alt Hacker NewsAnd the YouTube home page is blank if you have Watch History off. The recommendation algorithm still runs on the side bar of any video you watch, but the home page refuses to even show your subscriptions.
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That could be seen as a feature.
> And the YouTube home page is blank if you have Watch History off.
That one I do like. YouTube’s homepage (at least without an account and with history off) is a cesspool of uninteresting clickbait garbage so I’m glad to have it off. I do agree they seem to think of it as some kind of punishment¹, which makes it all the more satisfying that it works as I want it.
¹ It’s now entirely blank for me, but I remember when they started doing this (it wasn’t always the case) they showed a message that suggested not having a homepage was undesirable.
Yeah, this is just Google punishing people for not enabling their data harvesting.
There's no reason they can't have a mix of "this is popular in general" and "your subs and likes suggest you'd like this" on the front page - they just don't want people to disable watch history. They are required to offer that as an option, but they'll never stop pestering you about it.