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Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

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Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#101

Post by kristopolous »

kbenson wrote: post #9

Honestly, that's where I get some of the most use out of YouTube, the recommended videos main page. Sometimes I'm annoyed they aren't showing me enough variation based on my subscriptions and past likes. I'm not sure why I'd want this. Sometimes I'm watching a technical presentation/talk by someone and I'll get other talks of theirs on the recommended videos for that video page, which is useful, or followup videos on…

I believe the recommended videos are now the most monetized and yield the highest profits. Things I watch almost never have ads but whenever I accidentally tap a recommended video it's usually 2 ads + interstitials + ads at the end.

And it's fine, they need to make money, I just think they're optimizing for profit and not attention these days.

I know this is not mainstream view. Go and check anecdotally right now. It's worth running some experiments and seeing if the claim had veracity.

It's currently unsubstantiated but I believe it's verifiable since >0 ads monetize better than 0 ads.

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#102

Post by stefan_ »

ttctciyf wrote: post #36
zeta0134 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how you're getting relevant recommendations; YouTube seems determined to get me into watching the latest celebrity personalities, or endless streams of clickbait. I use a few custom uBlock Origin rules to hide the recommendations sidebar and the end-of-video overlay complete. If a video doesn't show up in my list of curated subscriptions, I just don't see it, and that's fine. It's good for my feed to be…

My method: I subscribe and upvote generously, only downvote when it feels good, and do "not interested" in the sidebar recommends, with prejudice ("I don't like the video") if necessary. But the real trick is, on the yt home page, if any video that even looks like content I don't like comes up, I choose the option "don't recommend any more videos from this channel" immediately. Only in this way have I managed to comp…

This sounds like the Google News problem - there are more trash blogspam news pages found by Google daily than you can possibly ignore. I've stopped using it entirely because of this but just today it's showing stuff from "Cool Material", "Reality Tea" and "BreatheHeavy.com" (not to forget "Minimalist Baker").

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#103

Post by rebuilder »

kristopolous wrote: post #101
kbenson wrote: post #9

Honestly, that's where I get some of the most use out of YouTube, the recommended videos main page. Sometimes I'm annoyed they aren't showing me enough variation based on my subscriptions and past likes. I'm not sure why I'd want this. Sometimes I'm watching a technical presentation/talk by someone and I'll get other talks of theirs on the recommended videos for that video page, which is useful, or followup videos on…

I believe the recommended videos are now the most monetized and yield the highest profits. Things I watch almost never have ads but whenever I accidentally tap a recommended video it's usually 2 ads + interstitials + ads at the end. And it's fine, they need to make money, I just think they're optimizing for profit and not attention these days. I know this is not mainstream view. Go and check anecdotally right now. It…

It could easily be the other way around, too. Popular videos get recommended, popular videos get interest from advertisers.

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#104

Post by comprev »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #97
perihelions wrote: post #16

Related, uBlock fliters are very effective on Twitter. All of the recommendation sections are easy to select and toggle, https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%23%23%20twitter%20ublock&type... ("## twitter ublock") https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/of5z86/cleany... edit: And here's the YouTube version of that HN query -- there are several suggested ways to block YouTube Recommendations, https://hn.algolia.com/?q…

Also if you're using android, Youtube app can be replaced with NewPipe(FOSS) by exporting the YT subscription list to it[1]. No ads, No notification pollution & recommendations require manual action(Separate tab). [1] https://newpipe.net/FAQ/tutorials/import-export-data/

If you use iOS, Musi [0] can replace the YouTube app for viewing with no ads, recommendations, etc.

[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musi-simple-music-streaming/id...

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#105

Post by meribold »

NortySpock wrote: post #31
quocanh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is actually how good those recommendations are. They're designed to keep your eyes glued to the site as long as possible. It's a personal choice, but removing recommendations is one of the best things for your mental health if you're going to use YT or any social media. That said, I also find them useful. But some people believe that it's better to seek out information for yourself even if being spoonfed…

If I feel a need to watch a video, especially "watch it before you lose where you found it!" panicky feeling, I push the "Watch Later" button, and just treat that Watch Later queue as an infinitely long list of "meh, eventually I might watch it" videos. If Youtube ever gets rid of that Watch Later button I guess I'll have to push stuff I'm interested in into a list of bookmarks or a log file or something.

I do the same, but it irks me that when a video is removed or set to private, YouTube also removes the Watch Later list entry or leaves the entry but no longer shows the title or any other metadata.

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#106

Post by scrollaway »

Laforet wrote: post #72
scrollaway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to work on them a little bit but once you do, the recommendations are incredibly high quality. Just make sure to hide the stuff you don’t want to see on your homepage. I go as far as removing dumb videos from my watch history (or watching them in incognito in the first place). I find that most people who complain about the YouTube algorithm expect it to just work out of the box with zero tuning. It’s not tha…

I tried something similar and the results are a mixed bag at best. When the algorithm decides to recommend a video from a creator that I don't follow, it is usually something worth my time. However I cannot seem to stop getting recommendations for videos I have already watched despite diligently clicking the "not interested because already watched" boxes. A lesser issue is that if I don't watch the videos from a cert…

I get that issue as well, i think YouTube has a high emphasis on rewatching stuff which is not usually something i do there.. but it's easy to ignore and the rest of the recs are stellar so I'm not sure it's a problem. Plus the videos it recommends rewatching are still excellent and sometimes i even do rewatch them.

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#107

Post by Nathanba »

suketk wrote: post #64

I've tried Unhook and DF YouTube, but I replaced them both with Undistracted [0]. It's more versatile - it has better configuration, supports more sites (Reddit, Facebook, etc) and allows an arbitrary block list. The internet would be a better place with the ability to hide recommended feeds [1]. They can be useful sometimes, but mostly they're used to distract you from your goal. It's the digital equivalent of placi…

my personal solution is to block all images on youtube. I am perfectly happy browsing for information on text-only hackernews so I decided that it should be enough for video search too.

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#108

Post by midasuni »

comprev wrote: post #104
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if you're using android, Youtube app can be replaced with NewPipe(FOSS) by exporting the YT subscription list to it[1]. No ads, No notification pollution & recommendations require manual action(Separate tab). [1] https://newpipe.net/FAQ/tutorials/import-export-data/

If you use iOS, Musi [0] can replace the YouTube app for viewing with no ads, recommendations, etc. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musi-simple-music-streaming/id...

So this is a third party youtube app? Sort of YouTube-do meets VLC? And it’s Allowed by the App Store?

The description doesn’t say this, and doesn’t mention how it’s funded (you say there are no ads)

Re: Unhook: Hide YouTube Recommendations

#110

Post by avnigo »

kbenson wrote: post #9

Honestly, that's where I get some of the most use out of YouTube, the recommended videos main page. Sometimes I'm annoyed they aren't showing me enough variation based on my subscriptions and past likes. I'm not sure why I'd want this. Sometimes I'm watching a technical presentation/talk by someone and I'll get other talks of theirs on the recommended videos for that video page, which is useful, or followup videos on…

Just as the name suggests, the recommendations try to 'hook' you, and some people may prefer to purposefully navigate to videos rather than feel they're being swayed by a recommendation algorithm tuned to surface videos that might catch your eye and keep you watching, maybe for longer than you intended to.
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