YouTube has made a significant change to its platform, no longer showing video recommendations to users who are logged out of their Google accounts or using Incognito mode, unless they watch a video.
Previously, YouTube’s home page would display video recommendations based on the user’s local history. However, now, if you log out of your main browser, use a browser where you haven’t logged into YouTube, or use Incognito mode, you will see a message prompting you to start watching videos to help YouTube build a feed of videos you’ll love.
This change was first noticed by Bleeping Computer. It’s unclear when exactly YouTube made this change, but it seems to be in effect now. The report also mentions that even some users who were logged in and cleared their search and watch history were also seeing the same message, indicating that the change is not limited to logged-out users.
While this change may not be welcomed by users who prefer not to have their watch history tracked by Google, it could be beneficial for those who found the random recommendations unhelpful. Additionally, this change allows users to build their video recommendations locally from scratch.
This isn’t the first time YouTube has made such a change. In August last year, the company rolled out a similar update but quickly reverted it after facing backlash from users.
