YouTube Releases Its First-Ever Recap of Videos You've Watched (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0180275719
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/03/1721213/youtube-releases-its-first-ever-recap-of-videos-youve-watched
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/02/youtube-releases-its-first-ever-recap-of-videos-youve-watched/
> Users can find their Recap directly on the YouTube homepage or under the "You" tab. Recaps are accessible on mobile devices and desktop. YouTube says the new feature was requested by users and that it conducted over 50 different concept tests before landing on the final product. Alongside the launch of Recap, YouTube also released trend charts showcasing the top creators, podcasts, and songs of the year.
[1] https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-recap-2025/
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/02/youtube-releases-its-first-ever-recap-of-videos-youve-watched/
File it under: Creepy (Score:2)
Perhaps it would show a marker when you most-likely went to the bathroom.
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Timeout: 2 minutes, 32 seconds. Time threshold for urination VS defecation: 1 minute, 27 seconds. Deification probability: 77.5%. Overall advertisement exposure probability: low. Probability of advertising effectiveness: moderate. Probability of video advertising effectiveness: extremely low....
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If you're gone too long they'll start showing you ads for constipation remedies.
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My wife thinks it knows when she gets up to go to the kitchen or bathroom because that's when the ads start. I'm thinking it's just coincidence. And hoping I'm right.
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If she's pressed Pause in the Youtube app on her smart tv, its likely that either youtube, or the tv itself are playing ads, albeit to an empty room.
Why would folks stay logged in to Youtube? (Score:2)
I understand some folks use them as a TV substitute, so in that case I get it.
But for casual users, why? I mostly view videos embedded on other sites, no account needed. Sometimes I'll run a long video in a different tab to listen to an interview or something, still no account needed. I see no reason to care about being logged in.
If this is them "adding value to the logged-in experience", yeah, still no reason.
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Probably so you can be quickly notified about when the channels you subscribed to post fresh content.
It's quite effective, as I find that I get notified about new videos just minutes after they're posted. Give me a chance to post a comment on the video that people will actually read, instead of getting buried in the other 2,000 comments for a popular video.
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Channel subscriptions, and I have my own channel that I manage.
I don't use that Google account for anything else though, so there's that. It's not logged in to my smartphone either. I have a throwaway account that holds my contacts in case I lose or break my phone. I got tired of re-entering the contacts by hand each time I got a new phone, so I gave up on staying logged out entirely on the smartphone.
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You think that they couldn't still send you a list of every video you've ever watched?
Users are marketing features for their real custom (Score:3)
"You people are bought and paid for" ~Carlin
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> no one fucking cares what you watched or listened to over the year. literally no one. not even you. you might glance at it for a minute or two at most but it doesn't matter it doesnt mean anything and most importantly - say it with me - NO. ONE. CARES.
NO. ONE. CARES..to PAY for shit online they use constantly.
Therefore, the ones that DO pay for all that are doing something to recoup their costs.
Lets all try and remember American GDP is derived from clickbait now. And I really don't see an obvious exception for you here, Product.
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> will you shut the fuck up??
> your comment has no connection to mine. fuck off and start your own thread you fucking loser.
Say it with feeling this time. NO. ONE. CARES.
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You're posting AC. There's no reason to assume this post came from the same angry person that posted the first one. Heck, I'll go ahead and assume this is your first post here ever; and politely request that you tone down the obscenities.
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That's a fair point, but it misses that they are still going to harvest and sell your data even if you are a paying Youtube customer.
Which is one of the reasons I would be in favor of legislation requiring companies to pick a revenue stream and stick with it. Charge customers for the service OR give it away and sell the data OR run ads. No more combinations. No more running ads on paid services, no more harvesting data and running ads, no selling data for paid subscribers.
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The people who are making money from your data care.
hopefully not... (Score:2)
Hopefully not if you've left your YouTube watch history turned off.
Go to your Google Account settings, click "my activity" and then there is a button for YouTube history where you can disable it if you don't want them needlessly collecting data about your watch habits.
This will however make your YouTube landing page blank. But your subscription page for following channels still works the same.
