• MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
    1283·
    9 months ago

    I still don’t understand the appeal of YouTube shorts… It feels like the rational behind it is “hey, I can watch 10 meaningless shorts in the same amount of time it would take to watch one video that has an actual point”. I guess that’s why I’ve never gotten in to tiktok either lol

    • yata@sh.itjust.works
      29·
      9 months ago

      There isnt any appeal. It is just them trying to carve into that tiktok market, but the people watching tiktok are already just watching tiktok, so it is basically just there to annoy the rest of us.

    • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
      143·
      9 months ago

      It’s funny because everyone shits on tiktok for it’s short videos yet I regularly watch videos that are 3-5 minutes long if not longer.

      Your feed shows you what you interact with. Outside of ads I rarely see content that’s not related to my interests and most of the videos I see are much longer than a vine.

      Which is especially ironic to me how vines weren’t considered attention span killing brain rot that everyone sees tiktok to be.

      • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
        71·
        9 months ago

        Unless I’m looking up something very specific I generally don’t bother with videos that are less than 15 minutes long anymore. Otherwise I feel like I’m spending more time looking for more videos than actually watching them…

    • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
      11·
      9 months ago

      Tiktok just doesn’t seem worth it to me. Why would I spend days scrolling past cringey dance videos until the algorithm figures me out, when I can just see all the best Tiktoks reposted on Lemmy and Reddit?

    • gila@lemm.ee
      3·
      9 months ago

      The appeal is to the creators, resulting from the differences in unit economics for monetisation structures related to youtube shorts, tiktok, reels, snapchat etc., vs. conventional youtube, facebook or instagram videos.

      And also there’s appeal to Youtube as a platform, being a place logically suited to this new paradigm of shorter vertical videos where discovery is mostly algorithmically driven but having some issues with the organisational structure of their content that make it uncompetitive with platforms which popularised the format.

      It’s not appealing to Youtube users because a choice to use Youtube has historically always included a deference to the conventional youtube video format. People that prefer tiktok format would organically become tiktok users not because tiktok is a better platform than Shorts for it, but because youtube already existed and established its own format, so it’s not the logical place to go for something that isn’t that.

    • flames5123@lemmy.world
      3·
      9 months ago

      I get the appeal, I just hate that I can’t cast them to my TV normally. I can watch shorts on the TV, but I have to disconnect the devices (phones). I can watch it on my phone, but I have to disconnect from the TV, ending the queue. BUT I can watch them on my phone the look into my history and cast them as a normal video. WHY IS THIS PROCESS EVEN THERE IF THERE CAN BE A NORMAL FUCKING VIDEO???

      I’m just so tired of the stupid shit.

  • someguy3@lemmy.caEnglish
    58·
    9 months ago

    Search on YouTube is truly terrible now. 8/10 results are sponsored ads, other things you may like, watch it again, etc. Like wtf I literally searched something else.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
      36·
      9 months ago

      It’s actually really really shitty. A search result shouldn’t show just general recommendations and definitely shouldn’t ignore your query in favor of showing ads for bigger videos completely unrelated.

      That actually makes the platform completely garbage.

      YouTube is just public broadcast TV now anyways and needs to start being regulated as such.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        9 months ago

        Is this a power user problem somehow?

        They had to’ve [A/B test] optimized it to the absolute stay-on-YouTube-as-long-as-possible max, if that’s not being too generous.

        Does the general public disregard their original search intent often enough by clicking unrelated videos that it makes sense to spam us like that? Lemmings hate it for sure, but the data must show it’s beneficial… wondering if I’m missing something.

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
          4·
          9 months ago

          Oh absolutely I bet it works to distract people to click on a different video and fall into a whole of watching more. I think it’s easy to forget about the mass of lonely sad people who don’t talk to anyone or do much other than eat and then turn on YouTube till it’s time to sleep.

          Easier to feed their addiction if you just make it easy to get the drug.

    • maness300@lemmy.world
      16·
      9 months ago

      I fucking hate how they mix in “popular” videos with your search results.

      Like, the first few results are related, then there’s a few that are completely unrelated but “popular”. Then they go back to showing related results.

      They don’t even try to differentiate between the two. It’s scummy as hell and yet another nail in the coffin for youtube.

    • daellat@lemmy.world
      4·
      9 months ago

      It is shit but if you click on the videos button after the search it’s a lot more like what it used to be. Not completely though.

  • RegalPotoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    421·
    9 months ago

    For some reason, the 4th video on my “home” feed is always a video with ~300 views from some small account I’ve never heard of on a topic I’m only passingly interested in.

    For a while YouTube got weirdly fixated on showing me videos about steam trains. At the moment, it’s a video called “20 Random Yet Interesting Facts”; a 5 day old video with 220 views from a channel called “The Fact Files”

    • Dutczar@sopuli.xyz
      221·
      9 months ago

      I actually watch those small accounts (they tend to be short and related to games I know), it feels a bit more comfy when the guy actually reads and replies to my comment.

