YouTube rolled out a new layout for its homepage a couple of weeks ago, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s made using YouTube feel like an utter chore.
Complaining about YouTube product updates is run-of-the-mill online. Little tweaks usher in frustrated sighs as people try to figure out how to get things back to normal. I usually bite my tongue: sprucing up the platform to keep it feeling new is important, and there are usually deeper reasons behind the changes, such as tweaks being made to make life easier for new or casual users.
But YouTube’s latest homepage redesign changes the entire browsing experience for the worse. The homepage used to be broken up into a number of different, easily digestible sections. Algorithmic recommendations would be at the top, followed by a section of videos that were recently uploaded and featured channels you’ve shown interest in but don’t necessarily subscribe to. Scrolling further down the page, you’d find additional sections for relevant interests or creators, such as Music or Shane Dawson. Changes are coming to the new homepage — some which will bring versions of this design back — but there’s no estimated timeframe.
Now, all those sections are gone, replaced with an endless feed of recommended videos that may be tangentially related to your interests, spanning the last decade.
Sometimes, YouTube might recommend a video from a few hours ago (like a clip from The Tonight Show featuring Tom Hiddleston auditioning as Thor) or a day ago (Billie Eilish’s performance at the American Music Awards). More often than not, I’ve found a mix of random topics and nearly decade-old videos that make it more difficult and annoying to find new videos or creators than before.
I’m not alone in struggling with the redesign. Take a short trip to Reddit’s most popular YouTube forum or glance at the comments section of a recent YouTube video, and it’s apparent I’m not the only one feeling increasingly frustrated.
One Reddit user said they “haven’t really used YouTube since” the change. Another Reddit user wrote that if YouTube listened to people’s complaints, it would “know how much everyone hates this.” Another put it, perhaps, most succinctly: “this new homepage is ass.”
Changes are coming to YouTube’s homepage design on desktop, YouTube confirmed to The Verge. Eventually, people will be able to refine their homepage experience. For example, a version of “Recently Uploaded,” which will filter videos on the homepage to show most recent additions, will be available — but they won’t appear as rows. The company hopes it will be a better experience for users in the long run.
YouTube’s homepage is crucial for creators, too. YouTubers feel like landing on the front page helps drive traffic, as many creators have said in the past. Internal analysis run by the company shows that views on creators videos weren’t impacted. YouTube is vast, with more than 500 hours of content uploaded every minute. Having a focused selection of titles helped people quickly browse relevant offerings.
Users see fewer videos at once because of the redesign, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed to The Verge earlier this month. The representative said that viewers get more information about each video they’re seeing, though, and that allows creators to use longer titles. The goal is to give people using the platform more detail about a video from a quick glance.
Back when there was some level of organization — both through a limited recommended selection at the top of the page and distinct rows like “recently uploaded” — it helped to make YouTube feel tailored specifically to me, someone who watches an exorbitant amount of YouTube. Now, YouTube’s homepage gives me the same problem Netflix’s main screen does: endless scrolling. Except, instead of scrolling past some of my favorite TV shows, Oscar-winning movies, and interesting-looking titles I’ve never heard of, YouTube’s homepage is mostly videos I have no interest in ever watching. The homepage doesn’t feel tailored to me anymore. It’s just a host of different videos that someone, somewhere might like — but I don’t.
Creators have complained about the changes, too. Constant changes to YouTube affect creators all the time, and they’ve learned how to navigate those changes, adapting to survive and thrive. Some things don’t need to change, though; the homepage was one of those things.
I spend a lot of time on YouTube — partially because it’s my job, but it’s also my favorite site. The homepage used to be a crucial part of that experience. I still love watching videos, and I keep up with my subscriptions, but the once-fun act of browsing isn’t true anymore. If you don’t want to listen to me, YouTube, hear out creators.
Comments
Note to everyone: Simply because a design works on mobile doesn’t mean that it’ll also work on desktop.
By MysteryMii on 11.27.19 9:25am
I wouldn’t think it worked on mobile either, I hate the home page recommendations on the mobile app. The same extends to the desktop as well now, unfortunately. Goddamn it!
By hface on 11.27.19 9:45am
No. I’m talking about the layout of the videos.
By MysteryMii on 11.27.19 10:51am
On the next Arrested Development…
"You know, YouTube, as a developer, I have advised… a number of companies to explore a design where the format for mobile is used for the desktop as well."
