YouTube Shorts vs TikTok | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Shorts vs TikTok

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Small-time TikTokker here (~100k followers) -- TikTok has a HUGE first-mover advantage in this space. By the time Snapchat and YouTube started taking short-form content seriously, TikTok was already miles ahead of them. Additionally, the TikTok collaborative recommendation algorithm is leaps and bounds above any other platform's. They've got a very active userbase, they invest in creators, and they provide a way to get discovered as a creative teenager who wants an outlet.

Their UI has been refined a lot over the years, with each update making it more satisfying to click on notification bubbles.

Additionally, because the community is so large and the algorithm so good, you can literally find almost ANY niche you like there. People who haven't used the app for long complain about the content being mostly dances and pranks, but the truth is that if you use the app consistently, it'll figure out a dozen super specific-to-you niche topics within a day or two. For instance, I'm part of the VFX, filmmaking, art, and music production sides of TikTok because those are my hobbies, but I also routinely get candy making videos, absurdist comedy, and animations, things I didn't know I loved until I downloaded TikTok.

Overall--if you have a history of social media addiction, use it with caution. If you're not afraid of getting sucked in for hours at a time, it truly is a wonderful platform full of stellarly creative people.

I've noticed that YouTube also gets a few small things wrong with their Shorts. Things like not being able to play the video while reading comments or making the interface less fluid or waiting for TikTok to add features before they follow (eg. being able to scrub through a video. If YouTube added this, I'd probably stop using TikTok pretty quickly).

TikTok also has network effects of creativity. I don't think I've ever seen a trend go viral on YouTube Shorts before TikTok. Nor have I scene any stitches or duets (do they even have that feature?)

I think they have a chance to capture a huge market though if they get it right (although considering most of the people using Shorts are just reposting TikToks, it'll take some time).

I actually like YouTube shorts. It seems to capture my interests more than TikTok does. With TikTok, I find myself watching inane stuff that my unconscious mind is compelled to watch, but as soon as I snap out of this dream state and realize what I'm watching I see how stupid it is. YouTube shorts seems to be easy to consume videos that I actually find interesting.

That's a cool perspective, I guess I'm just really easy to recommend content for :)

> Additionally, the TikTok collaborative recommendation algorithm is leaps and bounds above any other platform's. They've got a very active userbase, they invest in creators, and they provide a way to get discovered as a creative teenager who wants an outlet.

That is no different to the behaviours of the other social networks that also have their own 'recommendation algorithm' that governs which content is seen and unseen by the developers and who's data is run on the hundreds of millions of users sensitive personal data, search, watch habits and user interaction data and is always subject to change or adjustment. The same goes for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.

Given that TikTok has screwed with their users in the past [0] [1], how long until they will do it again so that we will talk about the next social network that everyone moves to?

> Overall--if you have a history of social media addiction, use it with caution. If you're not afraid of getting sucked in for hours at a time, it truly is a wonderful platform full of stellarly creative people.

That sounds more like magnificent news to the investors, not to the users.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/25/22301704/tiktok-92-millio...

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56815480

How can any of that content have any depth with a max video length of 15 seconds?

On the contrary, there are many YouTube videos that could be explained in 15 seconds to a minute on TikTok but instead you have to sit through a full 10 minutes to get the really interesting parts.

If you want more depth, often times, people will post multiple parts on TikTok (something which has a poor UX but at least works) so you can dive deeper into a topic if you're interested.

Max length is actually 1 minute! They're also testing 3-minute videos for some creators. My short films are all almost exactly a minute long, and I find it's a really fun storytelling challenge to create something meaningful in such a small time frame.

okay a minute makes more sense that's about 150 words.

It's interesting because any time you see Part 1 within a video, that's a significant sign that it's a low quality video that is just stringing it out for viewtime and you should skip it.

But of course there is quality content that lasts more than a minute. The work-around for the 1 minute limit that the community has built around is that the top up-voted comment is a link to the next part.

