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.
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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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.
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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.
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.
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 use it all the time since the main feed is full of fluff half the time.
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.
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How else you are supposed to know when creator posts a video?
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
How else can you use youtube??
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 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 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 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.
Seems like most people just click videos from their home page and not their subscriptions feed. If YouTube set the default page as your subscriptions we wouldn’t have that bell problem anymore but that’s not good for engagement cause people wouldn’t see different videos every time they opened YouTube so it’ll never change
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.
I use it. I have all notifications turned off, so that's how I keep up with my channels.
I never use it because all their videos pop up on my normal feed and if they’re worth watching I find them.
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On iOS iPad, the subscription feed doesn’t update/refresh after watching a video. The video remains in the queue (same place), with the red progress bar showing that it’s been watched or partially watched. Pulling down to refresh does nothing. Plus, I don’t want to watch every video from every subscription.
So instead, I use the algorithm in a way that benefits me. I let it suggest videos to watch until I feel it’s lost its way. Then I have to go and find videos from my primary interest to get the algorithm back on track.