Some veteran YouTube staff think Shorts might ruin YouTube

Bingo. I don't find shorts all that appealing (especially since I can't cast them to a TV! Wtf, seems like core function there) but I agree, the REAL problem with YouTube is how much creators have to top toe around demonization.

Case in point, when youtube buried one of Caitlin Doughty's documentaries from Ask a Mortician.

The video in question: The Forgotten Disaster of the SS Eastland. It's 43 minutes long, both well done, and respectfully done. Her team did a good job on it then some youtube automated system buried it for "violating community guidelines".

I'm not even sure it is bad policies. I am pretty sure that they just don't have moderators.

I doubt anyone reads 99.9% of reports.

So you get bigotry and hate, you get insane and deadly DIYs, you get 12yo girls being creeped while posting random 5s clips from their lives.

Not to mention just the vast amount of extraordinarily low-quality content YouTube serves up. It's amazing how bad a lot of the videos it thinks you will like are. The algorithm makes no sense.

But hey, here's 16 different Joe Rogan clips with sigma male music in the background.

The terrible content moderation policies are what keep it alive. No one subscribes to youtube so it's primary customers are the ad agencies. And they want content moderation

This Shorts issue seems to have measurable, constant and immediate effect in ad revenue and therefore platform profitability. Bad content moderation may or may not decrease engagement but in the end Google is a commercial enterprise that's looking at the numbers at hand.

Not just terrible, but incredibly hypocritical.

no seek bar

I really don't understand who thought that removing the seek bar from a video player was a good idea...

Plus no volume control so you often get instantly ear blasted

It technically has a seekbar, but it's very hard to find and/or might be obscured by their capricious A/B randomized testing

I have a seek bar, is it because I'm using Revanced? I just that ot was there

You also can't adjust the volume in browser. You have to go to a normal video, change it, and then go back.

You can't move around in them, it's either play or pause and repeat, which sucks (as shorts don't have to be short..)

Oddly enough, this seems to be a desktop limitation. I can scrub backwards and forwards just fine on my phone.

It's also annoying that you can't save them without using the hack where you change the URL.

You can scrub around in them. Look for the red bar on the bottom after the short starts. You can tap and drag on it and a little red circle will appear that will show briefly after you release.

You can move around in them. Atleast on Android, there is a hidden red bar at the bottom which becomes visible if you pause the video.

This is a problem with all of these Tik Tok clones (and even Tik Tok let’s you do it for some videos). It’d so annoying to be watching a 45 second reel but if I miss something, I have to watch the whole thing again

I simply prefer TikTok for short form videos due to unique community and reasonably entertaining algorithm.

I enjoy YouTube to the point of paying for Premium but I hate that my YouTube subscriptions feed on TV is littered with shorts that I have no way of disabling other than hiding them one by one (which I do to make a point).

Suits at Google will try to shove it into everyone's throats until they get bored and someone adds it to killedbygoogle.com so why would anyone even bother with it.

Seems to be the current trend in social media this year...

This is to perfectly put.

Which I get a laugh out of, because in the early days youtube would not let you post any video longer than 10 minutes, unless you were a "special" approved account. Now, only 10+ minute videos matter. A complete about face.

I blocked shorts with ublock origin.

YouTube ruined YouTube

I swear to god these dumb social media sites are going to hell faster every day.

I used to like YouTube because I could watch all sorts of interesting things ... funny things ... informative things ... things actually liked

Now my main YouTube recommended feed is filled with clickbait thumbnails of idiots making surprised or shocked faces to try to get your attention to get you to look at their dumb video of nonsense that has zero information and is not entertaining at all.

Google ruined YouTube years ago.

Yeah honestly these are some great points, and really it's one of these reasons as to why I just dislike modern journalism today with the headlines as such.

It does cite internal metrics on ad revenues going down for three consecutive quarters due to lower potential to show ads in short videos compared to longer ones. It's anonymous and doesn't give solid figures but that's what this article is about.

I'm using some custom ublock origin filters that I found somewhere to block shorts across all of youtube:

!Youtube Shorts
www.youtube.com###guide-content #endpoint[title="Shorts"]:upward(ytd-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com###items #endpoint[title="Shorts"]:upward(ytd-mini-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse #dismissible ytd-rich-grid-slim-media[is-short]:upward(ytd-rich-section-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer ytd-compact-video-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] ytd-video-renderer span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"]:upward(ytd-item-section-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-reel-shelf-renderer
m.youtube.com##ytm-pivot-bar-renderer div.pivot-shorts:upward(ytm-pivot-bar-item-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-video-with-context-renderer:has(ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"])
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-compact-video-renderer:has(ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"])
m.youtube.com##ytm-search ytm-compact-video-renderer:has(ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"])

Also separately, for blocking videos that don't exist yet, which I also dislike:

!Youtube upcoming videos
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[overlay-style="UPCOMING"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[overlay-style="UPCOMING"])
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] ytd-video-renderer ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[overlay-style="UPCOMING"]:upward(ytd-item-section-renderer)

Surprising no one jumped onto you with thw revanced suggestions.