> By the time Snapchat and YouTube started taking short-form content seriously

Wasn't Vine first to take short-form content seriously?

After reading the closing thoughts, it seems to me that the author equates addictiveness with "world-class" product that people "love". That type of thinking scares me - hey HN crowd, how prevalent would you estimate it is between creators?

And more broadly - how many of them even think about morality of what they are trying to build? How many still believe they are creating better world while intentionally trying to build addictiveness into their products, and how many just rationalize it by something like if I don't do it, someone else will, so I might as well do it (attitude I have noticed here surprisingly often)?

I think addictive is a buzzword that people use nowadays. It doesn't mean the same as an alcohol or gambling addiction. It's more like finding something that just works and that you enjoy using. TikTok does have some actually damaging aspects but when the author uses addictive here, I think he's talking about building something that doesn't annoy people from using it.

I don't think it's a buzzword, or overused at all. A YouTube addiction is not as equally crippling as alcohol abuse, but it certainly is an addiction that I am currently fighting.

It's definitely an overloaded word. When someone says "I'm addicted to these new Marvel shows they've been coming out with", they (probably) don't mean it's a crippling habit that's ruining their life

TikTok is one of the few apps I uninstalled after using it a few times. It was incredibly addictive. I didn't use it for an extended period or anything, but I realized that if I let this thing sit on my phone, I would go for it too much than my other app addictions.

I’ve reached that critical period in middle age where I don’t sign up for new social media platforms because I don’t “get” them. My limited understanding is that TikTok is for short videos and there’s a lot of dancing, for some reason. Is it the platform itself that’s addictive, or the content is just that good?

It's more about providing shots of dopamine without requiring the ability to pay attention for longer than 30 seconds, combined with a decent ranking algorithm. If you are not used to consuming entertainment in bite-sized pieces then you wont enjoy it, regardless of how old you are. It's just that the proportion of people who expect entertainment to consist of half minute segments is much higher among the young than the old, and if you do fall into that group, you will really struggle being able to handle even a 15 minute youtube video, let alone a 40 minute broadcast show or a 3 hour play. In that case, you don't have many good video consumption options besides TikTok, so you will spend a lot of time there, even though I don't think it's addictive.

What I really wonder about is the future of sports -- what will they do to make, say, baseball appealing to people with those types of attention spans. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some big upheavals in the sports world over the next two decades.

I was also surprised that you are worried about sports - that is one of the last things I would worry about.

I worry that our reward systems are being hijacked. We are more and more trained to seek short dopamine bursts.

The problem is that this is short term satisfaction that creates chronic boredom in the long run. Just notice how you feel after two hours of watching "funny" videos or whatever is your poison. Don't you feel like it's not funny anymore but you keep watching anyway just to escape the creeping sense of emptiness?

Lately, I keep thinking about what Erich Fromm said about people becoming robots, although he meant it in a different context: "But given man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become 'Golems', they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life."

Sports are the last worry in a society where 30 seconds attention spans are endemic.

TikTok quickly adapts to show you videos that you're interested in. There's all sorts of content on TikTok. There's a lot of dancing videos in the same way that there are a lot of dancing videos on YouTube.

TikTok seems like a next generation YouTube though. What it adds, in addition to an easy and addictive way to watch, is a remix culture empowered by the ease of creating new videos. Dancing is a fine example. When someone creates a new dance other TikTokers try it out or put their own twist on it.

I think highly of TikTok. It's creative. The algorithm powering the feed is compelling. I personally uninstalled it because I'd get caught up using it and spend more time than I wanted on the app - but it's doing a lot right.

> TikTok quickly adapts to show you videos that you're interested in.

I've read this and they must have some really brilliant people working there because they are able to confidently stream you whatever is next that keeps you hooked. There's no home page for you to pick and choose. You're just getting one dopamine hit to the brain right after the other.

> TikTok seems like a next generation YouTube though.

