zlacker

>>jayden+(OP)
For a long time the grid of videos on the homepage has been slightly misaligned. I imagine the different rows belong to different teams. This means you can't hover your mouse in the gaps between columns while you scroll to prevent videos autoplaying when moused over.

I find the autoplay so annoying because it hides the thumbnail which was carefully designed to communicate why I should click on the video and replaces it with, usually, a talking head or stock footage. Often the video gets inexplicably added to my watch history, and if I do choose to click on it I have to go back to the beginning because I missed the start of the audio

>>rozab+V8
> This means you can't hover your mouse in the gaps between columns while you scroll to prevent videos autoplaying when moused over

You can disable autoplay at https://www.youtube.com/account_playback, then uncheck "Video previews". It resets itself every 15 days or so, but at least one can have some peace in the meantime.

>>tambou+3b
> It resets itself every 15 days or so

Are you saying that YouTube just alters your preferences?

>>Levita+Jb
It seems to do that all the time. Try hiding YouTube shorts and they just come back.

>>PaulHo+pc
If you turn off watch history it completely disables shorts as a whole (with no recommendations on the homepage as a side effect, but one I'm willing to live with). >>42795204

>>nobody+xe
The no recommendations at all sure feels like malicious compliance with California privacy law.

Even while pretending they've not recorded your viewing history they could still make recommendations from your subscriptions or give you the same glurg that they give viewers they know nothing about... but instead they break the site.

It's still better than having shorts on the screen.

>>nullc+Zn
Yup yup yup. If you actually care about recommending things I'll want to watch, my subscriptions list is the strongest signal there is anyway, surely!

>>OJFord+Cp
The word "want" is the key there -- they have zero interest in what you 'want' to watch, they have every interest in what will compel you to watch for the longest time! Maybe a certain person wants to watch a few 2-minute cute cat videos, and subscribe to those exclusively. But research showed Google that those people's watch minutes per day can be tripled if you fill their homepage with "Trump did WHAT?" videos (or whatever effectively baits their rage, makes them more afraid, or stokes some addiction or anxiety).

>>xp84+TA
Short term yes, but long term it turns people away from YouTube.

A year ago, I had a serious YouTube habit, once I replaced my trash Jellyfin server with a Plex server I can listen to my music collection on my phone anywhere… so no more music from YouTube. I got tired of asmongold and all his imitator gaming YouTubers, fell out of the habit of watching Ukraine warbloggers, etc. I saw other people who got into toxic rabbit holes in YouTube so bad that they decided to physically destroy their computers…

>>PaulHo+MC
Gambling has been around forever. Hyper aggressive slot machines do nothing to dissuade addicts, and dark patterns on the web are the same. They are trying to build addiction, and addiction doesn't care that something hurts to do, you need it.

The few of us who go "ew" and recoil are vastly outnumbered by the billions who just watch.

Every complaint about ads on youtube is someone who can't even be bothered to download an adblocker before Chrome killed it. It was one click, but that didn't dissuade the vast majority of eyeballs.