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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 soyagi@yiffit.net to c/technology@beehaw.org

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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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[–] Heresy_generator@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

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.

[–] lontong@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

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.

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