That's why I have a Firefox extension that automatically redirects from shorts. Although, if Google's new Web Environment Integrity goes through I guess I could kiss stuff like that goodbye.

Yeah I usually watch YouTube on my shield and it clutters up every channel with junk I have no desire to watch.

I don't disagree but there are some channels that do great shorts. For example check out squat university shorts.

Wait how do you disable shorts this is the first I'm hearing of this

YouTube have such a stranglehold on the >1m market, that's why they can afford to stagnate in that area and look into other markets. They don't have to fear a competitor threatening their core market any time soon.

"No YouTube I do not want to watch Jordon Fucking Peterson. I will NEVER want that. Fuck all the way off."

I stopped watching shorts because of the unwanted boosts of fascist content.

I watch shorts but I never swipe up. I pick which ones I want to watch.

I hate that I get such random shit in my feed when I really only look at art videos - like my scrolling should be nothing but people drawing but random shit like slime videos or some ass hat and his kid.

The interface isn't consistent between videos and shorts.

You can rewind and fast forward videos on phones by double tapping the left or right hand side of the video, but doing that on shorts just likes it.

I literally could not understand what half the ones I saw were even supposed to be about last time I went on YouTube. Like they were just random people doing shit with no punchline or point.

having no proper competitor is the only thing that's still keeping youtube on the boat.

Yeah, most of the youtube I watch is cast to the chromecast of whatever room I'm in. I can't add shorts to the queue, so I just skip them.

In the app, you can just open your subscription tab and click on the Shorts section. That way you'll only see Shorts only from your subscribed channels.

I my shorts feed is now only shows content from standup comedians. I discovered several that I really like Troy Bond, that guy is hilarious and just started doing comedy since COVID. If there's no Shorts I might not discover him.

You can watch the shorts for just one channel. But yeah it's algorithm sludge

Shorts suggestions are based on what you watch. If you spend less time watching rage/OF bait shorts or just scroll past them, they will show you less of these. 95% of my shorts scrollpage is from creators and topics that I'm interested in.

Soo looks like you just like to watch this type of content if this is what the app is serving you.

YouTube ads are so mild compared to other free content platforms though, even some paid services tbh.

And how many Youtube-based creators have adapted them SO FUCKING POORLY. The worst I've seen is the Modern Rogue, who have chopped their existing library into like ten thousand shorts. It made being a subscriber to their channel fucking useless because you'd get small snippets of content you'd already seen just shuffled up and out of context. It was especially bad before Youtube separated them into their own tab. Many others just use it as a "dump this tiktok to Youtube as well" place.

I like them for speed painting/drawing

The article indicated that, apparently, Shorts is even more unprofitable than regular YouTube. So they don't even have that going for them

I figured they were just ripping off tiktok seems to be the same kind of shit.

Right omg the queue + cast feature is the killer app. Let me queue some shorts in between longer videos.

yes i started unsubscribing some of the channels who publish daily shorts

Use Newpipe duh

Or LibreTube

I really wish they'd just kill it. We already have one tiktok, which is already one too many

Tech has just reached the maturation point.

As with every industry, there's a point where there's enough growth for a win-win for the company and consumers, so consumers benefit with new features; once that dries up the company starts squeezing, so consumers endure new features and use the product despite the changes.

who tf goes online without blocking ads

Get some New Pipes

Advertisers are also starting to realize this, and are paying less and less for TikTok. If people don't remember the comment they're actively looking for in 5 minutes, they definitely aren't going to remember the ad.

What the format is good for is reaching new subscribers, which actually makes YouTube's approach interesting because it can pull people to the longer content.

But then they go and down the "subscribed" page in shorts, completely nuking the idea.

if I use it for too long it feels like my head is going to explode

Wasn't that one of the storylines from Max Hradroom? An extremely short ad format was invented (Blipverts) that literally made people's heads explode.

God damn, have you tried looking for crap that is not just the front page of YouTube not signed in? There are endless streams of amazing content that is incredibly educational or hilarious or mind blowing if you know where to look. People making new music of all different genres with insane levels of skill, people literally sharing PhD level knowledge for free. There are plenty of valid criticisms of YouTube as a platform, and there is certainly some crap content out there, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are tons of incredibly talented and inspired content creators out there on the platform.

A lot of channels exist for profit rather than being a hobby

But if you can find the small channels then it’s still worth it. It doesn’t help that you spend more time telling it not to recommend things than actually watching what it recommends

Yeah some people want to be annoyed :D

I just blocked then in Firefox and carried on I Watch everything else through newpipe so I don't even bother:)