I consistently hear people on YouTube complain that the subscribe button doesn’t do anything for viewers, now that channel notifications are controlled by the bell. But it does do something: it puts the videos from that channel in your subscription feed, which is readily accessible on all versions of YouTube. So why do people act like it doesn’t exist? I think it’s super convenient, especially if you’re subscribed to a ton of channels and don’t want your notifications feed flooded with new videos.
youtube feed is a toddler you’re trying to tame. even the slightest misdirection will end you up with infinite crochet videos for 2 weeks because you watched a video about the last crochet artists in cambodia
Yes this, so much this. The worst part for me is that it includes random videos you clicked on the internet with the same weight as videos I personally selected. And since they are mainly about stuff I’m not interested in it gets even more weight.
For example somebody posts on social media “Look at my cool new toy”. It’s a YouTube video of a guy with a brand new tractor and he’s super happy about it. I like his genuine pleasure, so I give it a thumbs up. Go to sleep and wake up the next morning and YouTube be like: “Hey there, good morning. I heard you are super into tractors at the moment, so here are a million tractor vids for you.” OK, not a big deal, just pick out the videos that aren’t about tractors and watch those. No big deal, the algorithm will figure it out and fix it right? Wrong, it pushes more and more tractor vids. The next day you somehow manage to watch a non tractor video and the doorbell rings. It’s your cute neighbor and you make smalltalk with him/her for a while. Oops big fuckup, autoplay was on and it just played 10+ tractor vids for you. Now you’re an official tractor superfan and your whole life revolves around watching tractor vids. At least, that’s what the algorithm thinks.
I wished when I watch a video embedded on another site it would just not track that as being my interest. On my phone I had it configured to play youtube vids in the browser and not in the app, that helped a lot. But an update broke it, so now I have to delete it from my watch history anytime I open a YouTube vid anywhere.
Same thing with instructional videos. I got me a nice new dishwasher, but how to hook it up? Cool, they included a QR code to the brands site with clear instructions and a helpful video on how to hook it up. But oops, they hosted that video on YouTube. Now the next two weeks it’s nothing but instructions on how to hook up dishwashers you don’t own. At least it fits well with all the ads you get for the dishwashers you considered buying but ultimately didn’t decide on. That’s really useful right? Yay algorithms
If Youtube’s algorithm is swayed too easily, you can disable a lot of it in your account settings. Without your watch history or personalised ads, the algorithm seems to be a lot less random.
I’ve worked around the “embedded videos fucking up the algorithm” problem through a combination of Multi Account Containers Temporary Containers. I open all the random websites I browse in temporary containers and force content websites like Youtube and Lemmy into more special containers, but I open videos I don’t want associated with my recommendations in a temporary container.
Containers are like two separate browser sessions, they can’t see each other’s data directly. That way, Youtube doesn’t connect the random shit I encounter on the web to my account. Tricks like being logged into multiple accounts at once on some sites (Gmail etc.) is just a nice bonus.
Youtube still does its IP-based recommendation thing, but it’s a lot more streamlined than it was before.
I ended up getting rid of looking at recommended videos entirely. I use Unhook to get rid of recommendeds.
I usually use the “I don’t like this” button from the triple dot option panel of the recommendations and YT doesn’t fuck around. IDK, try using that?
I mean, don’t just try to sidestep unwanted content by not watching it, but actively tell YT you dont like it form the recommendations list.
Yeah, it is weird.
I never watch duck videos. But if I watch 10 seconds of one duck video, YouTube is like:
“OH YEAH, YOU LIKE DUCK VIDEOS!? HERE ARE SOME FUCKING DUCK VIDEOS!!!”