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

redhydride@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 238 points –

I noticed my consumption has decased quite a bit. I would visit regularly to watch content from few channels. I would probably still visit every so often to watch the new videos. But the experience has become more deliberate and conscious. I go to YouTube because I want to go and watch something specific. Mindlessly browsing and watching additional content is harder.

This is good progress from Google to get off their platform :)

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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.

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.

I do a search for a specific comedian with the words "full set" in the search terms. I do the search outside of the YT app (e.g., using DDG) and watch it either on Firefox with UBO or I search for it in Newpipe. And then subscribe in Newpipe ( and in the regular YT app so they get a little engagement; I also go in and randomly like a few of their videos).

I don't know what kind of comedy you're into but here's a full Matteo Lane set (I think he's hilarious) - enjoy:

https://youtu.be/K2rxborNVsc

Then tell it you don't like those channels and thumbs down the short stuff you don't want, and thumbs up the long stuff you do.

Remove the "shorts" section entirely (I know you can with vanced, forget about vanilla) if those are the 30 sec videos you mean. I hate them and ignore them entirely. Simple.

It's really not hard to get YouTube to be a pretty damn good recommendation engine. You just have to give it some constraints.

Me: I interact negatively and it doesn't work

You: then just interact negatively.

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.