various data tracking laws around the world. Maybe they can where you life, but then then need to be 100% sure they have that right. By making this clear they can argue in court they need to track this data, and that you have the option to not have it tracked.
G O O D. Their suggestion engine provides no diversity. Once you watch one video about something, that something is all they show you
Yes, I do wish it had a longer memory. It feels like only the past few days of watching has any impact on suggestions, if you’ve neglected to watch videos about a certain topic for over a week it’s basically ancient history and never comes up again. I’d love to get a varied mix of things I’ve been interested in for the past 6 months or even longer.
I’d even like a ranking scheme like we have here on the threadiverse. Show me videos with a lot of activity, ones that have been showing a lot of promise, what’s been happening over the past 12, 24, 48, or 72 hours.
I guess what I’m saying is I want long form video content like YouTube to be delivered and ranked like comment threads on Lemmy and the older link aggregator(s)
I’m COMPLETELY okay with this.
If they also kill autoplay it would be super.
Isn’t that a toggleable option?
On the TV version of YouTube, I still have no idea how to turn that off. It’s much easier on desktop and mobile.
I can see how autoplay can be useful, though.
What I don’t like is that it’s opt-out.
So every time I use a new browser, I have to disable it yet again.
I see no downside here I hate suggestions 90% are crap. I prefer to discover things on my own. I don’t want your suggestions and turning off autoplay be cherry on the top.
They could go back to suggesting only videos related to the one you’re watching but they really want The Engagement Algorithm to be the only one available :(
This is possibly the best thing YouTube could do to make this app bearable
That’s what I’m hoping for.
On the flip side here, almost everything I watch is from recommendations and this is going to be a change that drastically changes how I use the platform. I’m probably just going to have to turn watch history on, which is what they want, but it’s also apparently now the only way to get a decently curated YT feed.
No, the subscription box doesn’t do that. I don’t want to only see things I subscribe to. I specifically want to be recommended things to watch on my homepage.
I just use the Subscriptions feed and skip the algorithm altogether. Combine a bookmark of the subscriptions feed (With Ublock origin , ReturnYoutubeDislikes and sponsorblock) with NewPipe (a fork of newpipe with sponsorblock, specifically), and you get a good YouTube Experience. Otherwise, you can just forget it.
Edit: RSS is also an option if you want to go that route.
Kind of makes sense - the suggestions are based on your watch history after all.
I cleared mine a while back, and it also reset my feed to whatever random popular stuff they suggest. As it rebuilt the history, it became nice again.
At least it makes it somewhat clear what it’s suggesting you stuff based on. Can’t have suggestions if they don’t have data on your watching habits.
Now we need the option to hide shorts from the recommended page
As long as NewPipe still works, I do not care.
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.
I’m a bit confused.
Will this affect only the home feed or also the recommendations beside a playing video?
I’d assume that “related” suggestions would still work, unless Youtube decides to break them out of spite.