Ask HN: My YouTube feed constantly recommends nonsense, anyone else? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: My YouTube feed constantly recommends nonsense, anyone else?

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Has anyone else noticed their YouTube feed on a downward spiral lately?

My feed has just turned to mostly clickbait / smut. It's been getting noticeably worse of late. I see conspiracy theory nonsense, doomerism, mindless clickbait and more. It's really turning to garbage.

This part of their product is actually starting to feel like their search product, which I find has become really quite poor. I'd like it if Google recommended something actually interesting and wholesome but whatever algorithm they have working doesn't seem interested in doing this.

Personally, I'm still not really over the fact they don't display the dislikes, it is really becoming impossible to discern good information from bad. That combined with the crap recommendations is a big turn off.

I don't have a YT red subscription or whatever, I'm definitely interested in purchasing if it improves the experience. Has anyone else become a member and seen an improvement?

There's browser extensions that can replace the thumbnails, which are becoming negative signals to me, but apparently everyone is forced to use due to "the algorithm".

You can also subscribe to channels via RSS if you don't want any recommendations distracting you.

If you've clicked on something that Youtube has suddenly decided you like they suggest this:

> How YouTube recommends videos

> Your activity on YouTube, such as your watch and search history, influences your recommendations and can help you find information that you’re interested in faster. For example, if you watch a lot of sports videos and search for 'cricket', we might recommend videos with the sport cricket rather than nature videos with crickets in them.

>You’re in control

> You can influence your recommendations by pausing or deleting your watch history and search history in your Activity controls. Learn more about how you can manage your recommendations and search results.

But I've found just telling it "don't recommend this channel" is usually enough to get rid of stuff I don't want.

I have had this issue for a very long time.

My first recommendation is if you want to watch potentially weird/out of the usual videos is to right click the video and "Open in new Private Window". It seems that the new request keeps the one-off from becoming part of your watched record. Also, the private window for topical searches. I made the mistake of clicking on a Diablo IV video, and 2 weeks later there are still 10-12 "recommended" videos in my feed.

As a previous commenter mentioned, I have all of my subscriptions in an RSS feeder so only new posts show up in my filtered list (without thumbnails). This allows quick scanning of titles to see if there is anything of interest. Then I can simply directly open the link without going to the YouTube landing page.

To me it recommends the same 6-8 channels over and over on my main feed, quite boring

Few months ago, I was quite happy when I noticed the "New to you" label at the top, I used it quite a few times. But since a while it got stuck to like another set of 6-8 channels that I have mostly watched already...

There was once a time when YT recommendations were amazing. Now it's a trash pile from start to finish. I completely ignore the sidebar and always start viewing YouTube from the "Subscriptions" dashboard. I don't care about anything YouTube has to show me.

Well how could one build better youtube recommendation engines? Pour moi, typing in "Lou Reed Sweet Jane" won't suffice. It's a specific date, venue, Steve Hunter on guitar, etc. And when it loads, it's a time machine. But how would a machine acquire that kind of good taste that requires a lifetime to develop? Human curation & cultivation is inimical to human culture ;)

YouTube channels work with RSS readers :)

  https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID

You can nuke your watch history or say "Not Interested."

Just looked. Seems to be the on the light side of relevant to me.

you were watching nonsense thats why youtube recommending similar feed

Not necessarily, I'm interested in carpentry, so I watch carpentry videos, which have no turned into a photo of a guy with his finger chopped off, blood gushing out and a title like, "EXTREME DANGER: Don't try this at home!".

You see what I mean? It's like normal content I'd like to see, sensationalized.

It honestly makes sense because I guess it's all about robbing attention. I actually do sometimes want to click on these types videos because, who doesn't want to see a dude with a severed finger and learn how to avoid that mistake. Often though, the content itself is lack luster and the thumbnail is a scam to get you to click.

My gripe is that the feeds have become a constant, fatiguing barrage of, "should I click this, is it wholesome for me to do so?" Kind of like if you're staying in a hotel with only fast food joints nearby and you've on a diet. Discerning what's worth watching and not watching has become quite tiring.

I watched an Elon Musk interview on Bloomberg or whatever, and now my feed is full of "Just Happend" with a strange photo of Elon.

Maybe Elon's interviews are full of garbage? I could accept this :)

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