YouTube is messed up.

[felter]

Well that's YouTube totally messed up for me as they are blocking me from the homepage as I don't allow tracking on my computer, and they don't like that. Fortunately they will not allow me to log back onto my account anyway as I don't have a mobile phone number to give to them, so they say my account is not my account, so I can't log onto it, seriously the site is messed up. Saying that, due to them doing this to me, I started to use another means of saving my subscriptions, so I can go straight to them, and it has nothing to do with YouTube, does mean I can't comment, like or properly subscribe to a channel which is bad news for YouTube and the channels and defeats what they are trying to actually achieve, at least before they were able to soak up some of my data now they get none, and I'm still blocking adds. There are people who have been watching what YouTube has been up to recently, and they are actually saying what they have been doing is having the opposite effect that advert revenue is actually falling because people are taking more extreme measures and others are being introduced to them that didn't know they even existed before. Honestly, talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

[Gavrushka]

Felter, I have something similar happening, but it's not really inhibiting me. By blocking, for me, I mean the 'recommendations' is blank with 'turn on search history' displayed on the 'start' page, but I can still be logged in and search content or use the menu items on the left hand side of the screen. - What I did notice that today the same 'turn on search history' started up on other devices, such as my tv and phone, not just my PC. - They are very, very keen to coerce you into sharing as much data as permissable, and that's a pretty sharp practice in my opinion. - I've a browser that keeps track of failed tracking attempts, and YouTube is right up there, I have to say.

US companies really don't seem to like EU privacy controls, and I imagine they've whole departments looking at pseudo legal ways of mitigating them. - I really am too old to feel comfortable in such an intrusive virtual world.

[Vertigo 7]

Youtube's been around since what, 2006? In all that time I've never once subscribed to anyone, given a like or whatever to any video, and rarely do I comment on anything there. Amazingly, the channels I enjoy all somehow make it to my feed with their newest stuff there for me to watch without having done any of afore mentioned things.

[mr.WHO]

Same here - not subscribed, not logged in, using uBlock, yet YT reccomendations seems to reliably and timely recomend me videos from channels I watch.
There is no point in engaging with YT comment section, as 80% of times it's bots or trolls or nuts.

Pretty much the only weird thing I notice, is psychopath moments, where watching nature/animals or terrarium/animals videos leads YT algorythm to reccomend you videos maimed or starving animals

[felter]

Most of the channels I watch are maker channels, mainly woodworking, woodturning and furniture flipping with some epoxy pouring on the side, and generally speaking you don't get too many trolls watching and/or commenting on them.

[KarlSten]

Wow, I haven't known that youtube has become such aggressive jerks. I only knew that they collect a lot of data and that's why I never had a youtube or a google account. And since they started to use those popup windows a few years ago where you have to consent for them to bombard you with ads and track you I started to use the Freetube client.

[Bazza]

Don't have (and never have had) a youtube account either and I also just have a page of favorites. I also get recommendations of creators I typically watch perfectly fine.

I don't have a paypal account either. Yes, I am old.. 59 to be exact and CBF with most "common" Social Media. Forums (been part of the X-Forums for 20+ years now.. and the old version before that.. although rarely post of late) and begrudgingly Discord are about the only Social Media I partake of these days.