Desire for More Granular Control Over Viewing History and Recommendations
Many users expressed a desire for more control over how their viewing habits affect their YouTube history and recommendations. They're looking for ways to watch videos without impacting their personalized experience.
- "I get they want to work against ad blockers, but as a Premium member I really wish there was an easy way to watch a video without it polluting my history or recommendations. I don't want to watch ads just due to that." - magicalhippo
- "_345: IIRC i stopped using this because it takes way too long to toggle on/off and another crucial mistake they make is that YouTube acts like its chrome incognito where you want full privacy and an anonymous browsing experience, I do not want that, I still want to be able to see my own history like my last few search bar queries, I just dont want NEW entries added when in incognito mode. essentially i want read only mode" - _345
- "I would love something like what Spotify has - private listening." - james_pm
- "YES. I've been wanting this for years. I want a switch that signals to the analytic/algorithm system that I am consuming this content either... A) sincerely, trustfully, optimistically, etc. ...or... B) critically, skeptically, experimentally, observationally, etc." - nick_
- "Right, but that's annoying and you gotta remember. Something easier would be nice." - magicalhippo
Current Workarounds are Clunky and Inefficient
Several users pointed out existing methods to manage history and recommendations, but described them as cumbersome.
- "Account Switcher > Turn on Incognito. (Not the chrome incognito, but YouTube incognito)" - bitpush
- "You can easily and quickly turn off watch on mobile. Don't remember if it's a hassle in the browser." - ilkke
- "You can remove videos from your watch history and in my experience that does have an impact on the recommendations as it's not factored in anymore" - sc11
- "I just have a different tab with the history page open to pause / resume history you don't even need to refresh the page you use to play videos" - arccy
- "Just delete it from watch history when your done, is what I do." - pests
YouTube Premium Perceived Value & Potential Future Changes
Some users discussed the value proposition of YouTube Premium, but also expressed concern about potential future changes or practices from YouTube.
- "IME this turns off the premium benefits, stupidly" - k12sosse
- "The YT Premium subscription suffers from being low value imo, forced bundling with YT Music which inflates prices, and little to no synergy with Google One subscriptions in most countries." - theMMaI
- "They offer a cheaper version that isn't bundled with Youtube Music, but then you get ads on official music uploads since I guess that's how the licensing works out." - ndiddy
- "I find it to be an excellent value. It’s the only streaming service I pay for. It’s full of stuff I want to watch and well worth the price." - wat10000
- "I pay for YouTube Premium, but what I am afraid will happen is that once enough users opt to pay for the service, YouTube may pull an Amazon Prime and show ads, and then ask for more money to not see the ads." - random_ind_dude
Frustration with Intrusive and "Scummy" Ads & Potential Escalation of Ad Blocking
A key theme revolves around negative experiences with YouTube ads, with some users describing them as overly frequent, intrusive, or even outright scams, leading to increased ad-blocking.
- "On YT it seems just so in your way and in your face and egregious. It's like every couple minutes there's an other ad. You can't even chromecast videos to your tv to play in the background because you have to constantly babysit it or else it will load up an ad that goes on forever or 10 minutes until you come back to skip it." - joshlemer
- "If they ran less hostile ads, people wouldn't be as hostile to watching their ads. Some of the ads they run are just ridiculous and awful. Ads for scams, soft-core porn ads, just the worst of the worst." - edwardbernays
- "I don't think it's a rationalization. I have two normie friends who were mostly fine seeing ads on the internet, until one night they saw one too many scum ads on YouTube. They asked me to help them install an adblocker...People should buy YouTube premium for the convenience features it offers, but everyone should be blocking ads for their own safety and sanity. There is no reason to engage in the ad economy. Everyone should be blocking all ads." - edwardbernays
- "I was wondering when buffering was going to be a thing. I’ve been seeing it on YT and figured it’s the Adblock wars getting heated up...The next step is to scrape the videos, strip the ads, store them on a torrent magnet and serve that instead." - absurdo
- "The next step is to auto download all the videos you might want to watch onto your plex server and strip the ads" - HDThoreaun
Locational Variance of Advertising
Some users pointed out their advertising experience varies based on geographic location and profile,
- "Where are you located? I've never seen any of those. Pretty much all of my YouTube ads are for TV shows, movies, cars, mobile games, consumer products, and various consumer services. Volkswagen, Dove, TurboTax, etc. All incredibly mainstream. Maybe you're located in a country or region maintain advertisers avoid?" - crazygringo
- "I get all the ads you mention but I have also gotten the deepfake crypto scam ads. Youtube doesn't discriminate as long as the check clears." - ujkhsjkdhf234
- "I'm in America. I only see these scummy ads I talk about, and I assume it's because I'm extremely aggressive about preventing myself from being tracked and profiled. My friends made the horrible mistake of looking into cryptocurrency on Google while signed into their account, so they got targeted by scum crypto ads." - edwardbernays
Blame for Scummy Ads Lies with Tracking Avoidance
Some people disagree on the origins of "scummy ads",
- "It sounds like you've explicitly opted yourself into the lowest common denominator ads. It's understandable that mainstream companies want to maximize their advertising impact by only targeting the viewers where there is data to suggest the viewers will actually be interested in their products...I'm honestly not really sure why you're complaining. If you don't want to be tracked or profiled, you're going to get the lowest quality ads. Why do you think higher-quality advertisers should be wasting money trying to reach you, when you are going out of your way to avoid any interest in them?" - crazygringo
- "I'm not complaining that higher-quality advertisers aren't spending money trying to reach me. I'm saying the fact that the lowest common denominator ads are so hostile is reason enough to completely avoid them...The fact that the worst ads are the way that they are is indicative of YouTube's willingness to engage in user-hostile activities." - edwardbernays