Even after depersonalizing my YouTube account as much as possible, it still recommends software engineering videos to me. These recommendations are not excellent, but they are good. I also watched a lot of videos about gaming before I purged my account. I still see many of those in my recommendations.
The algorithm becomes much better at giving you content you would watch as it has more data to work with. But surprisingly, even when it is SUPPOSED TO have no data, it still has enough to recommend some content in my general area of interest.
About 1/3rd of my YouTube home page seems weakly targeted to me. But the weakness of this targeting is enough to disinterest me. For example, even if YouTube understands gaming is important to me, it doesn't understand that it is important to me as a games industry professional. So it recommends Mario mods in GTA:IV rather than documentaries, analysis videos, and videos about industry trends.
I would still consider these "good recommendations" (or perhaps "informed recommendations" is more appropriate). Just not good enough for me to be engaged with the platform.
The algorithm becomes much better at giving you content you would watch as it has more data to work with. But surprisingly, even when it is SUPPOSED TO have no data, it still has enough to recommend some content in my general area of interest.
About 1/3rd of my YouTube home page seems weakly targeted to me. But the weakness of this targeting is enough to disinterest me. For example, even if YouTube understands gaming is important to me, it doesn't understand that it is important to me as a games industry professional. So it recommends Mario mods in GTA:IV rather than documentaries, analysis videos, and videos about industry trends.
I would still consider these "good recommendations" (or perhaps "informed recommendations" is more appropriate). Just not good enough for me to be engaged with the platform.