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> .. there is a button for YouTube history where you can disable it if you don't want them needlessly collecting data about your watch habits.
How do you know that merely doesn't disable displaying your watch history to you but they keep track of it anyway?
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Knowing Google, it's quite the possibility. To avoid that, you would need to stay logged out, use private browsing in a browser that isn't chrome, and use proxies to vary your IP address, and probably randomly spoof your browser type and OS type to avoid other methods of profiling. I don't think I care that much.
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I think you know...that they do exactly that, just like Apple leaves their devices listening even when you configure SirI to be off. Of course they do.
What I'd like is that, given YouTube knows what you've watched, that it stop recommending your watched videos. But that would be a feature for MY benefit, not Google's.
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"... that it stop recommending your watched videos."
I get surprised by the number of recently watched vids it displays (once or twice a session or so). But whatever, it doesn't affect my flow.
And actually I like when an old favorite occasionally scrolls across. I expect in thirty years all the old 'tubers will be watching favorite AI curated videos of their youth, and enjoying it "because it's not like the crap the new generation is putting out".
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I'm not an important enough person for Google to care what I'm watching on their platform. Take my data. Use it to recommend videos I might like. Show me ads for things I might want to buy. I'm totally fine with it.
I'm sure someone cares but (Score:1)
I really don't want this "feature". What I want is for existing features to work correctly.
For example, automated subtitling. For some reason the subtitles sometimes just stop coming for a while, then you get half a minute's subtitles all at once so you have to pause to read them. I've been watching foreign content lately and I depend on this functionality to understand what's happening, and it often just doesn't work right.
If Google could just pull their head out of their ass long enough to make their serv
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Just take it as a friendly reminder that their primary concern is spying on you all of the time.
YouTube? Anybody still cares? (Score:2)
That is somewhat surprising to me. They are 95% crap these days.
Nobody asked for this but... (Score:2)
Nobody asked for this but legions of YT creators have been screaming for fairer moderation and an appeals process that works. Even more YT viewers have been asking for an end to the relentless onslaught of crappy AI-generated scam ads for obviously bogus "7 second health hacks", fake AC units, ridiculously ineffective heaters, pressure-washers, robot dogs that are just stuffed animals, etc, etc. Don't even get me started on AI-slop.
Last time I complained about a scam ad, @teamyoutube told me just to blo
BAH (Score:2)
It's something... I HATE it!
Really? Are ya sure about that? (Score:2)
> YouTube says the new feature was requested by users...
I cast disbelieve. Nobody fucking requests recaps. I'll sometimes poke at my history specifically to find that video by that one band that I remember being good, but can't remember the name of, but I *NEVER* want a summary recap of my history. This sounds more like some marketing department wet dream come to life than something any normal user would request.
We're almost to the point where it seems we'll be getting recaps of our recaps on top of our recaps to recap our recap from the previous years' recaps.
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> YouTube says the new feature was requested by users...
Google's motto was once: Don't be evil
YouTube's motto is now: Don't be honest
Oh what a helpful reminder! (Score:2)
That they are WATCHING and they NEVER FORGET.
What a nice way to make it seem like they're doing you a favor instead of spying on you all the damn time.
Badger badger badger badger (Score:1)
Look, I know which video I watched.
Are they going to tell me how many times I watched it?
Fix the broken playback speed! (Score:2)
They completely broke the playback speed feature which was a great way to overcome slow talkers. I can't be 100% sure but I think that it may either be controllable by the content creator or by YouTube because some videos have it but new stuff doesn't. It's almost like "no, you can't speed up this painfully slow video because we don't want you to until it's old and out of date." Like not being able to skip over commercials.
Really? (Score:2)
Then it KNOWS which videos I have already watched and STILL offers them to me as 'new' without any indication that it is old crap I watched 5 or 10 years ago?
I don't want a recap (Score:2)
I want AI tools that help me find the videos I'm interested in, whether or not they are popular or monetized
Now if PornHub would do this (Score:2)
then it might not be such a bad idea maybe, my friend tells me.
More Junk (Score:3)
Just more crap to wade through.
If I want to keep track of things I either subscribe or I put it into a playlist etc