"Well, did it work for those companies?"
"No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but… but it might work for us."
By quarterburn on 11.27.19 11:05am
I’m still just ignoring the ‘Accept changes to conditions’ pop up.. Wonder if they’re ever going to block me or just assume I’ve accepted?
By scooby359 on 11.27.19 9:26am
I mainly use Youtube via Roku app. I subscribe to 200 or so channels. The recent update they pushed out buried the Subscriptions at the bottom of the list on the side nav. It’s annoying. Anyways, it did seem to do a good job at recommending videos based on my subscription watches, but recently it has gone weird on me and added a lot that I would have zero interest in.
Reminds me of why I rarely use Spotify. Trying to just listen to an album seems like you’re always fighting against their lousy interface that tries to force you into playlists or whatever.
By Edwin G on 11.27.19 9:27am
Shoving subscriptions to the bottom is so annoying. You can’t even press up to get there because scrolling doesn’t wrap around. I’ve just gotten very good at holding "down" for the precise amount of time needed to get to subscriptions quickly and skipping the useless categories in the middle (which I assume they’re trying to push with this whole change).
By fragilities on 11.27.19 2:23pm
It’s way worse on my older Panasonic ‘smart’ TV – the CPU in that is so slow and moving down the list so janky that I always either under or overshoot the subscriptions menu entry
By dissss on 11.27.19 5:31pm
It’s not in the best interests of any advertising-backed content system to actually show you what you want to see. If the algorithms focused on what you wanted, then you would have already seen what you were there to view, and you would stop scrolling/clicking/etc to get to the content you like. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, they all do this. Touchy app refreshes, broken most recent views, autoplay that often goes not where you wanted it to go next. It’s not that they’re bad at making apps, it’s that they intentionally make bad apps to show you more ads.
By mbarriault on 11.27.19 9:44am
Not exactly. The more valuable ads are the once that play before the video so if you are just browsing the home screen without seeing anything that would interest you they actually are hurting their own pre roll ads. I honestly think the design change itself isn’t even the main problem here (though it certainly isn’t helping matters).
What the author described seems to be a case where the algorithm simply wasn’t good enough. Even if the homepage was just one infinite feed of recommended videos, if the algorithm can put the right videos (instead of nonsense) into that grid, the experience would be a lot less frustrating.
Not that I am defending YouTube here by any means but I feel like their recommendation algorithm is the backbone of the overall UX. Since the algorithm isn’t recommending the right videos, the entire experience falls apart. The interface itself cannot really change that
By cusaitech on 11.27.19 10:15am
To quote an Onion headline a while back, "Report: We Don’t Make Any Money if You Don’t Click the F*cking Link"
It is definitely not in any advertisers’ interests, or that of the advertisers’ host, to just show you a bunch of random thumbnails you’re not going to click on.
By badasscat1 on 11.27.19 3:06pm
God, I hate Youtube recommendations so much, why’d they bring it to the desktop? I hope that can improve as time goes on because the recommendations now are just a mess. My home page had a sense of control back when I could get rid of whatever I liked.
By hface on 11.27.19 9:47am
I wonder if you could just block whatever div all the recommended videos are in via an adblocker? I don’t really use the site by browsing the front page, so I haven’t looked into it myself, but it seems feasible enough.
By Katholikos on 11.27.19 6:53pm
It rolled this out on Roku recently. Roku is my preferred YouTube real estate, because it doesn’t ask me to Upgrade on every single page. In fact, it never does!
But they got rid of the categories that took me outside the personalized algorithm a month or two ago. Now? Now I only see videos directly related to what I’ve watched. There’s next to no exploration. Did I watch a video on painting? Now I have 400 videos either from that person, or on painting. If I’m not in the mood to watch painting, there’s nowhere for me to go to break free of that.
Worst is the "Latest" tab, one of the few remaining ones. It’s primarily playlists, not videos, which makes it hard to choose because I can’t see what’s in the playlist and, more importantly, they’re all one topic. I don’t go to YouTube for one topic, I go to bounce around killing time. Worst, you’d expect it to be, y’know, latest videos. When I went last night, one of the top videos on it was the trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home. That movie has been on streaming for over a month, how is a 2 year old trailer "Latest?" Plus, I’ve watched it already!
