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What if it's from a channel I like but don't want to watch that one video...will clicking on this reduce suggestions from this channel, will it do nothing, will

What if it's from a channel I like but don't want to watch that one video...will clicking on this reduce suggestions from this channel, will it do nothing, will it unsubscribe me from that channel(as has happened in the past), ...? Nobody knows, I only know I don't want to play this game.

smichel17 6y ago
Use Firefox multi-account containers and the temporary containers add-on. Now your YouTube starts fresh with every new tab. It's actually nice, it means you get to build a new set of recommendations each time you open a tab, and because YT doesn't have that much data on you yet, the recommendations are directly linked to the thing you're currently watching, similar to how it used to be before the whole tracking extravaganza.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  More or less. Sadly, they still suggest a ton of stuff based on geolocation.
  - asddubs 6y ago
    I'm in germany so i always get asinine videos recommended about what americans think about germany and what germans think about what americans think about germany
- atatatat 6y ago
  Or use different folders of portable Chromium so you have any semblance of sandboxing + security.
  - medstrom 6y ago
    Temporary Containers is a pretty amazing sandbox already, as it uses a builtin Firefox feature.
  - dudus 6y ago
    You can just have multiple profiles on chrome. One logged in and one logged out.
    - srg0 6y ago
      How Chrome and Chrome-based browsers work with profiles, and push the user to log in, I have a feeling they never fully log out and there's some kind of a supercookie hanging around. Trust issue.
Mordisquitos 6y ago
The best way of not playing this game is to, well... not play it. Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? I just treat YouTube as a service that hosts videos, with a mediocre search feature, and I have no interest in what it thinks I should watch. If a real human mentions a video that piques my interest, I may watch it. If I'm interested in finding a video on a particular topic, or a specific scene from this-or-that film or TV show, I will search for it myself. If am interested enough in a certain producer's content, I may "subscribe" to them, but I will be the judge if I want to watch the latest video they uploaded.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  > Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? There is one advantage: some obscure music videos. There are some rare pearls with the comments section almost exclusively thanking YT algorithm for taking them there. Happened to me so many times that I have a separate browser instance and a Google account for YT and I'm very careful what I click when I use it.
  - Mordisquitos 6y ago
    True, you do have a point there. I'll admit I have discovered a few bands/musicians by just leaving YouTube on autoplay, after having searched for specific artists I already knew to concentrate while working (before lo-fi hip hop was trending!).
  - mannykannot 6y ago
    This brings us right back to square one: are the benefits of the recommending algorithms worth the downside? We can make that choice.
  - mythrwy 6y ago
    Yes 100%. I have to plug this channel that came up like that a few months ago. It has a lot of obscure rock and a lot of it is really good! https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos I didn't even know there was a Jazz/Fusion rock scene in Japan in the 70's for instance. I never would have heard of this band without YouTube suggestions but really enjoying their work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg

smichel17 6y ago

Use Firefox multi-account containers and the temporary containers add-on. Now your YouTube starts fresh with every new tab. It's actually nice, it means you get to build a new set of recommendations each time you open a tab, and because YT doesn't have that much data on you yet, the recommendations are directly linked to the thing you're currently watching, similar to how it used to be before the whole tracking extravaganza.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
More or less. Sadly, they still suggest a ton of stuff based on geolocation.
- asddubs 6y ago
  I'm in germany so i always get asinine videos recommended about what americans think about germany and what germans think about what americans think about germany
atatatat 6y ago
Or use different folders of portable Chromium so you have any semblance of sandboxing + security.
- medstrom 6y ago
  Temporary Containers is a pretty amazing sandbox already, as it uses a builtin Firefox feature.
- dudus 6y ago
  You can just have multiple profiles on chrome. One logged in and one logged out.
  - srg0 6y ago
    How Chrome and Chrome-based browsers work with profiles, and push the user to log in, I have a feeling they never fully log out and there's some kind of a supercookie hanging around. Trust issue.

Mordisquitos 6y ago

The best way of not playing this game is to, well... not play it. Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? I just treat YouTube as a service that hosts videos, with a mediocre search feature, and I have no interest in what it thinks I should watch. If a real human mentions a video that piques my interest, I may watch it. If I'm interested in finding a video on a particular topic, or a specific scene from this-or-that film or TV show, I will search for it myself. If am interested enough in a certain producer's content, I may "subscribe" to them, but I will be the judge if I want to watch the latest video they uploaded.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
> Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? There is one advantage: some obscure music videos. There are some rare pearls with the comments section almost exclusively thanking YT algorithm for taking them there. Happened to me so many times that I have a separate browser instance and a Google account for YT and I'm very careful what I click when I use it.
- Mordisquitos 6y ago
  True, you do have a point there. I'll admit I have discovered a few bands/musicians by just leaving YouTube on autoplay, after having searched for specific artists I already knew to concentrate while working (before lo-fi hip hop was trending!).
- mannykannot 6y ago
  This brings us right back to square one: are the benefits of the recommending algorithms worth the downside? We can make that choice.
- mythrwy 6y ago
  Yes 100%. I have to plug this channel that came up like that a few months ago. It has a lot of obscure rock and a lot of it is really good! https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos I didn't even know there was a Jazz/Fusion rock scene in Japan in the 70's for instance. I never would have heard of this band without YouTube suggestions but really enjoying their work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg