1y ago

Do people just not use the YouTube subscription feed?

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.

213 comments

I use the subscription feed and it's how I've always used YouTube. I certainly don't want it giving me random notifications. It's not like I need to drop what I'm doing during the day just because someone published a video. When I want to watch videos, I'll go check my subscriptions.
- Agreed. In my mind every notification is a chore to be dealt with, and I'm not going to let Youtube assign me chores.
  
  I turned off notifications for everything outside text messages a couple of years ago and I could physically feel the anxiety going away. I hate this trend of notifications for the smallest things.
- I've like newpipe because it's just a clean experience of only my subscription feed. I've hated any page other than subscription on YouTube, since I can't even stand most of the thumbnails and I don't endlessly use YouTube. Don't even check out most of the videos in my own feed, so don't need all the additional clutter YouTube shows now days.
  
  If you want a desktop experience, I recommend the Unhook extension/addon for major browsers.
- This. There is no way in hell I would want to be notified of a YouTube video dropping. I'll watch when I want to watch, and it's always the subscription feed that I go for. I will scroll back to the previous spot that I had watched and go through the feed from there to see if there is anything worth watching. If no one has posted for awhile and there is nothing new to watch in my subscription feed, then I'll go to the Home feed and look at recommened videos, but 90% of the time I'm only going to check the subscription feeds.
  ReVanced Manager on mobile, and SmartTubeNext on my TVs.
- There's a YouTube setting to send you a digest each day instead of each bell as a notification.

I think most people sadly don't use subscription feed. They just blindly watch whatever youtube algorithm throws at them.
- I started with subscriptions and now I like both methods, they’re complementary. The algorithm is really good at suggesting either random stuff I like or new stuff I might like. And I subscribe for stuff I know I’ll want to watch no matter what. Works pretty well!
  
  My bookmark is set to subscriptions page but yeh, when I run out of stuff to watch I’ll see what the algo has for me
- It works though, most of my YT consumption is from the ATV feed of Smart Tube Next in my Shield TV home screen I barely ever access YT from my mobile or desktop.
  And I have found good content there, I usually just skip annoying thumbnails, but even those can have good content, badly promoted ofc, so you never know what you will find there.

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.

Wait…. Thats not how people use YouTube? I browse almost exclusively from my subscriptions page.
- Same, the front page is a scary place and god help your soul if you click on trending
  
  Really? For me the front page hits almost spot on on what I want to watch. Weird. I use subscriptions tab first and then when im done with it I move to feed to watch new stuff I might not know and almost all of them are interesting.
  
  Default front page yes. Customized with my data, no not really

I want to know who has seriously ever clicked the notification bell. YouTubers are constantly telling me to and I have never even come close. Why would I want more pointless notifications in my life?
- I use them for some YouTubers who only post once or twice a year. Very useful tool. Just because you don't see the value doesn't mean it is valueless.
- I use the subscription feed and use the notification bell for my favorite channels. I don't have notifications turned on for YouTube, but it does show in the top right corner of YouTube itself.
  I don't always feel like watching everything I'm subscribed to, so this gives me a kind of "favorites of favorites" feed.
- I have 986 subscriptions, most are small creators that don't post often. I have notifications for the key ones that I really don't want to miss.
- I think the Bell is most useful if you use it for creators like h bomber guy where you're going to get maybe one upload a year, using the notification Bell for a channel that uploads everyday would be insane.
- i use mine for my friends who ruin youtube channels!
- I have clicked the notification bell for almost all of my subscriptions. From the notification I put the video to my Watch Later if I want to watch it. For example The Escapist has some videos I want to watch and it is easy to curate them with the notifications.

That is how i use youtube, but now it is poisined with those crappy shorts. They are changing youtube into tiktok
- Shorts ruined the subscription feed.
  You can't really blame creators for trying to stay afloat, but fuck Google for not letting me turn off YT Short Notifications
- https://hideshorts.com/ ftw

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 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!!!"

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.
- If you’re worried about not getting notified about our latest upload, don’t forget to press that little bell icon …
  
  If you enjoyed this comment be sure to smash that like button below.
- 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
- 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.

I had no idea people didn't use the subscription fees. It's the only way I engage with YouTube
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.

I always use the subscription feed, in fact, my custom homepage has a link to specifically that page. However, my husband didn't even notice that there was such an option and only uses the recommended feed (we talked about it recently). I personally can't stand recommendation engines. These have destroyed my art business in social media platforms. I need chronological.
- These have destroyed my art business in social media platforms.
  What exactly do you mean by this?
  
  Not OP, but most social media sites have an algorithm that generally pushes more controversial or profitable content to the top of the feed.
  
  Not OP as well, but as someone who relies on chronological and abhors recommended/algorithm feeds: I don't doubt that it's because if a site has a chronological feed then you as an artist or content creator know that when you post something (say, 5 o'clock), it will show up on everyone's subscription/follow feed when they scroll past 5 o'clock on their feed, it 100% appears to them during their scroll. It will always be there, in that spot.
  With algorithm feeds, it's literally anyone's guess as to when or if your post will show up in their feeds, since it randomly populates what they see with content from any random time period. And good luck trying to find a post you came across the other day, or in an earlier session on the website.
  To say nothing of how a user's / business's page can appear if it's not displayed chronologically. Same issue there, only worse since you'd ideally want to be showing the most recent things you've been displaying or posting as it's most relevant to what you do.

Thank you for asking this question because this has bothered me too. I subscribe to a bunch of mostly educational Youtube channels and then the only thing I do on Youtube is go to my subscribed feed and watch them.
But then I hear people talk about how channels they subscribe to just don't ever show up on the home feed so they end up missing things. Then Youtube implemented an additional system where you not only have to subscribe but you also have to set it to be notified of new videos. Thus starting the whole problem all over again where the home feed algorithm has too much stuff you are subscribed and notified to for it to all show up.
There is this nice little feature that shows you a chronological view of subscribed video releases that everyone ignores for no reason.

Dude I've had that exact same thought. Like, yeah, the subscription is where everything is. I never use the regular home page, my bookmark for YouTube goes to my subscription.
There's zero need for me to use the bell. I never understood why people complained about videos not showing up, etc.
- TIL
  I'll admit it lol

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.
- Same here. My bookmark goes to the subs page.

TBH I don't use the subscription feed often. I subscribe to many channels and rarely clean them out after not watching them for years. So that feed is full of videos that I'm not really in the mood for right now but I might watch some day. My home feed is filled with videos that I'm currently in the mood for - from subscribed channels and new ones I can then discover.
- Same here- I rarely ever use the subscription feed. I just have notifications on for the main channels I watch regularly, and I toss those into my watch later playlist. Whenever I feel like actually watching Youtube, I just open my watch later and start from the top.
- agreed. imo YouTube has one of the best algorithms out of any social media site. maybe it's just because I've had an account for over 10 years, but it always suggests great videos

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.

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 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.

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 use it almost exclusively - I've bookmarked Subscriptions instead of any other page. But it does feel like I'm unusual in this sometimes.
- About 8 years ago I installed an extension that redirects youtube.com to youtube.com/subscriptions and then forgot the homepage exists.

The one thing I hate about the sub feed is that I can't seem to filter out shorts. I have no interest in shorts, and they make up more than half of my feed.
- Don't forget about the stories or whatever. Those are equally shitty
- Exactly this! I hate shorts...
- I just block the element. If it pops up again, I block again.
  On mobile shorts don't exist at all because I'll use ReVanced for the rest of my life.
- ReVanced Manager can remove shorts from the subscription feed on mobile, and SmartTubeNext does it on TV platforms.

I use it consistently. I, however, do not like the shorts panel taking up a ton of space in the feed now. My subs feed shouldn't have shorts from people I am not subscribed to, but it does.
- As soon as I noticed this, I immediately grabbed a userscript that removes it. It's incredible how much screen they managed to waste with the shorts display
- You can filter them out with uBlock Origin.

I almost exclusively use the subscription feed. The front page is a mess of terrible recommendations on videos I have no interest in watching.

I very much use the subscription feed. I don't know how alone I am with this, but I usually only subscribe to channels when I want to watch almost all videos they post.
A lot of the time if a creator gets a little bit popular they start to spam videos and that's when I unsubscribe, even if I generally like their content. I feel like I cannot ever keep up anymore so I just watch their videos sporadically from then on.

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.

Creators both put out so much dogshit that I have to cherry pick and also my sub feed doesn't account for actually good content.
So yeah I stopped paying attention to it. Even as a YouTube premium member.
The peak of garbage was when YouTube enforced a 10 minute watch time for max profit. They rolled it back but dude there used to be 8 minutes of fluff for a 2 minute video.

I just use RSS feeds of the YouTube channels I want to follow. I am sure that will be taken away from us soon to force us to do things the way they want. Until then ... go RSS!

