YouTube is rolling out an update that won’t show any videos on your home feed if you have your watch history turned off.
YouTube really wants everyone to tell them what they’re watching.
Up until now, if you used YouTube but didn’t want the company to retain knowledge of what videos you were watching on the platform, you’ve had the option to turn your watch history off. This would disable Google’s ability to keep a record of all of the videos you’ve watched. While this meant that YouTube couldn’t learn what kinds of videos you prefer and make better recommendations on suggested videos, you’d still be able to see what was generally popular or trending on the platform on the Home feed.
It appears that YouTube doesn’t like that approach anymore. In a blog post, the company announced that it will be changing how the Home feed works for users who have their watch history turned off. Basically, it won’t work. Starting today, if you have your watch history turned off, the Home tab will no longer show you any videos at all. Nothing from your subscription…nothing from trending…nothing at all.
