has your YouTube consumption decreased after implementing the "no history, no recommendations" feature?

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.
- Same. I usually find something in the first 4 results that are relevant and interesting. Only thing I wish it did more is expand a bit. It heavily favors stuff related to what you've watched very recently. There's some channels I love but completely forget about because I haven't played them in a little where.
- My recommendations are broken. It just repeates what I'd been watching and never nothing new. I don't know why my algorithm is broken. I have gotten to the point of watching more movies and tv shows at this point.
  
  There's a new tab. That might fix your issue
  
  I love long form comedy content but it does nothing but recommend 30 second clip content. It's absurd. I just can't like and interact with the videos I actually like enough.
  
  Do you actually tell it what you do and don't like? If it keeps recommending a channel you don't like, click the "no more from this channel," or "don't recommend things like this" or whatever those options are.
  If you do that, as well as thumbs up/down, you get good recommendations. Really not very hard.
- I have the same experience and I'm wondering if it's because I'm not American?
  
  I also have a good experience with it and am American. But I also pay for premium for my family and I wonder if it's not pushing contentious shit to maximize watch time because they already have my money?
- Same. I like the recommended stuff, it actually matches my background noise preferences and has changed over time too and landed some shots in the dark.
  It has one drawback: Repetition. I watch a dumb and savage 10s clip from an old cartoon, I get 20 clips recommended. And if one was particularly popular, it recommends that one 20 times. Thing is, it switches gears fast, specially if I tell it I'm not interested. It's the only algorithm that just seems to GET the concept of "give me DIFFERENT trash".
- I’m in the same boat. The recommendations don’t bother me too much, except when it recommends me videos I’ve seen in the recent or distant past. Also, when I watch one video from someone, then come to find out they’re part of some right wing culture and end up getting recommended the right wing rabbit hole videos for a few weeks.
- Same for me. Sure there’s crap in there sometimes and because I like some Atheist/Philosophy vontent YT kinda likes to shove Prager U and other religious channels down my throat from time to time. But hesides that, I’m usually quite happpy with my recommendations
- I have the opposite experience. YouTube is always pushing dumbass recommendations. I only go to YouTube when someone links to a video I'm interested in, say some neat demonstration of a old analog synthesizer, and there'll be a couple of slightly interesting suggestions on synths, I'll click on that and then the recommendations are like "Woah!!! Check out what happens when I stick a synth cable into my butt!!!" And it's not because I ever watch videos like that, in fact that shit is what makes me close the YouTube window and never go back until some other website links me directly to an actually good video again.
  
  I only go to YouTube when someone links to a video I'm interested in
  I wonder if this is part of the discrepancy, as I use YouTube pretty much all day long. I work from home and pretty much always put some YouTube videos on my TV while I'm working. Maybe YT just has a more robust dataset for my account to filter recommendations better.
  "Woah!!! Check out what happens when I stick a synth cable into my butt!!!" And it's not because I ever watch videos like that
  You don't gotta hide it. We're all friends here. ;)
- Hahaha going to a random invidious recommendations page also only shows tech stuff. Pretty nieche though

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
- Same, the subscription page is essentially my homepage. It has exactly the content I want on it, and I can always use the sidebar recommendations if I feel like browsing for something new after my queue is complete.
- This is my standard. Subscriptions or bust.
  There was a time, maybe 5+ years ago, when I'd occasionally go to YouTube's homepage, right-click every video in the feed, and select "don't recommend channel." After doing that off and on for a year or so, I suddenly found myself with an empty homepage. Absolutely no videos would load, just a blank white screen with a YouTube search bar at the top. It was glorious.
  That is, until Google updated YouTube and it removed all my preferences. Now I have unlimited video recommendations on my homepage and I can't seem to make them all go away anymore. #BringBackOldYouTube

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.
- Before youtube disabled recommendation for people with watch history turned off, having watch history turned off made it so your recommendations were only based on channels you are subscribed to and possibly videos you've liked, commented on, ...
  There are some categories where I only ever search for the category, then watch a video, but never subscribe to any channel. Those videos were never recommended to me. Meanwhile on my girlfriends pc with watch history turned on, as soon as I watch a single video from a channel she's not subscribed to similar videos appear all over the front page.
  
  watch history is kinda important to me because sometimes I want to continue watching or rewatch a video at a later time or on my pc instead of my phone and then watch history is the only way to easily find that video

90% of my recommendations are videos I have already watched.
- This is one of my biggest pet peeves about YouTube.
- I have an addon that makes watched videos gray and adds a WATCHED tag to them. Makes it more satisfying to browse, knowing you won't get tricked into wasting time rewatching something. Now you can waste time watching NEW useless stuff.
- Youtube recommendations used to be an amazing way to find new music. Sometimes you even had a little community of people in the comments going from video to video.
  Another casualty of enshittification, I guess.
- I've only been getting that recently.
  It's like I just watched 50 minutes of this hour video, took it out of my Watch Later and enjoyed it enough to actually give it a Like, why the hell would you recommend it to me again.

No. Mine decreased when ad frequency increased.

As someone who routinely watches YT through Invidious and NewPipe, I haven't changed my habits.
- Yeah, I catch myself sometimes to switch to NewPipe. But sometimes the videos just don't play. And sometimes it works fine
  
  Major bugs usually get fixed pretty quickly- I always check the GitHub to make sure I have the latest version when I have issues. And Invidious can work as an alternative most of the time, but some instances work better than others
  
  Yes, I've experienced that too. Newpipe generally functions smoothly on my phone, working around 98% of the time. However, when I opt for invidious, the videos sometimes doesn't play.
  Recently, I've been leaning towards using Freetube more. I've configured it to include invidious in the settings. It appears that it seamlessly switches between different invidious instances, ensuring an better user experience than just using a normal invidious instance.
  