      I think I also came upon aftermath of some personal quarrel between the account and a commenter, they were talking about how sorry they were and the guy accepted the apology. It was wholesome, and probably as memorable as other videos I waste time on watch.

    • yggstyle@lemmy.world
      17·
      9 months ago

      The algo is breaking down. They rested on their laurels and were caught sleeping. Lots of services are looking to poach viewers and are far more willing to take risks and innovate. Web indexed yellow pages are long in the tooth and tainted with people abusing that algo or buying rank. Maybe 2-3 more years left in that tank. I genuinely think Google is starting to panic.

      It’s good they are suggesting smaller channels, they should do it more.

      Fresh isn’t another carbon copy of one of the mega channels with the same content.

      Fresh isn’t a sea full of reaction faces all trying to game the algorithm.

      Fresh is someone having fun on camera, someone bearing their soul to whomever will watch, someone with passion for what they are doing and the desire to share it.

      YouTube needs to start finding the people that made it interesting in the first place and lose the mindless drones gaming the system.

    • FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee
      10·
      9 months ago

      Pretty funny how YouTube gets stuck on topics for a while haha

      Yours was steam trains, mine was Soviet nuclear accidents

      • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        9 months ago

        Recently I got alot of videos about reindeer on ice, and how to remove ticks. I have no idea why YT suddenly recommended me these types of videos

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
      9·
      9 months ago

      I think they added that to help smaller channels get a start. In principle it’s actually a nice idea, but those small channels have no data to tell them what videos are similar to theirs, so they end up being recommended to people who don’t care about their content

    • IndiBrony@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      9 months ago

      My fellow train enthusiast!

      I think it’s because I watched this good old viral video literally one time that YouTube decided I must be HUGE on trainspotting and suggested every trainspotting channel under the sun for months.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nzEnglish
    361·
    9 months ago

    The worst thing about shorts is that they are just the videos you were already going to watch but cut up into 10 shorts devoid of relevant context. No thanks youtube I will watch the full video

  • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
    34·
    9 months ago

    As ProZD just pointed out, never use the home screen, just go straight to your Subscriptions feed. It helps the people you subscribed to and you get more videos.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          3·
          9 months ago

          I have lots of subscriptions and disable my search history. I sub to things I want updates for, and search for stuff I don’t. Simple and effective.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
              4·
              9 months ago
              1. YouTube’s suggestions are crap, especially since my kids use my account
              2. Most of my YouTube watching is through NewPipe on Android
              3. I avoid most Google products and use an ad blocker, so their tracking doesn’t really affect me

              So I get no value from it, and it is extra tracking, so I disable it.

        • RoosterBoy@lemm.ee
          1·
          9 months ago

          YouTube used to still recommend you (slightly less relevant) stuff with watch history off.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
      2·
      9 months ago

      How do you get more Subscriptions if you don’t randomly browse YT for new content? Sometimes a youtuber will mention another channel, like Adam Savage giving a shout out to Bobby Fingers, but that’s rare. And when I went to Bobby Fingers he had like only 4 videos.

    • voxel@sopuli.xyz
      132·
      9 months ago

      suggestions are kinda the whole point of YouTube.
      don’t care if they’re algorithm-based but they DO work (unlike for example example the twitter feed.) youtube suggests me some good shit and awesome new small channels all the time

      • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
        91·
        9 months ago

        i enjoy my YouTube subscription feed quite a lot. I’ve had watch history off forever and never really clicked on their suggestions.

        • voxel@sopuli.xyz
          5·
          9 months ago

          the issue with the subscription feed is that

          • it makes it harder to find new channels to watch

          • it doesn’t stop showing channels you don’t care about anymore automatically like the algorithm feed

          • gives all channels the same value - i like some stuff more and some stuff less.

          • subscription feed prioritizes channels which release more videos (quantity over quality), which causes it to quickly fill up with clickbait and low-effort content unless you carefully watch your subscription list

          (tbf, I’m not a privacy extremist, i don’t care about first party tracking if it’s actually used to provide a better service. “personalized” ads (and other third party stuff) can go fuck itself though)

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 months ago

            new channels

            I’m not really in the market for new channels, but occasionally I’ll sub to one when a channel I like refers one. Good channels tend to recommend good channels.

            it doesn’t stop showing channels you don’t care about

            I just unsub.

            gives all channels the same value

            I don’t sub to enough channels to matter, just enough to have 1-2 hours of decent content every day, a bit more if there’s a big event or something.

            subscription feed prioritizes… more videos

            Unsubscribe fixes that.

            If my channels were available elsewhere, even if that elsewhere charged a nominal fee, I’d leave YouTube. Imo, most of YouTube is trash, especially the top channels, so I’m really not interested in whatever their algorithm thinks I’ll like. I like medium sized channels that produce high quality content make most of their money from merch and Patreon, not the clickbait nonsense channels that whore themselves out for views and sponsors.

