Technology

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.

I hate them, but this is kinda late...

I really think shorts should have a separate recommendation algorithm. Cause the type of videos I watch are way different than the shorts I watch but now my feed is changing

The short time restrictions have started to foster an animation revival. Youtube long ago fucked animators by prioritizing longer videos. I'm happy to see Shorts, I just think youtube needs to pump the brakes a bit on pushing it. Let it grow organically so you can butcher it at random because Google.

Perhaps it's a little too late for YouTube to ride this trend. TikTok is even pivoting to long videos, as they know where the money is.

They are right that Shorts are harming YouTube, in the same way that Windows 8 harmed Windows.

YouTube and TikTok are different things. People go to TikTok for a specific thing, people go to YouTube for something else. And YouTube sees a bunch of people on TikTok, and says 'if that's what people want we should be the ones to give it to them'. But in doing so, they are ignoring the people who WANT YouTube and NOT TikTok, by making YouTube more like TikTok.

This is just like Windows 8. Microsoft saw a bunch of people ditching desktop PCs in favor of iPads, so they said 'let's make Windows more like an iPad'. Thus, Windows 8- only one app open at once, touch-focused interface that was frustrating with a mouse. It ignored the people who WANT Windows and NOT iPad, by making Windows more like iPad.

The simple fact is, Shorts are frustrating. The lack of a scrub bar and volume control are a big part of why I DON'T like TikTok, especially on PC. And seeing that same crappy format on the desktop YouTube web interface is a big turn off.

If there was an option to just 'never show me Shorts' I'd click it in a heartbeat.

There are much bigger problems with YouTube than Shorts though. One of the biggest is their content moderation. I get it, there's 50 hours of video uploaded every minute and you can't watch it all so you let automated system handle it. Problem is, people RELY on YouTube to make a living in many cases. And when some asshole can destroy their livelihood by filing a couple hundred obviously false bot reports, that makes creators think twice. Same thing when the policies you DO have seesaw between allowing some really offensive stuff, and persecuting types of content that people in California dislike.

What YT needs to do is rethink the whole way demonetizing works. Rather than being a single flag that instantly makes a video ineligible for monetization, they should have categories of advertisements. So that way if someone wants to post a video that has controversial themes like (for example) firearms or marijuana use, rather than being entirely demonetized, the video can show ads from gun companies or smoking supply companies. Advertisers could specify what sort of controversial content they are willing to be promoted alongside, so everybody could win.

Another huge problem is their awful 'engagement algorithm'. It seems expressly designed to make low quality content bubble to the top, while the really good stuff is harder and harder to find.

They're pushing it way too hard, just like the google+ shit back in the day but even more in your face. Stinks strongly of "we have tiktok at home"

We can only hope

They're well on their way. I've gotten an extension to block them on desktop. I bet revanced can do it on mobile, too

I ducking hate how they removed functionality from them. They don't show when they were posted, you can't speed them up or slow them down, they repeat forever which is annoying if your going through the comments, the buttons being on top of the video obscures it, I can't cast them to the TV from my phone (which is weird because it will play them if I select them directly from the TV app), it's just a terrible UX overall. I never swipe up and I'm starting to get annoyed with how cumbersome it is to exit out to watch regular videos once I've watched the short I clicked on. I really don't understand why YouTube wants to sacrifice everything that makes it great to be more like tiktok. If I wanted that format, I would go to tiktok.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Senior YouTube staffers are reportedly worried that its TikTok competitor, Shorts, may eat away at its long-form content, which has for almost two decades been its primary bread and butter, according to The Financial Times.

As FT points out, YouTube’s ad revenue, though recently improved, had been on a downward year-over-year slide for three straight quarters.

YouTube is still figuring out how to reap more ad money from Shorts.

Its long-form content lets it show more ads per video, but as short-form content gradually takes over, content creators themselves are uploading fewer long videos, FT writes, citing YouTube staff fretting about internal figures.

Keeping up with that means adding features like AI summaries and NFL highlights, and even making compromises elsewhere in Google’s business to keep other industries happy and supportive of the service.

It also means investing in Shorts’ creators and incentivizing them to make exclusive content for YouTube’s service.

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