YouTube is no longer showing recommended videos to users logged out of a Google account or using Incognito mode, making people concerned they are being bullied into always being signed into the service.
This change, which is now rolling out, shows a simple YouTube homepage without any videos or tips on what to watch.
As noted by some on X, users who have cleaned their search and watch history or turned off their history settings also see no suggestions when they’re logged in. Some people think YouTube is being pushy about this, trying to make users turn on their history settings.
Love it
All that is left is letting people without a watch history default to seeing their subscriptions instead of a blank page. That’s the whole point of subscribing: I want my own curated experience. I don’t want to watch BS YouTube thinks I want to watch.
It was a mistake letting YouTube decide on behalf of everyone that recommendations was a better experience than letting the users decide for themselves what to watch. The recommendations are no less of an echo chamber. Worse, the recommendations are gamed with churned, garbage content. It’s the same problem as google search.
We need a return to form of user-curated content. Down with algorithmic recommendations.
That pretty much describes how I use my Piped server in Feed mode. It only show my subs and I can filter out Shorts from those as well. Pretty sure the public Pipeds are the same if you make an account.
Maybe you’d like to see some Andrew Tate shorts?
You can get extensions which make the homepage redirect to your subscriptions page. Lifesaver imo.
That’s fine, all the videos they suggest suck anyway. No I don’t want to watch Madonna’s Like a Virgin video when I’ve been watching Letterkenny clips, YouTube.
This is an amazing way to view youtube … this isn’t a degradation of the service … it’s the first good useful thing they’ve done in years
This is great news. I watch videos occasionally but I wouldn’t say I’m a user. I don’t want to be recommended videos. I want to watch the one I searched for, or my friend linked to me, and go on with my life.
What? That’s literally a feature I got with a plugin. YouTube feels so much better without the algorithmic reinforced “hype” videos with no content and it’s good for your mental health too.
This is amazing. I saw YouTube only showing a search bar when I went there, and it was liberating. I could search and watch the video on the topic I wanted, then promptly leave. Without all the Hot and recommend shit being shoved down my throat.
Exactly! I love this new feature :)
YouTube without suggestions? You mean how it was back in the early days?? I would LOVE that.
This is too good to be true. How long until Google reverses this decision? 😂
They change their mind about 100 things bi-weekly. I’m frankly numb to it. I never know what’s going on, just keep riding the unpredictable rollercoaster.
like remember a few weeks ago for one day YouTube had an option to choose from recommended videos based on our favorite color scheme? So weird & pointless but i chose Blue lavender then They presented me with a bunch of videos with a blue lavender-ish thumbnail, and I chose one to watch, then everything went back to normal and they never gave me the colors option again.
In EU the next time the law changes 😁
Love it!
I hate the recommended screen, I just use an extension called unhook: hide YouTube recommended, but now I find out they’re doing it as the default? That’s sick
" shows a simple YouTube homepage without any videos or tips on what to watch."
I’ve had watch history off for like 7 years now and I haven’t had videos on my homepage for at least 2 years now. Hasn’t bothered me a bit, I only watch my subscription page and find new people with the recommendations based off of their videos.
deleted by creator
Nah I also go straight to the subscription page. Just annoying that they kept videos in my homepage for years after I turned it off and then told me one day I need it on to have vids show up there.
As with what others are saying here, pulling out algo nonsense is good, however I do worry that it slowly devolves into something similar to what’s happening with Twitter where you can barely look at anything without being pushed to login. It’s unusable unless you have an account. Websites shouldn’t operate like that.
My guess,
- It was too hard to create a non-authenticated algorithm which could let users delete their past participation.
- They realized their non-auth algorithm was exposing too much info about what is going on during the upcoming election. And they are afraid that people will see all the fasc recommendations.
I think it’s number 2. Now I can’t see what the “default” presentation is (which always had 1 conspiracy theory thing).
It has stopped doing this for me too though. I’m European. I’m assuming it’s because they really want to stay on the correct side of European law.
will this affect invidious/piped?
It’s pretty obvious they’re only doing this to try to push people who like the recommendations to create an account. But can’t people just create throwaway accounts to temporarily relieve their recommendation fix?
Their recommendations are useless anyway. I don’t want to see 200 rock hard abs videos just because I watched a clip of Roseanne doing sit-ups.
