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.
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.
Maybe you’d like to see some Andrew Tate shorts?
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.
You can get extensions which make the homepage redirect to your subscriptions page. Lifesaver imo.
" 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.
Not sure if you care but if you turn watch history on, watch one video, then turn it back off it will give you homepage videos again. I almost always start from the bookmark for Subscriptions anyways, but this workaround has worked since the first time I did it.
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.
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.
YouTube without suggestions? You mean how it was back in the early days?? I would LOVE that.
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
I moved to a newpipe fork about a year ago. I stopped using their suggestions altogether. I’m not going to lie it was a couple of months before I was able to get used to it. I’ve come to believe that having YouTube on permanent autoplay based on their algorithmic calculations of what I’d want to see is not entirely healthy for me.
At current, once I’ve watched everything from my chosen creators for the day. That’s it I’m done, I go and find something more useful to do.
Now I see only the shows from my chosen creators,and if one of those guys recommends a different creator that they enjoy I’ll usually throw a follow in that direction. Very organic very much not in someone’s pocket. I’ve avoided TikTok like the plague. I think that, as much as possible, no companies financial statement should have a serious impact over my content consumption.
which fork of new pipe are you using? I’d be interested to hear your take on it.
Tubular, it’s The same as new pipe plus sponsor block but it’s currently active.
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.
Love it
Is that a problem?? I mean I leave myself logged in all the time because I use google music and I absolutely hate their recommended videos and the algorithms behind it.
No fucking google I don’t want to watch some douche canoe movie reviewer complaining about the latest movie being woke just because I watched some other movie critic that’s actually thoughtful and insightful or at least funny to me without delving into sounding like a dog with the constant “woke…woke woke…woke woke woke woke”.
Recommending things when you’re not logged in means they’re tracking you without your consent. Why would anyone want that?
No they usually recommend what is trending to users who are not logged in or have no watch history
That said i personally really don’t mind the change
I’ve started using Invidious as a YouTube front end and it works really great for me
Oh, I interpreted “recommended” as recommended as in tailored to your preferences. What they mean is that youtube won’t show popular videos anymore. Still, doesn’t seem like the wrong choice to me necessarily, but I’m personally not interested in the type of videos that have the highest popularity.
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.
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.
Wouldn’t the recommendations be crap anyway? When they don’t know your watch history?
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.
I stopped letting YouTube save my watch history years ago because their suggestion algorithm became too intrusive: watch a quick cooking tutorial, get nothing be cooking channels, look up the proper way to use a toggle bolt, YouTube wants to teach me how to re-shingle a roof. It was out of control.
First, they took away my home screen, because they claimed they couldn’t reccomend videos without my watch history (even though they’d done it for years). Then they took away the shorts tab, because they said they couldn’t reccomend shorts without my watch history (even though they’d done it for months). So now I just have my subscriptions, a curated list of things I actually want to watch. They’ve punished me with the product I wanted this whole time.
Meh. For all the YT I consume, I haven’t visited the site in years. yt-dlp, sponsor block, invidious, and newpipe keep me far away, while still having all my subs stored in a json file. Simple, easy, no algo suggestions, just organic heard about them from word of mouth sub on an alternative platform. No ads, no sponsor or patreon mentions, no like, no subscribe. Is bliss.
EDIT: Typo fix and slight rewording.
