YouTube stops recommending videos when signed out of Google ( www.bleepingcomputer.com )

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.

deafboy ,
@deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

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?

author_shrubs ,

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.

SkyNTP ,

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.

OutlierBlue ,

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.

dariusj18 ,

My guess,

  1. It was too hard to create a non-authenticated algorithm which could let users delete their past participation.
  2. 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.
ObviouslyNotBanana ,
@ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world avatar

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.

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

so many companies telling on themselves when they would rather remove functionality or block countries rather than just comply with privacy regulations …

Splatterphace ,

Imagine being mad at this 😂

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

I like to tell myself I even get better search results when signed out (YouTube doesn’t seem to try as hard to insert extra filler)

Beefytootz ,

I'm so tired of searching for something specific, getting two or three results relevant to my search, then it just goes into my subscriptions and other recommended channels. I'm really really hoping a new video site comes up soon to replace YouTube. You can't even use YouTube as a video host anymore. I tried uploading some gameplay of me and my friends fucking around. Had music in the background. I put the video as unlisted, marked it as mature, I'm not a partner or anything that would get me paid, and YouTube refused to allow me to upload it without first muting the music parts. All I wanted was an easy way to share a personal video with my friends, but no, YouTube needs to make money off of every little thing that gets uploaded so I end up fucked even though I have no intentions of making "content".

wolfruff ,

Dont forget to mention getting unrelated shorts shoved down your throat everywhere. I seriously deleted my decade old youtube channel over this. Fuck Google.

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

“Youtube-shorts block” (or one of several similar addons) that forces shorts to be treated as normal videos

But that you need a half-dozen addons just for Youtube alone to either make it usable or to restore functionality it used to have …

bjoern_tantau ,
@bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de avatar

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.

usualsuspect191 ,

They could do what they did back in the day; show recommended videos based on the current one.

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

Google has been perfectly happy to track you with browser fingerprints – just if they showed personalized results, it would be giving their hand away …

ambrosiaforest ,
@ambrosiaforest@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

i like this change

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