I use an extension called PocketTube to manage my subscriptions into categories. I'm sure there's a better way, but it works for me.
- Newpipe does the same on mobile, ill have to try pocket tube, does it need a (yt?) account?

If you turn off history, it is very important and definitely shows in your Home feed, actually, it is the no.1 reason to turn off history

Yes thank you! I have thought the same thing and it annoys me so much when people complain about "subscriptions don't work anymore". Yes they do.

I used to, but then I got so many subs it wasn't really practical anymore. Now I just let the algorithm recommend new vids. Just too much great content creators, what can you do.

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 don't rely on it at all because it likes to omit things I assume it thinks I won't like. Plenty of times I'll see a new video from a subscribed creator on the home tab to head over to subscriptions where I can't find it but see previous ones.
If it worked that would be great, instead I use third party apps to manage it and would just stop using YouTube if those tools were unavailable.
- Newpipe or some of the other clients like it fetch youtube for channel data directly and aggrogate into a feed on your computer, verry clean way of doing it. Channel uploads by date is the last thing not AI controlled
- Yeah, I always use the sub feed but it's a mess. It's about as good as the Facebook feed for finding new videos from channels I've subscribed to.
  
  Use newpipe or simmlar, or a list of channel links to check back on every so often

I have seen myself times where someones video just is not in my sub feed, but I can see it on the Youtube channel. Happened twice in the last year with Louis Rossmann for some reason?

I don't mind the YouTube algorithm cause at least I still have the choice. With TikTok or shorts I have to actively scroll to not watch something. So I let the algorithm give me new stuff on youtube, but it tends to focus on one or two areas at a time. So if I want to see more gardening in my feed I use my sub feed and watch a few gardening vids and presto old vids from channels I'm subbed to and new vids from new channels or cool one offs from the algorithm.
But I don't like my sub feed because I have such varied interests and moods I'm not interested in 60% of it at any one time.

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.
- 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
- 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 use it all the time since the main feed is full of fluff half the time.

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 use the rss feeds, so much better.

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

Too many subscriptions Not enough time

My YT account is like 10 years old, so my subscribed tab is a mess.
Also, i like seeing what youtube throws at me cause the algorithm is actually quite good.
- Ι thought it was only me. As I can see on the comments, most peole are also having their subscribed tab a completety mess😂
- Same problem, they really need good tools to allow you to quickly review your subscriptions - there's channels in there I don't care about anymore that spam out videos making my sub tab useless. They also need to allow you to migrate your subscriptions - my account predates when they were linked to your Gmail, so my Google play music transferred to YouTube music but isn't the YouTube account I watch videos on - it's a PIA I have to switch between accounts everyone I go from music to video or vice versa.

How else you are supposed to know when creator posts a video?

How else can you use youtube??

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 don't use the subscriptions feed that much, i often just watch something i search for or something that was recomended to me. But i still don't want to get notifications from the channels i subscribe to, so i have notifications disabled for Youtube.
I still see how the notification bell can be useful for people that want to get notifications from some channels only.

I used to rely on it, but with live streams and shorts it now looks like a junkyard. Now that I've moved to Piped that has filtering by content type (videos, streams, shorts) I find myself using it again.

I use it, but I loathe having to scroll past random text posts, pics, and shorts before getting to content I actually subscribe to.

I use it. I have all notifications turned off, so that's how I keep up with my channels.

I feel like the main page though for Youtube now is essentially just a subscription feed. I watch a random video on any fucking topic, and suddenly either that channel or that topic DOMINATES my main page. My kids watch videos on my account and now my home page is just filled with crappy minecraft/roblox youtuber videos and non-sensical kid's videogame content. Like, is there an r/all version of Youtube where I can just see what videos are popular and trending with everybody? Sometimes I just want out of my small world of interests and just want to see what kind of trash everybody else is getting into. Or has society lost its collective mind and the same shit my kids are watching just so happens to be the same crap that the rest of the world is watching? I feel like I tend to see hyper-specific videos that likely only I watch on there though, and seeing other people's home pages I can tell that they're getting individualized feeds as well, so I don't think it just so happens that I'm culturally aligned with the rest of the world.
- Oh yeah there is. Open the left-hand navigation sidebar, and click on "trending" . The trending tab isn't as bad as it used to be but it's still bad.

Over time that subscriber section has become less prominent. At one time it was the way to find content you wanted to see. I think most people now just use the feed YouTube gives you.
Subscribing does seem to affect the algorithm. If nothing else it should help the creator pay the bills so you can keep getting videos from them.

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