- YouTube is testing a new feature that stops sending you notifications from channels you no longer watch
- The aim of the feature is to stop users from turning off push notifications altogether, instead adjusting certain alert settings for them.
- It could be a blessing for subscribers who are bombarded with unwanted notifications but not so much for YouTube creators
Clearing your YouTube notifications is a chore in itself, and it’s not the easiest, especially when you’re subscribed to channels that upload constantly – but YouTube is working on fixing that. In a new test, YouTube is turning off notifications from channels you no longer engage with, and the days of overwhelming push notifications are almost behind us.
YouTube made the announcement a few days ago, and it’s aimed specifically at subscribers who have their notifications set to ‘All’, but don’t open these alerts. Notifications will still appear in your notification box in the YouTube app, but the platform will turn off push alerts so that you’re not bombarded with unwanted updates. YouTube has gone into detail about how this will pan out, stating the following in its announcement;
“Viewers who haven’t recently engaged with a channel despite having been sent recent push notifications will not receive push notifications in the experiment. Notifications will still be available via the notification inbox in the YouTube app. Channels that upload infrequently will not have their notifications affected”. It’s not certain if users will be notified if they’re missing these alerts, nor the duration of this experiment.
When creators upload content to YouTube, one of the main ways for them to boost views and subscriber count is to encourage viewers to turn on notifications so that they can be informed when a new video has been uploaded. If you’re a frequent YouTube user and serial video watcher like me, then you’ve probably found yourself turning on notifications for every channel possible, which, in retrospect, results in an overwhelming wave of alerts – but the aim of YouTube’s test is more than simply diluting excessive notifications.
Another time-saving perk, but one that could cost creators
There’s no arguing that having a platform take control of your notification settings is unorthodox and crosses the line into an invasion of personal settings. But this test could result in another time-saving perk from YouTube following its recent playback queue experiments.
Although it’s easy to amend your notification settings to avoid an avalanche of alerts, it’s common for YouTube subscribers to disable these altogether instead of adjusting the settings per channel – I’d know, I’m guilty of this. With this latest experiment, YouTube aims to sway viewers from disabling notifications entirely just because their notifications inboxes are stacking up, which is a helpful feature and one that I’m certain to be thankful for in the long run, but I can see how this can be damaging to creators.
Push notifications are one of the main things YouTube creators rely on to get their views up and keep their audience engaged as they directly alert their subscribers when videos go live, so YouTube making the executive decision for viewers to no longer receive alerts from channels is a bold move.
The platform is going through a lot of changes right now, having just launched its YouTube Premium Lite subscription tier, but let’s hope it pays equal attention to the needs of those who rely on their YouTube channel to make a living.
