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.
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.
Lol the users being upset about this is the strangest part, I never ever want to see the recommended feed, how can I opt into this while signed in? XD
There’s browser extensions for it
delete and pause your watch history, at least that’s how it works for me.
Yeah, I actually want my watch history though, been helpful a few times trying to remember some obscure vid I watched like 4 years ago
Subscriptions page really needs an overhaul, at least it mostly actually shows all the videos posted these days, would be nice if we could categorize them in some fashion, or if it auto-groupes videos from the same creator, an example… I like Kyle Kulinski’s Secular Talk, but he posts like 4-10 segments a day so it fills up my subs page
i like this change
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.
Cookies… But yes i noticed it too recently that you dont even get a homepage / trending list anymore when turning on proper privacy settings.
Google has been perfectly happy to track you with browser fingerprints – just if they showed personalized results, it would be giving their hand away …
They could do what they did back in the day; show recommended videos based on the current one.
show recommended videos based on the current one.
They still do in my recent experience.
It’s just not based on any longer viewing history than the current session.
The homepage rhat starts the viewing session will generally be just what’s popular with the general audience in the approximate location they can geolocate from your IP address. If you are logged out and try a few different locations on a VPN, you’ll get different homepages to start a new (logged out) session from.
Yep.
Though there is still a reason to be upset IMHO, because I’ve had history turned off for several years now, but until recently I always had a home page with ‘recommended’ videos regardless, which to me indicates that they were not honoring my request before the recent data regulations went into effect in the EU, or were otherwise using data from other services or browsing history to base recommendations on.
Not personal recommendations, they won’t show anything. It would be like loading up Lemmy/Reddit and not seeing anything until you logged in or subscribed to a community.
They kinda don’t! It’d be trending videos near your IP locations + your watch history for this browser session
I have never signed in to use YouTube
Congratulations?
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.
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.
I never watch YouTube while logged in if I can help it, and I’ve never subscribed to a channel either. I’ve just bookmarked the /videos page of the channels I like, and check them regularly.
As someone who subscribes to many channels, likely over 100, that post anywhere from daily to a few times per year, fuck that.
You should also consider using Grayjay or something instead to avoid that tedium.
You might like New Pipe/Tubular! Give it a go
Yes, I was like OP for years, but since I switched to NewPipe I also get to experience beeing subbed to chanels and just getting Infos about new Videos.
If you’re interested in sponsorblock integration and a return of the dislike button, have a look at Tubular, it’s a fork of NewPipe
Thanks, that’s awesome.
Honestly, so glad they are making this change. Now I don’t have to see the bottom of the barrel popular slop every time I use the incognito mode thing on Revanced.
" 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.
That’s how I work, But I use FreeTube instead, which works the same way. There’s a trending videos page, but it doesn’t reccomend stuff based on your history.
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.
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.
Yeah… this isn’t a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. I have never used the front page for anything, besides the search bar, and even that’s waning.
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 honestly thought this was how it always worked…seems like a good thing if they’re at least appearing to not track people who aren’t signed in, especially since in every other way they will try to get your data fighting tooth and claw. (Not saying they aren’t tracking habits of non account users though)
Imagine being mad at this 😂
I’m not mad, but I will say I underestimated how much worse it is when it isn’t curating to me. Yeah, I’d rather not have the bad suggestions, but good lord the default YouTube suggestions are nauseatingly bad.
The Algorithm can’t find a rhythm 🥁
I haven’t paid any attention to any channels but the ones I was already subscribed to the last couple years or so (mostly watching on NewPipe and Grayjay), and whenever I look at yt on my desktop where I’m not logged in, it’s just this cesspool of clickbait/ragebait and I’m like… people watch this shit? And they enjoy it, apparently?
Fire me into the sun, thanks.
People love to complain
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.
