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Reminiscent of their heavy handed approach to disabling watch history on YouTube, even when paying for YouTube Premium. (Google punishes viewers who make thems

Reminiscent of their heavy handed approach to disabling watch history on YouTube, even when paying for YouTube Premium. (Google punishes viewers who make themselves less valuable to advertisers by giving them an entirely blank homepage.)

kccqzy 1y ago
It's not a punishment; it's entirely transactional. You make yourself less valuable to advertisers so you also make yourself less valuable to Google. Therefore Google provides you with fewer features such as a blank homepage. The era of Google providing costly features to users with no benefit to itself is coming to an end.
- T4iga 1y ago
  Except you missed that part where they said > Premium If you pay for it, you can expect to not be the product.
  - AlexandrB 1y ago
    I think that ship sailed a few years ago. It's better for big tech if you pay and be the product so they went ahead and did that.
jjani 1y ago
That's a gift, the opposite of a punishment.
samrus 1y ago
That was a blessing in disguise though. Its way easier for me to not binge youtube now
Workaccount2 1y ago
Wouldn't a blank homepage be exactly what you expect if you had no tracking enabled? The algorithm that generates the homepage is probably totally stunted with only empty logs to draw on.
- michaelmrose 1y ago
  You could make a list of demographic fitted choices based on info on the user. One wonders if you couldn't whip up something that would whip up a list of choices by operating locally only on the users history returning just a list of things to show on the page and forgetting it when the user closed the tab.
  - Macha 1y ago
    Honestly having occasionally glimpsed the logged out YouTube page which appears to do this... I'm glad that I don't have to deal with that either. As for what they should do, I think populating the homepage from the subscriptions list (either literally as an ordered list or by some algorithmic "watch time vs average watch time for this creator", I don't care) would be preferable.
    - Barbing 1y ago
      Great idea! If the goal were anything but discouraging disabling watch history, they’d take care to design a page not so strikingly barren. Video categories, subscriptions, trending searches (not saying we’d WANT that), Google-curated selections, recommendations based on user choices (“what kinds of videos should we show you, want daily news/sportballs/music recs?”)
  - londons_explore 1y ago
    > operating locally only on the users history Most users won't understand how that works. As far as they're concerned "youtube watches what I do", and any explanations about how the algorithm runs locally but google can still see what you watch if they look at IP logs will be far beyond a typical users desire to understand.
anton-c 1y ago
I've had my youtube watch history off for years. It still knows what I like. Hence why I open a new private browser for each session.
- Barbing 1y ago
  Have you seen EFF’s Cover Your Tracks or other browser fingerprinting test sites? I’m under the impression my use of private tabs & blockers & iCloud Private Relay is nearly useless when browsing sites of any sufficiently large company, and I won’t lie and say it’s not somewhat frustrating and disturbing.
  - anton-c 1y ago
    It probably doesn't stop any tracking - that's true. It does reset my video feed though.
    - Barbing 1y ago
      A success in that then! OK thanks for confirming I’m prob not _ludicrously_ paranoid :)
ckosidows 1y ago
Shhh! Don't let Google know about this trick. I've gotten stuck in approximately 0 doom scroll loops since disabling view history and I'd like to keep it that way.
- Barbing 1y ago
  Oh drat, me too for you buddy!

kccqzy 1y ago

It's not a punishment; it's entirely transactional. You make yourself less valuable to advertisers so you also make yourself less valuable to Google. Therefore Google provides you with fewer features such as a blank homepage. The era of Google providing costly features to users with no benefit to itself is coming to an end.

T4iga 1y ago
Except you missed that part where they said > Premium If you pay for it, you can expect to not be the product.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  I think that ship sailed a few years ago. It's better for big tech if you pay and be the product so they went ahead and did that.

jjani 1y ago

That's a gift, the opposite of a punishment.

samrus 1y ago

That was a blessing in disguise though. Its way easier for me to not binge youtube now

Workaccount2 1y ago

Wouldn't a blank homepage be exactly what you expect if you had no tracking enabled? The algorithm that generates the homepage is probably totally stunted with only empty logs to draw on.

michaelmrose 1y ago
You could make a list of demographic fitted choices based on info on the user. One wonders if you couldn't whip up something that would whip up a list of choices by operating locally only on the users history returning just a list of things to show on the page and forgetting it when the user closed the tab.
- Macha 1y ago
  Honestly having occasionally glimpsed the logged out YouTube page which appears to do this... I'm glad that I don't have to deal with that either. As for what they should do, I think populating the homepage from the subscriptions list (either literally as an ordered list or by some algorithmic "watch time vs average watch time for this creator", I don't care) would be preferable.
  - Barbing 1y ago
    Great idea! If the goal were anything but discouraging disabling watch history, they’d take care to design a page not so strikingly barren. Video categories, subscriptions, trending searches (not saying we’d WANT that), Google-curated selections, recommendations based on user choices (“what kinds of videos should we show you, want daily news/sportballs/music recs?”)
- londons_explore 1y ago
  > operating locally only on the users history Most users won't understand how that works. As far as they're concerned "youtube watches what I do", and any explanations about how the algorithm runs locally but google can still see what you watch if they look at IP logs will be far beyond a typical users desire to understand.

anton-c 1y ago

I've had my youtube watch history off for years. It still knows what I like. Hence why I open a new private browser for each session.

Barbing 1y ago
Have you seen EFF’s Cover Your Tracks or other browser fingerprinting test sites? I’m under the impression my use of private tabs & blockers & iCloud Private Relay is nearly useless when browsing sites of any sufficiently large company, and I won’t lie and say it’s not somewhat frustrating and disturbing.
- anton-c 1y ago
  It probably doesn't stop any tracking - that's true. It does reset my video feed though.
  - Barbing 1y ago
    A success in that then! OK thanks for confirming I’m prob not _ludicrously_ paranoid :)

ckosidows 1y ago

Shhh! Don't let Google know about this trick. I've gotten stuck in approximately 0 doom scroll loops since disabling view history and I'd like to keep it that way.

Barbing 1y ago
Oh drat, me too for you buddy!