YouTube Shorts - for those of us who don't want TikTok
YouTube Shorts - You're mildly infuriating!
Ever since I was forced to update YouTube on my devices, I got really annoyed with YouTube Shorts. At first, they were easily turned off. Then the option to turn them off disappeared from Settings - General. So I installed apps that allowed to skip out on Shorts. Then just a few days ago I could no longer have Youtube Vanced installed.
I've since learned do deal with this annoyance, but do I really have to mark "Not Interested" from channels I don't subscribe to or "Hide" from my subscribed channels? On my Linux- and Windows PC's I have regular blockers. But I mainly watch content on devices hooked up as small entertainment screens in the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms. And those are iOS or Android.
All I want are steady streams of content from my favourite relaxing subjects and channels. Without shorts or AI-derived "Hey, this video from a channel featuring a redneck with 15 AR-15's shooting coyotes in the desert might be your thing!" inserted into my playlists or streams. But the AI-derived autoplay content is beside the point.
I go to YouTube to watch 2 hour long documentaries on subjects I don't even care about, twitch steam uploads or 30 minute videos from my dubbed channels.
This. I'm happy with these content offerings, but it's weird to have them all mashed together. It'd be like if Lemmy randomly inserted book chapters in between other posts. It just doesn't fit with the platform and the use cases are wildly different.
I can second this enthusiastically, especially since it also blocks ads and sponsored segments, customizes the UI, allows background playback, allows downloads, and more stuff too.
If you are rooted the magisk module is even easier to use. When I tried compiling myself it would always crash but the module works perfectly and super easy to update.
Also infuriating: With how much YT is incentivizing creators to create shorts, a bunch of channels I follow no longer even make regular 10-15 minute content regularly.
There is one thing about it being voluntary to create. But they’re pushing YT Shorts down both content creators and viewers throats.
As a former teacher and mentor, I agree with the thought to make content more interesting and digestible for the younger generation. What I don’t agree with is packaging everything into mindless kick-rewarding (dopamine hitting) bits, like Candy Crush, One armed bandits or Tik Tok videos.
If you package too much study content into this kind of easily digestible and forgettable bits, you have to remember: it flows out from their minds almost as fast as they spent the effort to see it… maybe it lasted longer if they shared it with their friends/network, but the lesson you wanted them to absorb will mostly disappear faster than the time it took you to create it.
We work (and should work) to create (at least some) lasting impressions that educate. The most memorable moment that one of my study groups had with one of their “cool TikTok and Fortnite savvy” teachers was when they did candy flossing after it stopped being cool. What lessons he taught? They couldn’t remember if it was English or Math.
Turns shorts into "normal" videos. Still the same orientation but at least a player that doesn't loop and even applies SponsorBlock rules if there are any.
I'm fine with short videos, but why do they all need that terrible ui with no seek bar and fewer features than proper videos? I really hate how they don't have the previously watched ui on them. It makes keeping up with a creator impossible.
I hate shorts so much that I don't even have YouTube installed on my phone. I use libretube and newpipe on my phone.
The crazy thing is YouTube of pushing shorts on desktop as well.
On mobile you can use extensions like uBlock Origin (content blocker) or Stylus (CSS injector) if you use some specific browsers, and use youtube.com in those: Firefox, Yandex Browser (ugh I know), or Kiwi Browser (Android-only). It's a mess, I know, but it's a solution.
Thanks. It’s helpful, uBlock Origin etc didn’t do much on my mobile devices, but I haven’t looked into Firefox or the other ones for the mobile devices.
Shorts are mostly just disappointing. Sometimes I don’t notice that I’m clicking a short because the title seemed interesting. Then after 30 seconds it’s already done, and all those times the content wasn’t even that good! You would think that maybe they could condense the best parts of a long video into a shorter one, but instead they just lack any depth and information.
In the same vein, the way Instagram is pushing their (autoplaying) Reels is even worse.
You would think that maybe they could condense the best parts of a long video into a shorter one
Some channels do this, and I think it's a really good use for the platform. Nerdforge is one channel that comes to mind - she has a few videos that are a 1 minute short (e.g. https://youtu.be/5QNIgDFq-vw) summarizing a 20 minute video (https://youtu.be/ZVqa7j6jG0Q)
Just use new pipe,
The home page is just videos from your subscribed channels and there is no one click way to see an endless stream of shorts.
You can still see them if you search them.
Bonus: no ads.
I do actually find some interesting shorts every now and then after avoiding them for years.
However it completely fucks up my recommendations and you can't remove them from the watch list as easily...
So if I watch a couple I'll be suggested shorts for a week or so...
What pisses me off the most is channels I used to like, stuff like Scam Nation who now repackages all their old content as shorts. And so I unsubscribe because I don't want that level of spam.
Youtube Shorts sounds like an interesting idea, that has all the problems of Tiktok, and then clutters up Youtube. It would be SO easy for people to be able to opt out of Shorts, but that's not how it works, and Youtube's UI keeps pushing them to the point where I stop looking at my notifications.
Yeah, the easiest option for Google/YT would be to keep Shorts to the Shorts category only/mainly, and keep the ability for users to opt out of Shorts in the platform’s players.
That way, creators who want to push 5 to 30 second videos instead of 10 - 200 minutes would still get their 15 minutes seconds of fame.
But now, they aren’t just pushing Shorts on us viewers, they are forcing channels to do Shorts to get better visibility.