I have an old Google account that I only use for one specific thing today: YouTube recommendations.
Their algorithm is actually decent. Which is not something I hear myself very often. And while it can be a trap, it does actually recommend me a fair bit of high quality content as long as I stay away from the obvious traps, make sure to block channels I don’t like, and use the feature “not interested” on videos that I don’t like.
However. I would like to only use my web feed client and no Google account at all, but I would then miss out on the recommended videos.
Is there some privacy respecting alternative to this that I’m not aware of?
YouTube’s recommendation quality relies on persistent client-side state and server-side tracking tied to your account; without an authenticated session, the system lacks the cross-video context needed for accurate modeling, effectively forcing a trade-off between privacy and algorithmic relevance. Have you considered whether a local-only client with manual tag-based filtering could approximate the utility of a personalized feed without surrendering your data?
I’m fully aware of that, this is partly why I would like to avoid a Google account, even though the only thing I use it for, is YouTube. I don’t like Google at all.
A local-only client (or something that’s at least privacy respecting) is what I’m looking for, which is why this I submitted this topic. Do you have any recommendations?