I actually like the recommendations. I usually only get content that's relevant to my interests, and I'm always finding new channels that are interesting and worth my sub.

Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing differently from everybody else, because I never see much of the spammy/irrelevant content everyone else seems to be getting. Or maybe I'm just easy to please.

I never went to the homepage unless I accidentally landed there because of autofill. I normally just go straight to subscriptions. There are still recommendations under videos, so I check that out every so often, mostly because my secondary monitor is portrait and I can see them under the video

Why would I have my watch history turned off? I assumed that Google knows what I watched whether or not I tell them to keep that info available for me.

90% of my recommendations are videos I have already watched.

No. Mine decreased when ad frequency increased.

As someone who routinely watches YT through Invidious and NewPipe, I haven't changed my habits.

I have history turned on and it generally recommends stuff I'm interested in. My only complaint is that it doesn't update often enough and likes to recommend videos I've seen already.

I’m watching less because I’m not getting any new or interesting recommendations. I just keep seeing the same stuff over and over again. I hate algorithms. I hate that something is deciding what I should watch while not showing me 99.999% of the other things on the platform.

Oh, and the ads are absolutely out of control. I have to decide if the content is really worth sitting through all the infuriatingly jarring ad placements. Most times, it’s not.

I use subscriptions only for a long time and occasionally throw off dead weight there. No need for such a feature to be honest. I get most new interesting channel either by recommendations from youtubers i subscribed to or from random links like on lemmy. Which happens rarely, like, I subscribe to 5 new channels max per year, and remove about the same number each year.

Nah recommendations are shit anyway. I just watch my subscriptions

Honestly, my YouTube consumption went down when Hipyo refused to endorse trans rights and then the Linus stuff came out shortly after. The one two punch kind of made me start seeing nearly all YouTube personalities as unhealthily egotistical and probably kinda scummy. There are some creators I like, but at this point I just really don't care what most of these people think anymore.

I'll always tune in for Philosophytube or Contrapoints, though. I'm a sucker for the format when it's done well. And I do enjoy Matt Colville and that D&D animated guy.

I always keep watch history turned on, because the recommendation system has always sucked if you kept it turned off. It's more honest to the user now that they give up instead of intentionally sucking -- "we can't give recommendations if we don't know what you tend to watch". That basically makes sense to me and I accept the tradeoff this poses.

I know a lot of people think Youtube recommendations always suck and are therefore not even worth trying, but I beg to disagree. You can cultivate good recommendations, even if your interests have no overlap with the default front-page. It comes down to two basic ingredients:

1. Use the "Not Interested" button on bad recommendations
2. Click on the like/dislike buttons after watching videos

By default Youtube is going to try feeding you lowest common denominator junk. This is because it starts out knowing very little about you besides broad demographics. The more feedback you give it the less it falls back on this crutch until eventually you get solid recommendations. Every single bad recommendation is a hidden opportunity to tell Youtube to get that garbage out of your face.

And, yeah... in my experience this really works. If you click the buttons and make it a habit, you can get some really great stuff! As encouragement, I'll share a selection from my home feed full of fresh videos relevant to my tastes. Even the topic bar is on point:

I'll probably watch all 3 of these videos at some point, which I think indicates a pretty successful outcome. In fact, over the years, I've found hundreds of channels almost exclusively using the recommendation system. Even if you primarily stick to your subscription box, improving your recommendations can help you with building that out little by little.

(Note: I am deliberately avoiding the question of whether or not one should want an algorithm to intimately understand their interests because that's a hard conversation and my soul has already long since been sold)

I've primarily only watched my subscriptions for a few years now.

After switching to Newpipe, yes a bit

I've purposefully avoided the recommended videos for a long time now. They only exist to increase the amount of time you spend watching ads.

Nope. I've always had my history disabled, so my homepage was always full off clickbait junk which I never paid attention to. Usually I find new content by searching for stuff that I'm actually interested in, or by recommendations IRL or online.

I've been using RSS feeds for youtube channels for a few years. I don't visit the site if I can help it, I don't login, I don't "like & subscribe", I don't see any clickbait thumbnails and most important: I don't see any ads. Just newsboat & mpv.

Nope, subscriptions give me what I want. And peertube has a lot of cool channels if I want discovery.

spent a few hours yesterday sorting all of my subscriptions and moving them to newpipe. while having everything auto-backed up by google was convenient, newpipe is much better - i go in, watch some videos i saved into a playlist or that have come out from subscribed channels, then go out. it feels way better then being sucked in by the algorithm. i think i'll still use youtube's algorithm on my pc sometimes, as this setup hinders new content discovery. but overall, i'm really pleased so far with the new setup.

I would say my usage has decreased. I go there for my subscribed section now. If there's nothing too exciting there, I close and move on.

On a side note: I never have to see Mr.Beast's gaping mouth again. I'm happy about that.

Yes, and it's been great! I mainly watch my subscriptions now, and the occasional tutorial I have to search for, but I'm glad to not have a bunch of clickbait thrown at me when I first open the app, now I don't get sidetracked or waste nearly as much time on useless schlock.

I took the steps to pry myself away from google. Turned off all that stuff, nuked my yt channel history, all that. Exporting sub's into RSS feeds and invidious. Freetube is an awesome desktop app for watching yt. The only thing I miss is interacting in the comment section but also at same time a blessing since I am the kind of person to accidentally write a 5 paragraph essay noons would ever read, no yt comments means less chance if wasting my time.

