waka, 10 months ago

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.

dwindling7373, 10 months ago

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.

schema, 10 months ago

90% of my recommendations are videos I have already watched.

ilickfrogs, 10 months ago

This is one of my biggest pet peeves about YouTube.

god, 10 months ago

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.

jigsaw250, 10 months ago

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.

standardissue, 10 months ago

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.

coffee_poops, 10 months ago

No. Mine decreased when ad frequency increased.

Chainweasel, 10 months ago

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

Smokeydope, 10 months ago

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.

slumlordthanatos, 10 months ago

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.

trustnoone, 10 months ago

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.

Nalivai, 10 months ago

It will start giving you recommendations for popular shorts. And that shit is cancer, let me tell you

trustnoone, 10 months ago

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”.

Nalivai, 10 months ago

Well, if we look at that with their logic, showing the popular shit makes sense, because it’s, well, popular, safe choice. The problem is, and they either ignore it or encourage it, that the algorithm promotes the most terrible things because the metrics is engaging and hate is as engaging, if not more, as other forms, and produces strong reactions.

TheAnonymouseJoker, 10 months ago

NewPipe/Seal + yt-dlp/Invidious/MPV gang

proycon, 10 months ago

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.

val, 10 months ago

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.

echodot, 10 months ago

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.

pinkdrunkenelephants, 10 months ago

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

Saltarello, 10 months ago

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 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

PixelOfLife, 10 months ago

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.

Carighan, 10 months ago

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.

Mandy, 10 months ago

i see only one mention of freetube, kinda criminal with how good it is