  Was unusable for some weeks once, now fixed again and just works. Sometimes crashes but videos always play
- NewPipe user here, and same thing. It's amazing.

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.
- Same, I get the feeling very few people actively interact with the "not interested"/"don't recommend" stuff, so they end up getting all kinds of weird recommendations. Or they also use Youtube Music. For some reason Youtube seriously struggles to understand that most people don't consume video the same way they consume music, and conflates the two constantly.

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.
- If you watch on Android get the reVanced app. No ads and skipping features. It'll skip sponsors, intros, and end credits plus a shit ton more. It's the stock YouTube UI with really granular control over features
  
  I watch almost exclusively on my AppleTV. I’ve given YT premium a lot of consideration but it’s just a bit too much and I assume the price will continue to increase.
- Yes, the ads is a whole another level. Using it without ad-block is not pleasant one bit

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:
Use the "Not Interested" button on bad recommendations
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)
- Recommendations have gotten better recently. I've been recommended more specific stuff and more stuff that has less than a thousand views, which is really small for YouTube. I feel like the algorithm now has more bias towards recency than trendiness. I don't mind being a guinea pig for new videos, much better than being inundated with successful clickbait and other crap.
- Idk, I watch a lot, a variety too. I thumbs content, mark not interested. And my recommendations are an absurd over representation of the last 3 or so topics I’ve recently viewed mixed with a small selection of my subscriptions it’s decided I want to watch.
  
  Yeah that happens to me too, but I'm often happy with that because it fits well with my personal tendency to hyperfixate on new topics for a while.
  What I like to do is ride out a trend until I lose interest and then start Not Interesteding them. It doesn't take long for them to fall out of my feed and from that point on only surface every once in a while if a particularly strong video is currently making the rounds.
  Don't hesitate to throw out negative feedback even for stuff you feel lukewarm about. Youtube can take the hint without going overboard and forgetting that interest too completely.

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

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.

After switching to Newpipe, yes a bit
- Does Newpipe have any recommendations? I haven't noticed any setting for this (and I haven't missed it, just curious).
  Since I've been using Newpipe I've watched more videos of what I was specifically searching for and little to no mindless viewing. It's allowing me to research certain topics more easily without the ads and distractions.
  
  There isnt any recommendations and I quite like it that way, keeps me from spending too much time there.
- Honest question:
  what about newpipe is secured against google cracking down on ad evasion through ~~utilizing their api~~ (just read their FAQ, they don't use the api. Though still, I imagine google has other options to crack down on this type of use)? I imagine google is one bad day from breaking things like newpipe because people are circumventing their ads?
  
  I think that they dont use the Api is the reason why it works. Maybe they use RSS too, Freetube does that as Fallback.
  If Google implements WEI we are fucked. And they could somehow bind an ad server to the content, only it the server is used, content is loaded

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.
- I’ve been using RSS feeds for youtube channels for a few years.
  Same. Don't really follow any kind of content feed if I can't combine it in my RSS client. I don't want to check dozens of web pages individually.

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.

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.
- What is newpipe?
  
  https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

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

Yes. No, I'm not gonna turn it back on, even though I really want recommendations back.
- Recommendations discovered for me a lot of awesome (useful) channels, people and music. At the same time, it wasted A LOT of my time and energy. The issues outweigh the benefits
  
  Despite using it at its very launch, I've never used YouTube at all really before aside from looking at clips I've found elsewhere, with full adblock, and uploading game clips for mates as unlisted, because it's easy
  I think I've gone too long now without recommendations to be bothering to start. There is so much utter, utter shite peddled by utter, utter cunts that puts me off the entire thing.

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.

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
- You talk about leaving like it's an addiction, but it sounds like you enjoy the content.
  I have a few subs that I enjoy, but it's not like I can find replacements like I did with twitter and Reddit.
  Hoping to leave how? Just by not watching anything, or just hopeful of a replacement?
  
  Haha yeah, nicely put. I do enjoy the content, mostly because I've been following these creators for some time, and it's hard to find a replacement for it... there is a lot of great content there, but it makes me feel gross using it. And same, I had no problem finding an alternative for Reddit (this), probably because I was not very attached to individual creators there.
  I'm hoping a decentralized solution gains traction, but in the meantime I've been trying to limit the amount of information I share with the platform. I'm not actively trying to restrict my usage (most of that was achieved when I stopped using an account), but maybe it's a good idea to do so. I mostly use it when eating or going to sleep, and there are better ways to occupy that time.

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.

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).

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

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

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

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.

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.
- It will start giving you recommendations for popular shorts. And that shit is cancer, let me tell you
  
  Jeezus, that almost seems evil. "Give us your data or we'll clog your front page with the click baitiest, cancer inducing content we have".

I haven’t been on YouTube in over a month but it’s because the ads were getting way out of control.
- Not sure what your platform of choice is but unlock origin for firefox or youtube revanced for phone are 2 great ways to remove ads.
- I use YouTube every day and haven't see an ad once.
  
  Then you're definitely using adblocker or Premium. Because YouTube shows ads before (and sometimes after also) almost every video these days.

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.

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 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.

Yes, very much

Wait, what is this new feature YouTube is doing?
- As far as I know, it recommends videos on the top page based on your viewing history
  
  I thought that was always a thing...

Also gosh YouTube search is awful.

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

Yes it has actually.

I mostly use Odysee, so no change for me.

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

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.

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'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.