YouTube’s home feed experience may be broken again
Longtime YouTube users would attest that the quality of the content shown in the home feed has gotten progressively worse over the last several updates. In response to some of that criticism, YouTube announced a feature called “My Custom Feed” in November, giving users direct control over their home feed with custom prompts.
Although this feature hasn’t rolled out widely yet, a new bug appears to be rendering YouTube’s home feed useless, at least on the web. As detailed in Reddit complaints, the homepage refuses to show the full list of recommended videos, instead offering “3-4 videos total” (via PiunikaWeb).
One affected user notes that the feed of recommended videos only lasts a couple of scrolls, while another claims the feed is largely made up of Shorts, playlists, Playables, and ads. The responses under each of these Reddit posts show that the issue isn’t limited to a few users.
YouTube’s mobile apps are immune to this bug
For what it’s worth, I’m not seeing this issue on YouTube’s desktop interface. The recommendations are largely accurate, with a mix of relevant videos and playlists appearing over several scrolls of the home feed.
This suggests the issue is potentially limited to specific regions. We’ve reached out to YouTube for comment on the bug, and will update this post when we hear back.
Based on the responses to the aforementioned Reddit complaints and my brief time using the YouTube apps on Android and iOS, this issue appears to be limited to the desktop/web version of YouTube at the moment.
For people who routinely watch YouTube content on their desktops or laptops, though, this change can be as annoying as it gets. Recommendations in the home feed are a big part of using YouTube, as it typically gives you several rows of suggestions based on your subscriptions.
Could the ‘Your Custom Feed’ feature bear some responsibility?
There’s a theory floating around that this bug may be related to November’s “Your Custom Feed” feature. However, there’s no conclusive evidence to support it, at least not right now.
All we can do now is hope this bug is fixed relatively quickly. In the meantime, affected users can switch over to the YouTube app on their smartphones or tablets to see a relatively unchanged home feed. The feed in the YouTube app for Google TV also appears to be functioning as expected, though this option may not be accessible for everyone.
Are you facing any of these issues with the YouTube home feed?
