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TLDR

Turn off all history and delete history on the iOS app, but there are a few caveats

Main

I am a YouTube premium subscriber that loves long form content and video podcasts. YouTube ruined this by forcing YouTube shorts onto users by:

1. Opening the IOS app on the shorts so your captivated right away

2. Not allowing you to hide the shorts function permanently in settings.

3. Making search abysmal as it tries to encourage shorts content

4. Downgrading the whole YouTube experience

It should be noted that I don’t mind short form but having it forced on me in one app and so aggressively makes it unacceptable.

“Solution” Part 1

I searched a long time for a solution and came across one that kinda solved the issue on reddit but it had unintended side effects on other Google products that drove me to competitors.

Turn off and delete all history on the YouTube iOS app. This also turns off history on YouTube music which I was using for my podcasts too.

On opening the app will state “shorts recommendations are off” and not show anything (yay). The long form page will also not show anything unless you directly search for it in the search bar. This makes long form discovery non existent on the app not ideal but acceptable.

YouTube music has no history… of anything so there’s no feed that learns my tastes, this is a major problem as I start from zero each time, which is not good for a music app.

“Solution” Part 2

1. Use the iOS YouTube app stripped back and stop paying premium.

2. Download Spotify as YouTube music is now useless

3. Start using apple podcasts app as YouTube music is useless and the Google podcast app is being deprecated.

4. Download TikTok for my short form needs (that can be controlled / deleted)

Conclusion

So Google forced shorts on me and made me cancel my premium account, strip back the data they have on me, download/use 3 competitor apps instead.

Great work Google, you’re winning I guess.