FYI YouTube home screen does not show any videos if watch history is off

I've got an android YouTube app on my Pico projector and it's never logged in, but it definitely remembers my history and only takes a few hours of watching to dial into a narrow band of recommendations.

So, this appears to be some legal derived obeyance, nothing more.

They’re deliberately being a petty asshole about it (that part isn’t good) but the end result is actually probably better for your brain so I’m fine with the pettiness.

I have heard that TikTok algorithm is great as long as you give it a bit time to learn your preferences. I don't think I would be able to survive that process, for exact same reason - it serves absolute dumb garbage, in hundreds.

Seeded by things you've thumbs-upped was pretty decent. This change will just make me less likely to browse YouTube.

Agree. On mobile has become essentially the Google experience meaning there’s just a search field and nothing else. I personally love it.

My subscription feed is filled with things that are completely irrelevant because it doesn't adapt to my interests. I guess I could prune my subscriptions but why would I when the home screen works so much better? Also if you only watch people you're already subscribed to it will be hard to find new things. I don't know what makes you say the home screen is "just ads" because that's definitely not true

Staggered implementation? I still had a home page yesterday but it's gone this morning.

Delete your watch history.

On the home screen, clicking the Youtube logo refreshes the suggestions. Or did I misunderstand and you want it in a different view?

Youtube consistently forgets that I watched a video just a few days ago (no red line on the bottom of the thumbnail), and will suggest it over and over until you manually go to click on the ignore. Even recently they had a “suggest new” button on top near the “interests” buttons that would appear there, but I haven’t seen it for several weeks or maybe longer.

Youtube will also randomly switch a video I’m watching to 480p even though I pay for premium.

Their suggestion algorithm is also pretty bad to me, although maybe it works for some people.

“I’m feeling lucky” and “Just show me a random video” would be fun.

Also just having weird stuff like “show me a video that most closely matches this color scheme” or “find me the antipode of this video”

How so?

I don’t enable watch history but would still like to see recommendations. Could be based on geography, or overall trends, or time of day. Or whatever.

Also, I find it funny to think Google isn’t tracking my watch history even if they aren’t showing it back to me. So why not try to have a positive user behavior.

I don’t like Google’s attitude of “we’re going to purposely make our product shitty unless you enable all the data settings we want you to and that maximize our revenue.”

They do the same thing with Maps and it’s offputting and one of the main reasons I no longer use them. The idea that I can’t set local cookies for common locations and must enable cloud saving is so stupid. So they made their map client worse by not allowing local places. I don’t mind my own phone knowing my home address, but don’t want it in my google profile.

Doubtful. They want privacy. It doesn't equate to wanting no recommendations.

The android YouTube App on my Pico projector doesn't need a. Login to watch my history and make recommendations.

The most likely privacy invasion is like the most likely assailant in violence: people you know.