Honestly, it’s the terrible content moderation policies that are going to kill YouTube, not a certain type of video.
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.
"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; or that they are not willing to take revenue from showing ads on that video. But they're still hosting it, making it available to viewers.
Video creators' revenue is a share 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.
However, the creator of a "demonetized" video is still receiving value from YouTube. It is not free to host that video — especially if it is popular. Network bandwidth, data storage, and transcoding of video for viewers' browsers are not free; YouTube covers the cost of these. YouTube is willing to host a lot of videos that they make zero money from, at their expense, rather than censoring those videos by taking them down.
YouTube is willing to host a lot of videos that they make zero money from, at their expense
That's just not true...they're hosting it because they data-farm the living shit out of both the creator and anyone that gets tangentially close to their site. More content = more people visit = more data on these people = more money...They make a lot of money on this data, even if no ads are shown on a video, and are by no means doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
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".
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 with sigma male music in the background.
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.
no seek bar
I really don't understand who thought that removing the seek bar from a video player was a good idea...
I'm mostly fine with shorts, except for two things:
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..)
On the homepage it doesn't show who the short is from (which channel) without opening them
You also can't adjust the video volume in browser. You have to go to a normal video, change it, and then go back.
!assholedesign@lemmy.ml
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.
What if we fucked over all of the people that like our website to try and cater to people that don't like it?
Seems to be the current trend in social media this year...
Using revanced. Disabled shorts. Watching these YT shorts & recommendations decays my brain cells
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.
Advertising ruined YouTube years 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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Might ruin YouTube? Brother. It's already ruined.
having no proper competitor is the only thing that's still keeping youtube on the boat.
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.
Shorts are far from being the biggest problem, the ads are much much worse.
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.
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.
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.
The terrible content moderation policies and adblock bans will ruin it long before shorts.
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.
shorts dont have 30 second ads at the beginning of them, unlike the less than 10 second videos i attempt to watch
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.
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.
I really wish they would make it it's own thing and separate it from youtube.
I really wish they'd just kill it. We already have one tiktok, which is already one too many
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.
I hate them, but this is kinda late...
Youtube just stopped being useful. Now it's all republished TV and no personal expression. Totally boring.
God damn, have you tried looking for crap that is not just the front page of YouTube not signed in? There are endless streams of amazing content that is incredibly educational or hilarious or mind blowing if you know where to look. People making new music of all different genres with insane levels of skill, people literally sharing PhD level knowledge for free. There are plenty of valid criticisms of YouTube as a platform, and there is certainly some crap content out there, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are tons of incredibly talented and inspired content creators out there on the platform.
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.
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.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
