Videos

They are tracking you even in incognito with a VPN and even across services. People have been using these types of tools for a very long time and porn sites have been tracking people all the while. Basically your devices have enough unique attributes accessible through JavaScript API like make model, screen resolution, bluetooth radio capabilities like ble, connection speed, etc. Basically brute force every data point available in the API and use the results to build a profile to recognize you. Tools like https://modernizr.com/ while not exactly intended for this still make it easier.

Mine is like 50% vids from people I mildly dislike and 50% Vtubers. I think there is really just not very much good short content.

Edit: To clarify, I'm not anti-Vtuber, I'm just not convinced that a 30 second clip from a livestream counts as good short content. The only high quality shorts channels I'm aware of are Tom Bates (who produces Nigel and Marmalade, a series about a tiny wizard and his dog-horse best friend) and Natural Habitat Shorts (funny animations about anthro animals, based on real animal facts).

Mine is video games, guitar playthroughs, and fragments of bands I listen to performing live

I was spammed with those when shorts started. It took forever but I finally don't have those suggested anymore. As someone else posted, once creators I follow started doing shorts, those appeared as suggestions and took over the feed.

From the image, I have seen 3 of them on my youtube homepage.

It's such a distraction while you are browsing for videos... Recently I have been trying this extension to block off shorts. I think it works for the most part.

Hope this helps someone.

https://youtu.be/VUHFXnOn7mI?si=kXzjY8QIQcOw1ZlV

Are you using the app? Are you logged in?

Ask yourself why, then log out, delete the app, and go watch on a browser without logging in.

Or if you have to use an app, try Smarttube or something similar. Without logging in.