I consistently hear people on YouTube complain that the subscribe button doesn’t do anything for viewers, now that channel notifications are controlled by the bell. But it does do something: it puts the videos from that channel in your subscription feed, which is readily accessible on all versions of YouTube. So why do people act like it doesn’t exist? I think it’s super convenient, especially if you’re subscribed to a ton of channels and don’t want your notifications feed flooded with new videos.
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After getting used to Invidious I think their UI is better than Youtube’s. Views are deterministic, I don’t get random videos. Subscriptions work like I think they should.
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I subscribe to a few news channels and my Subscription feed is absolutely overrun by them. There’s new videos basically every few minutes. It is sadly useless for me so I need to rely on the algorithm.
I both use subscriptions and watch what the algo shows me. According to a lot of big YouTubers I watch, their viewership mostly comes from people who find them organically and only a smaller amount of their views come from subscribers but sponsors like to see high subscriber counts as well as high view counts.
I use it sparingly. All the subscriptions/bells/whatever generate too much spam from the channels.
I have subscribed to so many channels (like, 800 of them by this point), that sometimes my subscription feed turns to shit, so I simply decide not to use it anymore.
Nowadays I only use it when I want to access my list of subscriptions.
I have zero notifications enabled and use the sub list exclusively (about to switch to RSS), although I’m probably an outlier since I have a habit of sacrificing comfort just to stick it to big tech.
My theory for the apparent need of “click the bell for notifications” is not that videos don’t show up in the subscription feed but that most people just use the home page to get informed which does not show all content. My subscription feed worked without a hitch and not a single missed video since it’s inception. I strongly believe most people just don’t know about the subscription feed.
i’ve had the same thought as you.
i regularly use the sub tab. i watch youtube on weekends while i clean, so usually on friday i’ll check my home page a few times throughout the day, see if there are any interesting recommendations and save them to my watch later.
then in the evening i do one more home page scroll, then i slowly scroll my subs page and make sure i save anything that looks interesting to my watch later. then i might watch one or two videos from my WL that evening and i watch the rest (or what i can fit in) over the weekend.
I don’t get the point of subbing to a channel if you aren’t checking your subs tab. Like…that’s why it’s there lol bc the home page is a bunch of recommendations
There was a short time when YouTube was removing videos from the feed, and the only guarantee was the bell. But that is not true for like 4 years now.
I guess those people still erroneously believe that’s how it works.
I watch YouTube way too much to ever be satisfied by any form of subscription feed. On places like Twitter all I want is the feed of people I follow, but not so much on video platforms.
I use the subscription feed. Definitely don’t use the bell. Bell is so cumbersome where you get a email for a new video, then you get that pop-up preview on your browser, and push notifications on your mobile device. Too much for me, especially since I’m at a point where I subscribe to 600 channels or so, which makes it hard to play favorites. That’s sort of what the bell is for I guess, determining whose content you value the most.
SIX HUNDRED CHANNELS. I have maybe 50, and of that most of them are defunct comedy channels like Derrick Comedy or David Mitchell’s soap box.
I guess I’ve been acculumating subscriptions for a long time. I do occasionally unsubscribe when a channel goes defunct or I lose interest or whatever, but I don’t do it regularly. I had been a videographer and broadcasting student as a teenager so I guess I wanted to find a lot of inspiration.
I only use the Subscriptions feed, and use an extension that blocks recommendations and shorts.
Additionally, before watching any video I’ll check the channel page to see if YouTube is hiding any of that person’s videos from me (which they do even on the Subscriptions feed sometimes).
Fuck the algorithm.What I don’t understand about “the algorithm” is why creators have to branch off into different channels when content differs from their main type of content.
Its often the personalities that I enjoy, whether the creator decides to put out a different type of content. So while I voraciously consume their content sometimes I’m completely unaware of separate channels because I never read video descriptions and have add-ons that block superfluous bullshit
I believe it’s because a lot of people (or, enough people that it’s a thing) will subscribe to a channel for a specific sort of content, not a personality. If the channel starts to do things that aren’t that content, then people will unsubscribe so as to avoid seeing random things they don’t want to have cluttering up their subscription feed.
