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.
I am often on the home page and complaining, this advice helped me. Thank you.
I’ve heard that the subscription feed doesn’t always show you uploads from the creators you’re subscribed to.
I must not be subscribed to enough people for that to happen.
Otherwise, I don’t let a non-subscription video live in my history unless liked it, and I generously block channels for the slightest click bait bullshit, so my home feed is pretty consistent as well.
I use YouTube in a similar fashion, I have a bunch of subscriptions and nearly exclusively watch them, and I make sure the algorithm don’t see non subscribed videos in my history.
It seems to work because I only learned about Mr beast from my nephew a year or two ago.
I still don’t know who this Mr beast is. Never had a suggestion or watched any of their videos.
This used to be true for a while, specially around the time the bell button was introduced (so the conspiracy theory is youtube made the sub feed worse on purpose), but it no longer is. There is absolutely no one showing any verification of missing sub uploads anymore, and it was super easy to verify when it happened.
YouTube has a long history of enshittifying itself and the UI with every feature release or redesign, but they seemingly, finally, stopped, after the dislike button. They got distracted with Shorts, which, for better or worse, meant they stopped fucking up other stuff.
YouTube tested an opt in feed on a group like the how the bell has like a sometimes notify mode to curate the subscription page but quickly canned that. It’s like at that point wtf does subscribing even do.
Subscription feed shows your subscriptions
If you’re worried about not getting notified about our latest upload, don’t forget to press that little bell icon …
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Yeah I use it exclusively with no issues. I do find it weird that no one else seems to use it much and relies on notifications so much.
It’s because the hot the button every time the channel asks them, constantly toggling it off an on.
Why logging in on youtube anyway? It makes it easy to track you.
Google will track you even if you don’t login.
Not me.
Yeah, don’t tell Google, but from back before they bought YouTube, they still have code running to serve RSS feeds for each channel. So, you can have a simple, chronological subscription feed without even needing an account.
Because I get a non-toxic personalized YouTube feed that does not suck…
Ok, if you’re using it as your everyday entertainment tool… i only use it for the odd youtube link and prefer written text over videos.
Would highly recommend pausing yohr watch history when you’re satisfied with the recomendations. It stops them from collecting new data based on what you watch. This doesnt affect your revomendations unless you wipe the history
I want it to continuously adapt to my ever changing interests. That’s one of the major features for me.
I had no idea people didn’t use the subscription fees. It’s the only way I engage with YouTube
My interaction with YouTube is pretty much the search bar at the top. I generally only go to YouTube when there is something specific that I want to watch/listen to: a specific song or video, etc. So there’s little reason for me to subscribe to anything.
If you block enough channels the default suggestions aren’t bad at all. I found a few channels I wouldn’t have known about that way.
That said, I spend about a minute looking at the suggestions and then dip to my subscriptions page.
Have an extension just to automatically redirect to my subscription page the moment i type in the youtube homepage. I haven’t seen the youtube front page in almost a decade and it is so worth it.
When the home page defaulted to the recommended view rather than subscriptions, many years ago, I simply saved the URL for the subscription feed as a favorite and that’s it. I never had issues, all videos from all my subscriptions show up.
I subscribe to a lot of channels, and they usually put out significantly more videos that I don’t want to watch than videos that I do. I’ll usually subscribe to a channel for a specific video in case they make more of that specific kind of video, but I won’t care about their other stuff.
For example, I subscribe to the Game Grumps channel, but I only want to watch them play games that I’ve also played, or that I at least know enough about to follow along with the gameplay without focusing all of my attention on it. If they’re playing a game I’ve never heard of - which they often do - then I don’t care to watch it.
The algorithm does a better job of showing me the videos I actually want to see than the subscription feed does because it takes into account which specific videos I’ve seen and skipped for each of my subscriptions.
I use it rarely. YouTube is good at choosing suggested videos for me that I would watch.
It is my default page for Youtube. I want to see the most recent content from creators I have subscribed to.
After exhausting the subscriptions page, then I will go to the main page for related content. Shorts and the Explore are avoided at all costs.
Same. My subscription feed is a curated list of creators whose videos I look forward to and probably watch on release. If I notice that I consistently don’t watch the new videos anymore I unsub.
I thought everyone used YT like this.
apparently it is a very low count, supposedly 2% of views.
I don’t know if the information is accurate any more, I heard it on the Hello Internet podcast quite a few years ago.
I personally never remove anything from my feed unless they’re spamming shorts or posting hate content. I’ve got channels that I haven’t watched in 5+ years that I’m still subscribed to.
I think you’re really the minority on the platform that are curating everything. When I talk to anyone else the home page is where they get most of the videos to watch.
Same. TONS of old channels just sitting there, waiting for a revival or just sitting as a memorial. However, they do have a way out, for channels that disappear and then reappear with completely new style of content. Only hapenned twice but I didn’t want them there if the stuff they were posting was going to be the norm.
I actually make a double exception for a channel getting hacked even if it was basically defunct and I hadn’t seen them in years or would be interested anymore. I remove them, then, if I figure out who they were, I get them back later once their account is back. Hapenned to Phoenix Kappashiro.
The most absurdly enduring channel on my list is marasy8. I have subscribed to them for nearly 15 years, and they have not stopped making content nor changed its nature.
Man, the bell doesn’t even fuckin’ notify me of new shit. That was the point of subscribing in the first place: So I don’t have to come and check the channel for new content all the time. It would just fucking tell me. I should not be surprised to find a video from someone I am both subscribed to and enabled notifications for on my recommended feed from 3 days ago. I should have been informed of it 3 days ago when it was uploaded.
At the very least, brand new, unwatched videos from subscriptions should be the first thing shown in your Home feed. I don’t even feel a need to subscribe to things that post several videos or even 1 video a day. If I already know their schedule because it is so regular, I can just go to their channel every day for new content so I don’t even subscribe.
The only merit subscribing and notifications have is for channels with sporadic uploads, which already get fucked over by the algorithm because they aren’t generating as much engagement due to not having as many videos.
That’s my experience as well, the bell has never functioned as I thought it would. But it may be user error on my end, I’ve never been able to get a notification for Instagram Live either.
I’ve never used this notification feature. My YouTube bookmark goes right to my subscriptions and I check that like I check Lemmy and reddit before it
Personally I remember when the main page used to be the user’s subscription feed. After they changed it, I just updated my bookmark and continued to land on the subscription feed. At some point everyone else seems to have forgotten that that happened and started pushing the bell.
One thing I’ll say though: They started making shorts take up a whole row and I’m not happy about it. I don’t really watch shorts unless they’re Hank Green’s, and then it depends on my mood. I’m on YouTube for YouTube videos, not TikTok videos
If you have ublock origin there’s a script you can put in that automatically hides YouTube shorts from your subscription page.
Them putting shorts in their own row made it much easier. You don’t even need to find a script, just right click on the shorts and block element.
Works great, until they change the page again.
Same here. My bookmark goes to the subs page.
There was a period of time a few years ago (around whenever the bell was implemented, or perhaps caused the bell to be implemented) in which the subscription feed would often just not a show a video, or maybe it wouldn’t show up until hours or even days later. I suspect for some people that made them suspicious of the subscription feed and more reliant on push notifications.
I just use subscriptions as a super-like: please keep putting this channel’s videos in my feed.
I’m generally not interested in seeing all the updates for every channel I like in one place, especially not per-artist. I just want a mix of stuff I’ll probably like in with stuff I might like, so I stand a good chance of finding something cool.
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.
