Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
I’ve been a YouTube Premium subscriber for many years now, ever since the Premium Family plan became available in Lebanon when I was living there. Other subscriptions have come and gone in that time, but not YouTube; it’s the one monthly payment I gladly make because I know it supports creators I like and saves me hours of frustration with endless ads on every device my husband and I own.
But YouTube Premium isn’t perfect. Every few months, I’ll hear about a new experiment or new feature exclusive to Premium users, and think, “Gah, this isn’t what I want!” If it were up to me, YouTube would add more robust controls and customizations and offer them to Premium subscribers, instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel with a new comment page look or silly autoplay and Shorts hooks. Specifically, there are five features I wish YouTube would add that I’d be willing to pay more for. Here they are.
Which features would you like to see in YouTube Premium? 14 votes Full home page control and customization 7 % Per channel custom playback speed, captions, and video quality 0 % More robust blocking for channels, keywords, and users 43 % Subcription grouping and organization 14 % A better YouTube experience on smart TVs 36 % Something else (tell us in the comments) 0 %
Full home page control and customization
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
I grew up in the era of personal customization, not algorithmic bastardization. I love having control over what I see in any app, service, or device I use. Instead, companies have slowly taken over and decided they would show me what they think I want, without giving me control over it, and YouTube is the biggest culprit. I don’t have any control over the app’s home screen, but I wish I had all the control.
I want to choose what shows up from my subscriptions and recommended videos. Give me a dial at the top that gives me more recommended videos on one side or limits my feed to recently published videos from the channels I follow on the other. Or a filter if that’s easier, and no, the New to you option isn’t enough. Also, let me sort those videos by most recent, most watched, or most liked so I can quickly find something that gets my interest. And let me select how many Shorts (if any) I want to see on my home screen. The Show fewer Shorts option doesn’t cut it, especially not when YouTube sometimes opens to an auto-playing Short instead of the home page.
YouTube decided to show me what it thinks I want instead of letting me choose what I want to see.
I’m also jealous of third-party YouTube clients like SmartTube that offer other home page customizations, like larger or smaller video thumbnail tiles. I’d like that, too, plus an option to hide Breaking News videos, Posts (even if they’re coming from channels I follow), Members videos I can’t watch because I’m not a paying subscriber, and random “ads” for Originals or Exclusives that I’m not interested in.
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