YouTube punishes variety and inconsistency. By having other channels they can get those promoted in the algorithm instead of their bread and butter content.
Well I’ll be damned!
I don’t think I’ve genuinely used the subscription feed in years. The algorithm for the most part feeds me the creators I routinely watch and content in typically interesting in. Being subscribed to 500+ creators, the subscription feed doesn’t give me stuff that I am currently into.
Inb4 someone asks why I’m subbed to 500+ creators: my tastes in content change regularly, especially since I binge new creators that I find and enjoy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to watch some of my older subs, I just don’t want to /right now/ so I don’t unsub.
Same here, except my account is from 2006, so yeah, I’m subscribed to people that I haven’t watched in like a decade or more and I’m too lazy to just go and unsubscribe.
I use the suscription feed, when I’m no longer interested in a channel I unsub and move it to my bookmarks so that I can keep track of it if I want to check it or even sub again for some reason. This way I have 2 feeds: a slow one (subscription feed) which I check daily and the home feed where the algorithm might recommend me something interesting if I want something else to watch. I might check that one many times a day or sometimes not check it for weeks or even months at a time.
I sometimes also unsub from channels I would like to keep being subbed too but they are just too spammy (e.g. Northernlion would just clutter my sub feed so I moved him to bookmarks and I still check him a couple of times a week).
As for the bell I don’t use it because I don’t like notifications for most things.
Same here. I feel like the algorithm does a pretty good jos at recommending what I’m interested in. Including videos from the channels I’m subscribed to
youtube feed is a toddler you’re trying to tame. even the slightest misdirection will end you up with infinite crochet videos for 2 weeks because you watched a video about the last crochet artists in cambodia
Yes this, so much this. The worst part for me is that it includes random videos you clicked on the internet with the same weight as videos I personally selected. And since they are mainly about stuff I’m not interested in it gets even more weight.
For example somebody posts on social media “Look at my cool new toy”. It’s a YouTube video of a guy with a brand new tractor and he’s super happy about it. I like his genuine pleasure, so I give it a thumbs up. Go to sleep and wake up the next morning and YouTube be like: “Hey there, good morning. I heard you are super into tractors at the moment, so here are a million tractor vids for you.” OK, not a big deal, just pick out the videos that aren’t about tractors and watch those. No big deal, the algorithm will figure it out and fix it right? Wrong, it pushes more and more tractor vids. The next day you somehow manage to watch a non tractor video and the doorbell rings. It’s your cute neighbor and you make smalltalk with him/her for a while. Oops big fuckup, autoplay was on and it just played 10+ tractor vids for you. Now you’re an official tractor superfan and your whole life revolves around watching tractor vids. At least, that’s what the algorithm thinks.
I wished when I watch a video embedded on another site it would just not track that as being my interest. On my phone I had it configured to play youtube vids in the browser and not in the app, that helped a lot. But an update broke it, so now I have to delete it from my watch history anytime I open a YouTube vid anywhere.
Same thing with instructional videos. I got me a nice new dishwasher, but how to hook it up? Cool, they included a QR code to the brands site with clear instructions and a helpful video on how to hook it up. But oops, they hosted that video on YouTube. Now the next two weeks it’s nothing but instructions on how to hook up dishwashers you don’t own. At least it fits well with all the ads you get for the dishwashers you considered buying but ultimately didn’t decide on. That’s really useful right? Yay algorithms
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I ended up getting rid of looking at recommended videos entirely. I use Unhook to get rid of recommendeds.
I usually use the “I don’t like this” button from the triple dot option panel of the recommendations and YT doesn’t fuck around. IDK, try using that?
I mean, don’t just try to sidestep unwanted content by not watching it, but actively tell YT you dont like it form the recommendations list.
Yeah, it is weird.
I never watch duck videos. But if I watch 10 seconds of one duck video, YouTube is like:
“OH YEAH, YOU LIKE DUCK VIDEOS!? HERE ARE SOME FUCKING DUCK VIDEOS!!!”
