this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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[–] Lantern@lemmy.world 236 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Honestly, it’s the terrible content moderation policies that are going to kill YouTube, not a certain type of video.

[–] FoundTheVegan@kbin.social 93 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Jumper775@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (10 children)

The algorithm seems like it is optimized for profit, not for actually being a good platform.

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[–] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 90 points 1 year ago (17 children)

I'm mostly fine with shorts, except for two things:

  1. 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..)

  2. On the homepage it doesn't show who the short is from (which channel) without opening them

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

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

[–] lemann@lemmy.one 13 points 1 year ago

!assholedesign@lemmy.ml

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[–] thann@lemmy.world 84 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What if we fucked over all of the people that like our website to try and cater to people that don't like it?

[–] TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago

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

[–] detalferous@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

This is to perfectly put.

[–] juniorneptune@lemmy.world 58 points 1 year ago

Using revanced. Disabled shorts. Watching these YT shorts & recommendations decays my brain cells

[–] waz@lemmy.world 57 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't mind grabbing my pitchfork and joining the "YouTube is already ruined party", but two thoughts first:

That headline is so deliberately vague. It could literally be one employee who said "eh, I don't think YouTube shorts is a good idea".

The article itself doesn't really give you any information that isn't in the headline. It feels like an attempt to stoke anti-YouTube sentiment without providing any useful information.

...okay, with that out of the way...

Yeah, the current YouTube situation is pretty crap.

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[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mind you those are (at least some of) the guys that killed animation and comedy sketches on youtube because they made it necessary for videos to be 10+ minutes long to be relevant.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 53 points 1 year ago (4 children)

As a viewer I agree with their assessment.

Shorts is (for me) a worse viewing experience and it's just more useless junk tha clutter up my youtube main page.

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[–] viking@infosec.pub 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

God I hate shorts. Luckily you can disable them. But youtube is so riddled with ads in general, it makes watching without adblock impossible. If they'd go back to one 3 second ad at the very beginning, I might even tolerate it. But the current shitshow? Not on my system.

Doesn't help that they have a whooping 113 trackers running simultaneously.

[–] Astronautical@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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

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[–] Qxzkjp@feddit.uk 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

YouTube shorts was the dumbest fucking idea. They have a niche: long-form (as in >1min) video content. They are dominant in that niche. Then they saw TikTok was popular and dominating the short-form video scene, and their response was... "we should switch to making more short form". WTF?! And on top of that, they've diverted resources away from their main product (longer videos) as the article says. It just seems like such a catastrophic unforced error.

[–] petenu@feddit.uk 21 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] mycorrhiza@lemmy.ml 45 points 1 year ago (7 children)

not only is the shorts UI shitty but the shorts themselves are often shitty imo, or at least the "scroll through shorts one at a time" linear format means you see a lot more videos you wouldn't click on intentionally.

[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"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.

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[–] TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Advertising ruined YouTube years ago.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 year ago

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.

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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Might ruin YouTube? Brother. It's already ruined.

[–] spiderman@ani.social 20 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I like and hate their shorts page. I like the fast pace consumption of good content but half of it is rage bait, onlyfans bait, low effort content theft, and people acting obnoxious for attention. I wish I had more control over what shows in shorts because the don't recommend button doesn't seem to do anything.

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[–] DeathWearsANecktie@lemm.ee 34 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Shorts are far from being the biggest problem, the ads are much much worse.

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[–] kn0wmad1c@programming.dev 31 points 1 year ago

The terrible content moderation policies and adblock bans will ruin it long before shorts.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Shorts: just a normal YouTube video but it's too short to be useful, and most useful functionality had been removed.you can't skip ahead or go back if you didn't hear something, you just have to watch it again and again.

Shorts is something a manager came up with. It doesn't make it better, it makes it worse, but it also attracts more views, so profit!

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[–] Furbag@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't really understand the point of shorts (aside from trying to compete with TikTok). It's an arbitrary limitation of video runtime and locked to a phone screen resolution. So dumb.

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[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

might? Shorts are the main reason I found alternatives like Freetube, Newpipe and Invidious; and continue to look for actual alternative platforms.

if there was just a checkbox to turn them off forever I'd probably still be on the mainpage.

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[–] whelk@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Every time I see the little "new content" blip next to someone I've subscribed to and it ends up being a short, I feel cheated.

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[–] books@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shorts suck mainly because you can't cast them.

What good is a Chromecast where I watch long form, see short form I want to watch while browsing, can't cast it without disconnecting from the chrome cast.

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[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn't know, I have an extensive set of modification over youtube that, among other thing, completely remove them from existence. Now if only I could do the same with the bad automatic translations…

It seems every new feature of youtube is something we have to fight against.

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[–] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Bit fuckin late now isn't it, I can't even open the mobile app without being forced to watch a wish version of tiktok.

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really wish they would make it it's own thing and separate it from youtube.

[–] ilmagico@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

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[–] BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

shorts dont have 30 second ads at the beginning of them, unlike the less than 10 second videos i attempt to watch

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

who tf goes online without blocking ads

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[–] BastianAI@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

There's just something off about watching shorts and tiktok, if I use it for too long it feels like my head is going to explode. There's some great content there for things I'm interested in, like quick tips for software that I use, but if I watch 5 of those in a row I'm not going to remember anything. All in all I think the format, and regular youtube, would work a lot better if they didn't push so hard to get me to just sit there for hours on end.

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[–] Smacks@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

If they forced livestreams in your face like they do shorts maybe people would actually watch their content

[–] Siririus@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Youtube just stopped being useful. Now it's all republished TV and no personal expression. Totally boring.

[–] oogles@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

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[–] TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not a fan of how little control there is over Shorts feeds and how they are set to repeat infinitely, but people are way too overly dramatic about Shorts. It seems like it's culture shock more than anything.

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