Also as I got older my taste and willingness to sit in front of YouTube all day has changed When I was a teen I spend hours and hours watching gaming content. As an adult I have better shit to do and would rather actually play games myself. I my sub's list has whittled down from 200 > 100 > 50 and I only get a few new vids in my feed a day if that.

Yes. No, I'm not gonna turn it back on, even though I really want recommendations back.

I've always just watched things that I wanted to watch from followed channels for the most part 🤷

I have been using Revanced YT to avoid ads which made me watch more YouTube, but with the recent no home feed update I also have been only going on YouTube to watch the few channels I'm subscribed too and specific things I search for.

No because I haven't used the app for years so I'm not signed in. I use browser with uBlock "etc" on both mobile & laptop/desktop.

Any feeds that I watch regularly plus interesting videos I stumble on or recommended in places like !videos@lemmy.world i put directly into a notes app which syncs to all my devices. All grouped by length so its easy to find something depending on how little spare time I have to kill. Its a slight extra step compared to clicking "watch later" in the YouTube app but ive done it for so long now its become second nature

Yeah, I had a similar experience

I wonder why they did this though, before the change YouTube would recommend me videos based on videos I watched so it's not like they actually needed the watch history to be turned on

I've noticed a lot of users on here actually really like the lack of recommendations. My use hasn't gone down but I do miss having videos on the YouTube main page, particularly on my PC.

I stopped using recommendations years ago and only use NewPipe and Invidious. I did notice a reduction in my watch time, but there is plenty to watch when using a subscription-only feed. I havent added very many channels to my list since then, but personalized recommendations aren't worth the privacy cost. Hoping to leave the platform eventually

I have a list of subscriptions, a rather large one at that. One good day I decided to start trimming the fat and remove accounts I didn't quite follow, or that made me lose too much time watching them. No need for recommendations if I already have like a thousand channels followed

oh yeah, much less jumping from video to video nowadays.

YT could have provided recommendations based on categories you picked out, or countries, or just what's popular today. Instead they decided to throw a hissy fit and show a blank homepage.

I'm taking it as my detox from social media. Facebook many years ago, Twitter last year, Reddit this year, now YT (although to be fair I still use the subscriptions tab, but it's made me spend less time on YT).

idk how any of these features work i just watch videos its still working well for me

I still open YouTube which lands me directly to subscription section thanks to Revanced.

But between removal of recommendation and unsub of LTT channels, all my subscribed channels post like 1 videos a day, combined. So my consumption is very low now.

NewPipe/Seal + yt-dlp/Invidious/MPV gang

I don't use the recommended feature anyway, I have my subscriptions which I like, they are from good content creators, I don't feel the need to go browsing through the utter garbage that is most of YouTube.

If I want channel recommendations I'll wait until someone makes a list, traditionally that's been Reddit, but I guess it'll be on here now.

not really, i'd been under the impression that you needed history for recommendations up till they sent out the email about it earlier this month, so it's just always been on.

I haven’t been on YouTube in over a month but it’s because the ads were getting way out of control.

Wait, if I switch it off, will it stop me getting recommendations for shorts? Id totally do it then. Tbh ive told myself this year tostop mindless scrolling so its good to hear youre feeling more deliberate.

I don't use it at all unless it's through piped.video so for me it's a moot point

Wait, what is this new feature YouTube is doing?

Yes, very much

Yes, considerably. Although I still get suggestions through the YouTube app on Apple TV but they are mostly crap anyways.

No, the recommendations became shit ever since I put on ad blocker so I wasn't really using them. If anything, now with history off I actually pay closer attention to the people I'm subscribed to since there is a subscription tag that I didn't realize I was ignoring.

I mostly use Odysee, so no change for me.

Yes it has actually.

I prefer not to consume content I don't seek out, and I don't really seek out YouTube content.

I just turned on my history, watched the one video I submitted to my own channel, then turned it off again.

That's apparently enough to bring your dashboard back.

Yeah, I use the regular Youtube client more frequently, because my senses aren't assaulted by a crapass load of thumbnails of dumb stuff.

Also gosh YouTube search is awful.

Not really, I like what I like because I like it. I no longer binge mindlessly, I just binge mindfully. I'm using Freetube for many years now.

I don’t have a feed if I don’t turn on recommendations.

I deleted the app off my phone and my usage went down significantly. But my overall phone usage has stayed the same.

Well, I use NewPipe for my YT consumption, so I only visit ReVanced when I want to post a comment, so I was quite surprised, but it didn't change anything. Not uaing WiFi, however, changes the way you organise your data usage. I found I barely visited YT, even via newpipe, now that I stick to data only.

i see only one mention of freetube, kinda criminal with how good it is

I've had history turned off for years, like easily a decade. I only get dumb things I don't care about recommended to me, like Madonna videos, as they're taking random stabs in the dark at engaging me. What I do watch on YouTube is drag queens and videos of sovereign citizens being teased, but they never get suggested.

I'm almost completely off YouTube already and now I find videos annoying and a waste of time.

I watch videos from udemy to learn something though.

Nah, piped and invidious got it covered. I particularly like that they play in the background if I move to another application or another browser tab. Good riddance.

Feature? Why would I want that?