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Some veteran YouTube staff think Shorts might ruin YouTube

⁨884⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨misk@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/3/23857451/youtube-shorts-tiktok-ads-short-video

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  • Lantern@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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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      • fubo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        “Demonetization” is just what YouTube’s promises to advertisers look like when they affect video creators.

        Money on YouTube flows from advertisers. The revenue from charging advertisers to show ads is split between YouTube/Google and the video creator. If your video is not shown with ads, then there is no revenue to split.

        YouTube gives advertisers a very small control over what videos their ads are shown on. They have a few different classifications of videos, and advertisers can choose which ones they want to be seen with. Advertisers are paying for the service of YouTube putting their ads on videos — but only the videos that YouTube thinks the advertiser does want to be seen with.

        If your video is fully “demonetized”, that means YouTube has decided that no advertisers want to be seen with it.

        Video creators’ revenue is a fraction of the ad income from YouTube showing the video (and accompanying ads). A “demonetized” video is one that doesn’t show any ads — so there is no revenue to split. It’s not that YouTube is taking all the revenue and leaving none to the video creator. They’re not making any, because they don’t think the advertisers would be okay with being charged to be seen alongside that video.

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      • Uranium3006@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        they're all paying the bills by hawking raid shadow legends anyways, may as well not rely on youtube monetization anyways and host elsewhere

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    • DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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”.

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    • admiralteal@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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.

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      • Jumper775@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • echo64@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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

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    • misk@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      This Shorts issue seems to have measurable, constant and immediate effect of 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.

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    • traveler@lemdro.id ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yup, exactly. Some of the creators I’ve seen tell some horror stories about how YouTube work. Videos being demonised for random bullshit, YouTube giving 0 support to them as it’s Googles usual behaviour.

      I feel like if some other big tech makes a decent alternative with ad revenue share it might fuck over YouTube. (And you can see how this can apply to X…)

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    • RHTeebs@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Not just terrible, but incredibly hypocritical.

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  • MargotRobbie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Might? It already has.

    If shorts were simply a separate section of YouTube with all of its functionality, then that’s understandable. But as they stand, shorts are just YouTube with both reduced functionality (forced vertical aspect ratio, no seek bar, time limit) AND all of the existing flaws (bad recommendation algorithm, reposted content, etc. )

    Unless you are some kind of tech contrarian hipster, I don’t think there is one thing that YouTube shorts does better than TikTok, or heck, Instagram Reels.

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    • TurboLag@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      no seek bar

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

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      • GayThrowaway@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        It’s actually there on mobile, just hidden.

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      • MargotRobbie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Even TikTok has a seek bar and has for a long time.

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      • WarmSoda@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I use it all time. What are you talking about?

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    • Owljfien@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Plus no volume control so you often get instantly ear blasted

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      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        That’s a mobile thing, it’s because having two volume controls was awkward

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    • liquidparasyte@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • zikk_transport2@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      shorts are just YouTube with both reduced functionality (forced vertical aspect ratio, no seek bar, time limit) AND all of the existing flaws (bad recommendation algorithm, reposted content, etc. )

      Youtube experience in a nutshell lol

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    • AdmiralShat@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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      • MargotRobbie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Pretty sure that’s one of the Revanced patches.

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  • Vlyn@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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

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    • The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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      • lemann@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        !assholedesign@lemmy.ml

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      • klisurovi4@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Install Better YouTube Shorts. You can thank me later.

        addons.mozilla.org/…/better-youtube-shorts/ …google.com/…/pehohlhkhbcfdneocgnfbnilppmfncdg

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    • visor841@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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.

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      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Hopefully desktop PC hardware will become powerful enough to gain the ability to skip around in 30 second videos someday. I think I read that they expect them to be at parity with smartphone hardware in the next decade or two.

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    • orclev@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • misk@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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.

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      • Asudox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        It’s amazing how much social credit you possibly have.

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    • whiskers@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • ObservantOcelot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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.

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    • TheAndrewBrown@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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

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      • Bjornir@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I have the exact opposite problem? I can skip around just fine in shorts, but can’t in reels… Is this due to A/B testing or am I dumb?

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  • thann@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • detalferous@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      This is to perfectly put.

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  • juniorneptune@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I blocked shorts with ublock origin.

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      • Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Ive used blocktube.

        It can also prevent auto pause. Hide the movies you can rent, hide specific channels, or videos with specific words in their title, etc

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  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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    • dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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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  • waz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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    • average_internet_enjoyer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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.

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    • misk@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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.

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  • Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You should be able to remove Shorts from your feed. I never watch them and yet they fill my feed up making it jore difficult to find real content. I’m specifically talking about the smart TV app which throws them all in together.

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    • TheGreatFox@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      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)

      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)
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      • Blizzard@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        He’s talking about smart tv app. If those “shorts” are being pulled from some other subdomain then perhaps a block rule on that domain set on the router would help. But best just not to use youtube.

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      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I don’t know what I would do with this. And I mentioned to someone else that I mostly watch YT on a Shield. Is this even relevant to me?

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    • S_H_K@lemmy.fmhy.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Surprising no one jumped onto you with thw revanced suggestions.

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    • somedaysoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      SmartTubeNext. You can turn shorts off. It blocks ads. And it has sponsorblock so it is configurable to additionally skip sponsor segments, self-promotion, intros, outros.

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      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I might have to look into that. I do wonder how it could know when a segment is sponsored.

        I don’t care that much about the ads since we already have Premium so we don’t see the ads anyways.

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      • FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        What I want is a YouTube viewer that cuts out ads that I can use on my Mac or my iPhone to use on my TV with a Chromecast.

        Chromecast is how I view all my TV content.

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    • CaptainAniki@lemmy.flight-crew.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
      [deleted]
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      • ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        There’s a little hidden button on the Shorts pane that you can see when you hover it. It gives you the ability to hide them for 30 days if you click it.

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      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I watch YouTube mostly on my TV (using a Shield) so I don’t think that would work for me.

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  • viking@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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    • Astronautical@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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      • eee@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        with uBlock Origin, right click on the shorts area > click on ublock’s “Block element” > select the Shorts section > Block

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      • Zerfallen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I target the Shorts container row element with uBlock, so it’s removed permanently from the grid.

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      • smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Details please!

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  • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Advertising ruined YouTube years ago.

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  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • Qxzkjp@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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  • metaStatic@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • AdmiralShat@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I wish I could watch shorts from only my subscribed channels.

    This isn’t a bad format inherently, it’s just being abused. I like seeing short Blender clips, or short guitar tutorial on a riff, or stand up bits that sit well within the time frame.

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  • UnD3Rgr0uNDCL0wN@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Youtube, Reddit and Twitter all have the same issue: greed. Greed is why these platforms are ruined.

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  • AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • kn0wmad1c@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • DeathWearsANecktie@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • Furbag@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • whelk@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • ElBarto@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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.

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  • books@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • anubis119@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Shorts also cannot be cast from a mobile device. If I’m going through my curated channels while casting, the app give an error and requires me to stop casting before I can watch the short. I just skip it and don’t bother anymore.

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  • cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • Siririus@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • BastianAI@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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