            Some favorites:

            • Gamers Nexus - PC gaming news
            • Level1Techs - cool IT hardware stuff (mostly prosumer and small scale enterprise)
            • Not Just Bikes - discussion about transportation infrastructure
            • Louis Rossmann - right to repair
            • Tech Ingredients - cool applied science stuff that I could potentially DIY (I never do)
            • Sci Show - cool science stuff
            • John Stossel - libertarian short form journalism
            • Digital Foundry - technical video game analysis
            • Audit the Audit - high quality police interaction analysis

            Each of those are generally high quality and have minimal nonsense (intros/outros, long sponsors, etc).

  • CCF_100@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    27·
    9 months ago

    Am I the only one who finds those stupid looping shorts annoying? It honestly makes me feel like I have amnesia… The second I hear the video transition into a loop I’m like nope, I’m out of here…

  • Euphorazine@lemmy.world
    20·
    9 months ago

    On the website on a desktop, the shorts section has an X on the top right of its section. That should hide shorts for a few days. It says 30 days but I’m not convinced.

    You can click the options on any video to say you aren’t interested in that video or that channel.

    You can delete videos from your watch history if your algorithm gets tainted. Like my nephew was watching a bunch of train videos on my TV. So algo started sending me all these train recommendations. I just deleted them from my watch history and haven’t seen a train video since.

    • xuniL@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      12·
      9 months ago

      uBlock origin can block most annoying elements from the YouTube website.

      This website has some useful filters for YouTube and other websites, for instance hiding already watched videos, shorts community posts etc. https://letsblock.it/filters

  • Localhorst86@feddit.de
    16·
    9 months ago

    I was at work the other day, where I can’t install browser addons, watching a 25 Minute video. It got interrupted by 9 fucking ads! 9 FUCKING ADS!

    • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
      3·
      9 months ago

      I really had no fucking clue how bad it’s gotten and had heard people complain. I went on my partners apple tv to show a cool youtube video I thought they would be interested in. 30 min video, Ads every few minutes, no skips (shows skip in: but it’s literally the entire length of the ad), multiple ads every break, and if you’re not sitting on the button you’re about to watch a 90second to 5 minute ad.

      I personally grew up on local broadcast and cable tv, Youtube is so much worse now and way less regulated. At least local advertisers and customers got something out of it. I think it’s about time to permanently ditch youtube, plenty of the creators I watch have alternative ways to view now. Just like Reddit, I think I’m ready to move on because of how the company truly is regardless of my hyper-customized way of viewing it. There will be niche resources that will still exist on those platforms (from creators mind you), but the company shouldn’t get my leisure and entertainment time with how they treat their casual viewers.

      • Localhorst86@feddit.de
        1·
        9 months ago

        Local broadcast and cable TV were already bad, but their ad breaks - at least here in germany - were generally less than 5 Minutes and they only appeared every 15-20 minutes. It was annoying, but at least you had a reasonable time to actually watch some content, before it got interupted by a 5 Minute ad-break, that allowed you to go to the toilet or fridge or whatever.

        Ad-breaks on youtube videos now appear so frequently, that it cuts the actual content into short-form content that is often less than 2 Minutes long. On the video I mentioned above, it took youtube exactly 1:38 minutes of actual content before it showed me the first ad. If I wanted to watch youtube shorts, i’d watch youtube shorts, I am not interested in having long form content cut into short-form throw-away content, seemingly at random points in the video, often mid-sentence.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
    171·
    9 months ago

    Honestly it’s annoying as fuck. Nobody asked for YouTube to become TikTok. In fact, I feel like we’d need to go in the opposite direction…

    It’s sadly a fact that attention spans have gotten worse over the years. When it’s too much effort for people to watch a ten minute video or read more than a paragraph of text, we’re in serious trouble.

    I’m doing my part by rewarding creators who put out actual quality content in longer videos. But I fear they’ve got a difficult time ahead if this trend continues.

    • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      9 months ago

      It’s sadly a fact that attention spans have gotten worse over the years. When it’s too much effort for people to watch a ten minute video or read more than a paragraph of text, we’re in serious trouble.

      Interesting to note that this isn’t necessarily a fact, as at the very least there hasn’t been any research to support this widely held notion.

      Busting the Attention Span Myth offers a higher level overview concerning the subject.

      There’s also this video that covers some of that article but also digs through other sources, listed in the description.

      • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
        2·
        9 months ago

        There certainly have been studies on it, like this one:

        https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/490177

        But you’re right in that more empirical evidence would be nice. Right now, everyone ‘knows’ that attention spans are worse. We can feel it in ourselves, and we see it in others, according to surveys.

        But it’s hard to quantify how much or the exact reasons. Even research like the one above points out that it’s not just social media. It’s basically everything, all at once, which makes it hard to focus.

        More evidence would certainly be good. Either we discover that it’s nothing to worry about or we discover that it’s a thing we should definitely attempt to fix before it gets worse.

        • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          Ah, thanks for the link! It’s definitely a bummer that there isn’t more research, especially regarding individuals (as your linked research notes, its focus was on collective attention), and what little research there is is more to do with marketing than science.