• Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    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.

  • thann@lemmy.world
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    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?

  • Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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    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

          • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            On the contrary, why bother hunting the down the slider for every different player when you could just use the system?

            Just curious, since I use the youtube slider like once a month.

            • JasSmith@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I’m not the guy you asked, but I assume they do as I do. My system volume is calibrated for all the various applications I use day to day, including video conferencing. If I have to adjust that, it means everything else is the wrong volume. I’d rather modify YouTube to be the right volume than everything else.

              • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                This. My system volume is calibrated to be similar across all applications, games, etc. This means all apps are individually adjusted to reach similar volume level. Why should I have to mess with all of my other volumes just random manager at Youtube decided a volume slider on shorts isn’t necessary despite the site still using volume from regular videos where it can be adjusted? This isn’t an issue with any other app or platform. Maybe the last Youtube video I watched had overly quiet or loud audio compared to the norm and I either have insanely loud audio or I can’t hear a damned thing and I can’t fix it quickly like on any other Youtube page.

                Not everyone had a set of dedicated volume buttons, or wheel, etc. on their keyboard, so having to go into Windows settings or reach for a knob or button on the speakers themselves to adjust is a lot more than getting a slider like every other website in the world gives you.

    • whiskers@lemmings.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • TheAndrewBrown@lemm.ee
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      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

      • Bjornir@programming.dev
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        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?

    • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
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      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.

        • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
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          1 year ago

          I’m deep in Apple ecosystem and unfortunately this is not an option on Apple TV as far as I know.

            • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
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              1 year ago

              In case of Apple TV, it’s the smoothest TV software experience, leaps and bounds above any ad-ridden smart TV or aging Nvidia Shield. I used Android TV and it’s just jank. For a time I had HTPC with Kodi too, it’s been relegated to hosting Plex and downloading stuff from Usenet. I enjoyed freedom to install anything but ultimately this didn’t outweight better audio codec support on Apple TV.

                • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
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                  1 year ago

                  Not sure what you’re making a stab at.

                  Apple software is obviously ad free and I have no problem with paying for YouTube Premium due to value it provides. Some good soul on Lemmy also recommended me a way to block sponsored content via isponsorblocktv which is a script that runs on my server and skips sponsored segments by reading YouTube app state and sending fast forward commands like a remote would.

      • asudox@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s amazing how much social credit you possibly have. Xi Jinping is proud of you.

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • Neptune@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

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

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      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.

        • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Because if theres money to be made then theres a few million idiots that are happy to exploit the fuck out of the system and do essentially fuck all to earn cash.

          But without money, the platform would have sunk.

          It’s a harsh reality that all brilliant internet things have to face.

          And i hate it.

  • waz@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • average_internet_enjoyer@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
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      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.

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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    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.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • Pantsofmagic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

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

  • viking@infosec.pub
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    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.

      • eee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

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

        • DV8@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Blocking with uBlock really isn’t the same as disabling. Disabling implies you’re using the app and it’s a setting.

          • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            You can disable them in Vanced and Revanced. NewPipe either disables them by default or doesn’t even support them, which is fine with me.

            • DV8@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              None of those apps are the original and official app. Which is pretty obviously what this was about. I used to use Vanced and it never worked as easily as everyone seems to imply, and I never could get it to cast. Vanced is no longer available on the PlayStore btw, and the same can be expected for every app that tries to offer YouTube content, modified.

      • Zerfallen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

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

  • Qxzkjp@feddit.uk
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    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.

    • petenu@feddit.uk
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      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 they/them@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      “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.

      • jrubal1462@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Silver lining: It gave me the opportunity to “dislike” Jordan Peterson, which was not an opportunity I previously had.

        I mean, I guess I always HAD the option, but there’s something to be said about having somebody serve it up on a platter like that.

    • cubedsteaks@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • chuckd@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah YouTube really likes to inject videos you wouldn’t normally watch into your algorithm. It’s pretty annoying. I would never seek out religious videos, and never have on YouTube, yet they keep making their way into my feed. Even voting them down doesn’t seem to change the frequency.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • TheGreatFox@lemm.ee
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      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)
      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)
      
      • Blizzard@lemmy.zip
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        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.

        • zurohki@aussie.zone
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          1 year ago

          I’m pretty sure shorts are just Youtube videos but with a different UI.

          You can take the video ID from the URL of a Shorts clip and put it in a normal Youtube URL and the shorts video plays with the normal Youtube player.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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        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?

    • docmark@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s the hustle culture that’s been ingrained into society at this point. Every industry has it now. Get in, make as much as possible (with little to no regard for others), get out, retire early.

      After that just become an influencer showing off your lavish lifestyle for brand sponsorships for even more money.

      Shit like Tiktok and Youtube Shorts are only making things worse, faster.

      • rexxit@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Get in, make as much as possible (with little to no regard for others), get out, retire early.

        Arguably, this is what the American dream has become. It used to be we wanted middle class wealth, 2.1 kids, and a nice suburban house. But now all we want to do is sell out, retire, and never have to work again. I can relate, even if I lack the skills to play the game.

        That’s where we got antiwork, FIRE, etc. It’s true: nobody wants to work anymore. I sure don’t. Maybe we never did.

  • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
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    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.

    • sheogorath@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yeah it’s great for comedy, I’ve found a lot of really funny content I wouldn’t have found otherwise.