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.
Imagine being mad at this 😂
For anyone who wants to stay logged out of YouTube, but wants to see content they follow, I recommend the pocket tube extension for Firefox… or Chrome if you really have to… It lets you create subscription groups so you can see exactly the content you want when you want it.
I’ll throw in, YouTube channels are all fully functional RSS feeds, and you don’t need to interact with YouTube at all to get your subscriptions.
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.
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.
making people concerned they are being bullied into always being signed into the service
So, the majority WANTS to see the political propaganda, endless livestream of chill music to relax and study to, a bunch of spoiled kids making faces, and something indistinguishably small being pointed at by a huge red arrow?
i like this change
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.
Uh, how could Google show any personal recommendations without storing any data to base that on? If anything this seems to be Google actually doing what they say they’re doing.
They could do what they did back in the day; show recommended videos based on the current one.
Considering the right-wing garbage YT is constantly trying to slip into my recommendations - a habit of YT that has mysteriously gotten a whole lot worse in the last few weeks - I’d say they are threatening me with a good time.
