Every time I log in I get the exact same recommendations. Literally the exact same ones, every single time, for months at a time, so I can’t just refresh the page like I would on TikTok and get all new videos to watch. Plus, the recommendations are so bad, I may as well be scrolling Facebook. They are bad, and there is a huge recency bias. I watch one new thing, and suddenly almost my entire feed is made up of more of the same, and usually it isn’t even similar videos, it is the same videos on the same exact topic. I feel like I have such a diverse range of interests, and so many channels that I follow, but I can go years without these channels coming up again.
I feel like the fix would be so easy as well. Option 1, go back to how it was before, and option 2, show me things that other people are watching. If someone watched the same video as me, the video they watch afterwards is probably going to be of interest to me.
That’s the background, my question is has anyone else been able to make their YouTube recommendations not shit? Is there another website that mirrors YouTube but has good recommendations? and also, does anyone have any theories as to why YouTube recommendations are so horrendous? There must be a reason, it doesn’t make any sense.
Some general tips:
You can remove videos from your history, and they’ll stop effecting your algorithm.
Blocktube is an extension that will remove specific videos and channels from view. Kinda nice if you get a chud in your feed, or if a specific video keeps coming up. I’ve heard youtube’s built in feature doesn’t always completely remove it.
On your homepage, there’s a bunch of tags like “music” and “gaming”. If you scroll all the way to the right, there’s a “new to you” tag. I find this page has better recommendations then my homepage.
Not really an algorithm change, but if you sub to a ton of creators you like, you can just go to your sub feed. I often “re discover” channels I haven’t watched in a while.
