There are actually two different actions you can take on recommended videos that help. Just click the 3 vertical dots under a thumbnail:
"Not Interested" or "Don't recommend channel."
> There's no way to tell youtube what I like.
I can't imagine a scenario where there's a feasible way to "tell" YouTube exactly what recommended videos you want other than what it's doing now unless the content creators themselves were all on board to properly title & tag their videos. Bigger channels use clickbaity titles (eg. "I was shook when I heard this"). And smaller channels don't know how to utilize keywords.
I personally have never had an issue with YouTube recommendations, especially after using the above method to filter out things I don't want to see.
For point two, I don't think you're correct. Kids under 13 can have accounts, but only with parental approval.
For point three, you're totally right. But if you think through the implications, every aspect of that seems like an incredibly hard problem to solve. And at least my expectation is that you wouldn't get most users to actually interact with that system, since it is too complex. The perfect example of a power user feature that would get killed a few years later as expensive to maintain and little usage.
Sure, but how many parents are going to go to the trouble of setting up a separate account? Much more likely they'll just let the kid use their account.
https://support.google.com/families/answer/7124142?hl=en
> When you use Family Link to create a Google Account for your child under 13, your child can use the YouTube Kids app where it’s available. However, they can't use any other YouTube apps, websites, or features until they turn 13 and manage their own Google Account. Your child will be able to use YouTube if you added supervision to their previously existing Google Account.
If they did behave the same way, why list this as a special case but with totally different langauge.
Not interested and don't recommend channel only removes that channel. It doesn't do anything to remove all the other similar content, and it doesn't do anything to add more relevant content.
2) COPPA means youtube doesn't allow under 13s to have an account. But those children want to use the like and subscribe and notification bell. This means that youtube gets all of my viewing and all of my child's view, but can't tell the difference.
3) There's no way to tell youtube what I like. I watch tiny channels doing original songs and covers. Youtube thinks that's music, and so pushes general chart shit at me. Or it thinks it's some genre of music and pushes huge channels that are roughly that genre at me. I have no way of telling YT that it's the small channels with fewer than 1000 / 10000 subs that I want to see.