YouTube has made a not-so-subtle change to a feature that everyone sees, and most users have started to hate it already.
Social media platforms are constantly making changes to different features. This might be because of a wider change to bring it in line with other things on their platform, or because they’re following the formula of one of their rivals.
Over the last few months, YouTube has been making a number of changes to different things, both purposefully or not. Custom subtitles that are regularly used by VTubers were taken down for a period, while there have also been changes to let you filter out Shorts from your search.
However, there has been another change that users have noticed, as the recommended and related videos section of the left-hand side of the screen on desktop has increased in size.
YouTube’s recommended videos are now massive
The change, which hasn’t been announced by YouTube in any way, has quickly become universally hated.
“Since when did the side suggested videos tab become larger?” Redditor hafizh1495 said, showing off the increased size of thumbnails on their screen.
“It’s absolutely obnoxious, hopefully one of the extensions adds a new way to shrink it asap since it’s incredibly distracting and takes up space from the video you actually want to watch,” another user said. “WTF, this sucks,” another chimed in. “It’s just objectively worse than before,” commented another.
Some users have suggested that third-party apps will provide filters to address the change, but those, obviously, aren’t official.
To kick off 2026, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan promised that there would be more changes to make the platform “perfect” for creators and viewers.
“Our job is to really build the stage, and what I mean by that metaphor is, it’s got to be the best stage,” Mohan told CNBC.