YouTube on Roku used to be a way to kill some time for us. We didn’t want to commit to an hour long tv show, or a 2 hour long movie, or even a 22 minute tv show we hadn’t started yet. We were looking for something to kill 15-30 minutes before we go do something else – perhaps we have something in the oven, or we have reservations in a bit. We actually used YouTube more than the TV or any streaming service. But it’s gotten kind of painful, because it just keeps pushing us to watch a version of what we just watched, despite us being there for variation. We used to have 15 minutes stretch to 30, as we kept seeing interesting new things. Now? A planned 15 often becomes 5, as one interesting video about how to make fresh cranberry sauce doesn’t mean I want to watch exclusively videos about Thanksgiving cooking.
By MosquitoControl on 11.27.19 10:08am
My biggest issue, which you mentioned, is how old the videos it recommends. Don’t recommend me a recession prediction video from 2017.
But I think all of Google underestimates the importance of newer recommendations. If I have an issue with my Iphone 11 and use Google search, I don’t want to see search results from 2012. I shouldn’t have to use the date filter as often as I currently do.
By 28-3 on 11.27.19 10:45am
I actually like it more. I’ve been seeing more videos from stuff I subscribe to rather than what YouTube thinks I will like (and usually don’t). What I would like is a material design UI/UX. See: Avdan
By mschauk on 11.27.19 11:23am
Thankfully there are extensions that get rid of this, though they also get rid of dark mode. The redesign on all apps has made me use YT less because I can’t find the stuff I want to watch and made it harder to just quickly go to subscriptions and browse. Also, the forcing of stuff I don’t want has made me stop using the mobile app unless I get a direct link. I don’t give two fXXks about stories, or creator posts, or giant thumbnails on a tiny screen, or auto playing thumbnails so I can’t read what the thumbnail even says.
Now with the redesign I see less of what I want to watch or what is actually related to what I watch. The recommended used to be decent at showing my subscriptions, which was easier than endlessly scrolling the subscriptions tab, but now burying the subscription button and not actually showing my subs makes it all pointless. Also making the subscription section show less videos makes it even harder and take longer to find videos in that feed if its been a couple days. YouTube is taking the Netflix approach. Do whatever the fXXk they want because who cares, people aren’t going to actually stop using it. Thinking it’s time to cancel my YouTube premium and just build a PiHole to block everything.
By Kandekilla on 11.27.19 12:00pm
There’s also a simple flag you can set in Chrome, although it goes back to 2 generations ago (not sure why Google even still supports this). I use this on my laptop because it shows a ton more thumbnails, plus obviously categorizes stuff the way it used to. Downside is that the default player itself is a lot smaller; you can still full-screen any video, but I did like how they made the default player bigger over time.
I’ve kept the new design on my desktop because I use it less for YouTube, but it lets me keep tabs on whether they bring back enough functionality to let me turn that Chrome flag off on my laptop. They haven’t yet…
By badasscat1 on 11.27.19 3:10pm
As someone who’s always thought Youtube’s algorithms suck, and largely couldn’t care less whether the Homepage is broken into sections that give terrible recommendations or one long infinite scroll giving terrible recommendations, I appreciate that a site that is all about the visual medium is finally acting like it isn’t 1995 with the size of video thumbnails. Though, I’d also think it’d be a very simple matter for even a Youtube intern to add a thumbnail size slider…like 10+ years ago, so my opinion on this change could be completely irrelevant.
By fueledbygin on 11.27.19 12:08pm
I’ve had a terrible experience with every single content recommendation algorithm I’ve come across except maybe Spotify’s. I always turn them off or completely ignore them if I can.
By ron1niro on 11.27.19 12:50pm
What really grinds my gears about the new interface is that videos don’t refresh when I refresh the page. I will constantly see the exact same videos I don’t want to watch at the top of the feed
By Mithril on 11.27.19 2:39pm
https://www.youtube.com/?disable_polymer=1 here you go. Bookmark it.
By The Drifter on 11.27.19 2:43pm
I can’t believe Chongo hasn’t enabled Dark Mode.
By ShawkandAwe on 11.27.19 2:59pm
I thought this was the new homepage…
By Biff_Cool on 11.27.19 3:21pm
Totally agree.
The algorithmic recommendation has gotten worse. The subdivision was really useful. The longer titles are not a good enough reason to show larger thumbnails and less videos.
By kuznetsov on 11.27.19 3:34pm