I hate them, but this is kinda late…
Some veteran YouTube staff think Shorts might ruin YouTube
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
Comments
shotgun_crab@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Smacks@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If they forced livestreams in your face like they do shorts maybe people would actually watch their content
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
funky_rodent@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
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:)
Monomate@lemm.ee 1 year ago
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.
hark@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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”
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.net 1 year ago
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.
secret301@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
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
DLSchichtl@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
phx@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I don’t have an issue with the shorts, I have an issue with how they’re mixed in with regular content and other than being recent often have little to no bearing on what the user is viewing or searching for
DLSchichtl@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, that is a gripe I have with them. I’d like to stick to one topic sometimes, youtube.
thecam@lemmy.world 1 year ago
YouTube ruined itself with censorship.
JasSmith@kbin.social 1 year ago
Lots of people downvoting you apparently love censorship. Probably only when it censors things they don’t like, of course.
thecam@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Facts
dipshit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There are only about 100 shorts in total on youtube, it seems. I would get 1-100 and even though I’ve disliked all of them, or clicked “don’t show me this channel again”, It will start back at #1 after I reach 100. It’s really, really bad, and most of the shorts videos are advice on how to start a powerwashing business.
meekah@lemmy.world 1 year ago
what? that’s not my experience with shorts at all. There are plenty of different shorts, and I have no repetition (aisde from the regular copycats). Maybe the algorithm is like “dont like what I’m giving you? well fuck you too” lol
frododouchebaggins@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That person is not being honest. They want us to believe they disliked 100 consecutive shorts and on 101 it looped back to the first short? A total lie.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 1 year ago
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.
The original article contains 169 words, the summary contains 151 words. Saved 11%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
FireTower@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Since they added it I’ve moved over to revanced which allows you to remove it.
UnculturedSwine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
gummybootpiloot@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t think it’s going anywhere. People get lost in shorts really quickly, especially on your phone. It’s the algorithm being able to decide who you are and how to get engagement out of you at a much faster rate then regular videos.
Nobody asked for this, nobody wants it on youtube. But it keeps people on the platform longer and it feeds the algorithm fast. So it’s not going anywhere
cloud@lazysoci.al 1 year ago
We can only hope
Dick_Justice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I enjoy YouTube Shorts a great deal. It could definitely be easier to curate your feed than it is, but I have a great deal of intractable pain at all times, and I like the fluffy format. It’s easy to digest and understand and move on to the next one when my attention span is completely destroyed by the constant intense pain. Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets me through the day.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
As a fellow chronic pain sufferer, I sympathize. But the answer is not to make YouTube more like TikTok, it’s for people like you to go to TikTok, which is already set up for viewing like that. The world is not built to cater to people like you and me. We’re a minority and we need special care and we can’t expect everyone else to accommodate that.
Dick_Justice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Tiktok doesn’t have shorts from all my favorite channels. Shorts. Is obviously supposed be YouTube’s “answer” to Tiktok, but it’s a different vibe, IMHO. I’ve tried to get into Tiktok and it just doesn’t do it for me.
IMHO, I think they just need to add a toggle for shorts so that people can opt out (or in, whichever).
malloc@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Then in 10 years when some disrupting service releases “ephemeral” video clips that last <1 ms and get deleted; and YT implements it. The YT veteran staff of the future will think that is ruining YT shorts
doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
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
Dasnap@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Can confirm ReVanced can completely remove Shorts from all parts of the app, same with SmartTube on TV.
doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Dope, time to update revanced then
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I think they are a great addition for the short 1 minute ideas some youtubers have that may as well be posted on their 2nd channel.
Imo it could be improved with a landscape option and longer than 1min vids.bela@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I can’t tell if this is a joke. What would make them different in any way if they could be long form, landscape content?
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Idk really. At that point it would be like a regular video.
But YT treats shorts differently so idk what the upsides (currently) are on the creator side.
And if they are beneficiary for the creator in regards to <1min content, why not give them the option of uploading in landscape. The more options the merrier?
CryptoRoberto@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
YouTubers already become a steaming pile of shit, the shorts being pushed in your face constantly is just a symptom. Their algo, content and ads are just horrific. I used to surf YouTube a ton, now I only go when I’m looking for specific instructional type videos, maybe a review. Watch that and leave.
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No way!
HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 year ago
As right as they are, I still can’t help but think “To be fair Youtube was ruined when you let Viacom write the playbook for it.”
Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sounds like old guys complaining about the new move their employer is making.
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Sounds like the old guys at work questioning why the 70 year old CEO is dressing like a teenager, hanging out with young women, and driving a Subaru WRX to work.
This content is better suited to TikTok and YouTube meddling with stuff like this, especially with regards to their algorithm, has killed tons of valuable types of content in the past.
Pratai@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Why the fuck do people still put content on that shit platform? Stop complaint about it and just leave. This Stockholm relationship shit has been going on for years now. Just quit using it.
AnonTwo@kbin.social 1 year ago
And go where?? Most of the platforms either
-Can't handle it
-Have no monetization plan for content creators
-Doesn't support streaming for streamers
-Just hasn't been hit yet by lawyersPratai@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
And go nowhere. If you have no other recourse but to post videoed on YouTube, re-evaluate your life. It’s not one’s only option. Either they or admit your Stockholm-like relationship, and learn to love your oppressor. Because its fucking annoying to hear people constantly complaining about their relationship while remaining in it.
Clbull@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Shorts are fine. Only minor complaint is that they lack descriptions and play like shit on desktop. Some of us like to browse YouTube on a computer on occasion…
CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Not much left to ruin…
HollandJim@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If we could only decide WHICH channels we want - let the people who want shorts have it, shitty as it is. Just let me turn it off (and games, film and music while we’re at it).
I never used them. I never will use them. They are just in the way and keep me praying for a YT alternative.
cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Get some New Pipes
HollandJim@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Looks nice, but different platform.