"Your watch history is off"

[ChrisGreaves]

Firefox 117.17.0 esr

Empty4x4.jpg

Today a jaunt to www.youtube,com produces the splash screen with space-savers for about nine vidoes, but then switches to the contents shown above.
I choose "Learn More", and feel that from now on either
(1) videos will be suggested to me solely on the basis of my historic uses
or
(2) "The Algorithm" will sulk and refuse to generate suggestions.
Right now the second option appears to be in force.

I like exploring new worlds (I hate change, but I love variety), and it seems to me that YouTube (i.e. Google) is trying to deeply tailor my online activities to explicit choices I have made in the past, whereas I am rather fond of the idea of seeing a mixture of old favorites ("Way Out West workshop stuff") and novelties ("How to build neodymium magnets from composted cabbage leaves").

Have I misunderstood some setting? I do not want to spend the entire winter watching reruns of Antonelli Baseball Outfield Drills

Thanks for any advice, tips, corrections etc.
Chris

[RonH]

I leave it 'off' and search my own choices, Chris.
More fun

[ChrisGreaves]

I leave it 'off' and search my own choices, Chris. More fun

Thanks Ron. Yes, I do search for specific material. Typically a phrase in a book reminds me of something and I research it on the web, and then wonder if there is a video about it. Charles Yelverton O'Connor comes to mind. But you only know that because I have just suggested it to you.

I will miss The Algorithm throwing up items that were beyond my ken until made aware of them.

"Shorts" do not interest me at all; I want meat & veg. "Shorts" is empty anyway.
"You" is empty (unless I get spoon-fed from my past choices)
Strangely "Subscriptions" brings up the screen below, not the half dozen or so science and practical channels that I enjoy.

Empty4x4.jpg

It seems that this new method is disregarding whatever stored history is lodged on my computer and I am starting all over again with an empty brain.
Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

Quite a nice selection

[ChrisGreaves]

Quite a nice selection

Beyond my pay grade.
Besides which I think I already pointed out that I'm not a big fan of Shorts.
Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

A few links:-
You Should Turn Off Your YouTube Watch History
YouTube will look very different if your watch history is off
Is YouTube Telling You "Your Watch History is Off"? A Tech Expert Explains What It Means and How to Fix It
YouTube: Turning off your Watch history will now make your Home feed look a lot different

Apart from the overtones of "We are closing this branch to serve you better", the main thrust seems to be a superficial YouTube gesture to give us users more control over what they feed us.
To me this means that I will NOT be suckered into watching any more "FREE Energy" videos

In particular, when I need a break, I am now less likely to sit clicking for fifteen minutes (or hours) and more likely to get out of my chair.

Personal findings:-
(1) I had logged out of my regular Gmail account and signed into an online banking Gmail account; the lack of YouTube browsing history in that online banking Gmail account appears to be the cause of the lack of history and YouTube’s conclusion that I had turned OFF watch history.
(2) I have PAUSED watch history on this machine, and YouTube continues to send me novel videos “Woman Pulls Swatting Prank, Gets the Surprise of Her Life“.
(3) I have cleared ALL history, and YouTube has stopped sending me silly videos.
Cheers, Chris

[PaulB]

Thanks for the links above, Chris. I was not aware of this setting and just now changed it to Pause. I like the new look.

[ChrisGreaves]

Thanks for the links above, Chris. I was not aware of this setting and just now changed it to Pause. I like the new look.

I would not have known of it had I not logged in to an alternate (and basically quiescent GMail account) late at night and neglected to log back in to my CGreaves account.

I'd like to ask why you decide to use pause rather than off?
As I understand it "pause" merely suspends recording of further history, which means that YouTube would continue to send you suggestions based on your frozen-in-time history. Is that your understanding?
Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

As I suggested above 'off is off'. It works for me having no history. No, not ME personally

[PaulB]

I re-read the instructions in your link and saw I should have gone for off. Done.

[ChrisGreaves]

Note too that here we are discussing YouTube's History, which is separate from Firefox's History (or your favourite browser).
Cheers, Chris

[BobH]

I experimented with stopping YT from keeping a history for me. My subscriptions and favorites went away. It was probably because I found the whole path to making changes labyrinthine and difficult to follow.

[ChrisGreaves]

... I found the whole path to making changes labyrinthine and difficult to follow.

I agree with it being somewhat clouded. [paranoid]I rather suspect that Google/YouTube is being nefarious[/paranoid and are clouding the issue with complexity to Get Away With Something.

I am casually playing with the settings.

One example: When I have turned YouTube history OFF I get "random" suggestions, supposedly out of nowhere. Half of them match videos I have previously watched.
Does this mean that YouTube has NOT discarded my watch history?
Not necessarily; it may be that I watched some of the random videos tossed up a year ago, and YouTube is tossing those same videos up randomly, and only I know that I have previously watched "Heat your entire house with a single wax candle" etc.
Your loving nefew(sic)
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

I continue to be puzzled by the "watch history" settings. Attached is a screenshot from my old Win7 laptop.
Yesterday morning I thought of a pop song from the seventies, nutted out the title ("If" by a group called "Bread"), searched for it with TubeMate on my new smartphone, and then downloaded the song.
By ten a.m., sitting in bed, both my Win11 laptop AND my new smart phone "knew" about Bread.

Until that time I could have sung a few lines of the song from memory, but could not have named the title OR the group. ("Bread"? Who they?)

But by 7:46 p.m. (that is, not even twelve hours later) my old Win7 laptop knew that I had been interested in the track.

Bread.jpg

OK. Perhaps my smartphone does NOT have watch history turned off; perhaps my smart-phone TubeMate activity fed the data back up the line through my GMail account, and that is how the Win7 laptop knew about my interest in "If" by "Bread".

Or, perhaps, watch history isn't really working properly yet?
Cheers Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Too,I was struggling with seeing anything on the YouTube channel; I mean by that I was going through withdrawal symptoms by NOT having dozens of suggestions bombarding me.

One solution is to edit my YouTube bookmark. It now looks like this:-

Code: Select all

https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

I was originally leery of YouTube subscriptions, because I feared being bombarded with stuff. But bombardment is what you jet when your YouTube watch history settings are on, and over the pastthree years I have subscribed to 13 channels.
@AntonelliBaseball @BitesizedAudio @GeographyKing @Kenislovas @RangerSurvivalandFieldCraft @RobWords @SteveMould @TheMapReadingCompany @ThinkingandTinkering @TomScottGo @russlesinski2092 @theslowmoguys @wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299
These are, of course, quality channels which release at rates of anything from once per day to one per two months or so.

With my watch-history set OFF and my link changed to Subscriptions I am close to a good balance for me.
When I feel like goofing off at the computer for ten minutes, there is usually a fresh subscription video for me to absorb.
Cheers, Chris