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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@lemmy.ml

66 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thank goodness! Finally, I won't have to suffer through "suggestions" that are unrelated to anything I've watched and are just pushing clickbait. It does make sense though. They can't suggest anything, if they can't digest what you've watched.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Well, they could suggest popular content, which seems to be mostly what I get. It'll be good to not have a bunch of nonsense I'm going to ignore anyway I guess.

[–] EssentialCoffee@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like folks have a very different YouTube experience than I do. My suggestions are all already related to either my watch history or are from my subscriptions.

It'd be nice if they would stop pushing Shorts though.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I usually use yt on a wifi network with upwards of 200 other people, so I'm sure the suggestions are relevant to us as a unit, but not so much to me as an individual.

And, yes. The shorts can die.

[–] EssentialCoffee@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago

Certainly possible! My husband watches a completely different type of content than I do and I never get recommendations from his feed unless we watch something that we've watched in a shared chromecast feed, and then only very rarely.