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Comment by badrequest | Hacker News Reader

I had many of these problems until I straight-up turned off viewing history. Now my recommendations are trash because they're too generic, which is precisely how I like them.

Not to say that for some folks a complete abolition of YouTube might be well in order.

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> Now my recommendations are trash because they're too generic, which is precisely how I like them.

Do one better: Consider NewPipe [0] instead, if you're on Android.

[0] https://newpipe.schabi.org/

I am not an Android user, nor would I like to have [my Google account suspended](https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/2723).

The user who created that issue refused to provide any evidence of their Google account being suspended for using NewPipe.

Same. I have been able to completely depersonalize Youtube for myself. I don't remember the exact steps I took in Google's privacy dashboard—turning off history and removing all liked and disliked videos were among them—but it absolutely worked.

I don't think this discounts the larger problem though...

P.S. I'm quite frustrated that I can't "depersonalize" Amazon.

I dont know how you achieved that. Iv had disabled viewing history for years now and still get thematic recommendations(watch car video today, tomorrow its all car videos, except more extreme and clickbaity). Afaik you cant turn this off.

That's almost worse because the videos they are showing you are ones the general masses have clicked on and gotten sucked into.

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