YouTube seems to incentivize longer content which seems to be the wrong thing to do. I can watch a short TikTok video and feel that I actually learned something without the time commitment.

the dancing might be how zoomers used it but nowadays there are all kinds of categories. fishing, cars, home improvement, gardening, career help, ask me anything (lawyers, therapists, etc)

How does that work in short form?

I was curious too so I checked YouTube for "gardening TikTok" and people have made compilations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es9BJpvvFQ0

Same exact story for me. One taste was all needed to know that I dare not taste again.

I had exactly the same experience. Tiktok is one of the most addictive products/substances I've experienced and I found it genuinely frightening. I spent about 2 hours on the app without realizing it one day, and deleted the app basically as soon as I snapped out of my reverie.

I don't know if the algorithm is so good or if it's because the app actively engages your brain without you realizing it. You're constantly thinking about whether you like the current video or not that you don't see the time go. If instead you were forced to make a conscious decision of what to watch before watching the video, it would be much easier to stop watching by just consciously making a decision to not watch the next thing.

Same. I reinstall it in short bursts every couple of months but otherwise the same music-different videos aspect of it really sucks me in in the same way a hook of a song that I really like does. Hats off to the magically addictive combination the authors of the platform have come up with, it’s a real achievement.

What gave you that feeling exactly do you think?

Not OP, but had the same experience

For me I think it's two factors:

1) Quick out if you don't like it. Load the next thing is really quick and easy to do. Just flick up and boom it's the next thing. Right now there are no ads or interruptions. It's really easy to move on from something you don't like.

2) The algorithm is really good. I don't know enough about it, but it consistently shows me stuff I want to see. I can't explain it more than that.

I also don't feel like it boxes me in the same way Youtube does. Youtube shows me nearly the same thing I have already seen and liked. Tiktok pulls up a good variety (sometimes from creators with single digit followers) that I am interested in.

Even though I use it sometimes, I'm not a fan of social media in general, but I would describe TikTok as the crack cocaine of social media platforms. Once I started seeing those short videos half an hour would go by in an instant. I don't know how they made the video selection algorithm so good, but after a while of using it, it mostly shows videos where it can be almost certain you will watch at least part of it.

I think TikTok’s videos are just long enough to provide a quick dopamine hit over and over again, but too short to deliver any real substance.

You become like the lab rat hitting the lever over and over again to get a pleasure spike from the electrode wired to its brain.

I’ve found that my attention span and willpower have been decimated in the last few years. I can barely make it through a few pages of a book without reaching for my phone. I’m not sure if the (over)stimulation caused by apps like TikTok are the cause, but it seems plausible.

> You become like the lab rat hitting the lever over and over again to get a pleasure spike from the electrode wired to its brain.

Incidentally, this is what HN upvotes on my comments are for me. I tried to abandon the use of smartphones entirely, but HN is the one addiction that I can't seem to kick. Even YouTube was easier to kick, and that one wasted a lot more of my time.

Upvoted. Enjoy.

I just reinstalled it today. This is one of the few social media apps where I have to snap myself out of it to realize that I've spent too much time on it. I don't know if it's the vertical auto-scroll of content but stuff like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram give you some positive space between elements to give you some kind of pause to realize, "oh I've been scrolling endlessly, time to quit". Like others have mentioned, their algorithms are really good.

TikTok is to YouTube what Twitter is to blog posts.

TikTok vs YouTube Shorts isn't even comparable. TikTok has a huge amount of creativity and momentum behind it. It's like the early days of Reddit with tons of different communities. The main thing that's different about it vs Instagram or other platforms it that most people are fairly authentic.

> most people are fairly authentic

That tends to fade quickly as a platform gains popularity.

Already we’ve seen how TikTok and record companies manipulate which songs go viral [1]. Popular creators have banded together to join “hype houses” with major financial backing. Yes, you can still see spontaneous moments captured on video, and random content from small-time creators, but a lot of the most popular material is marketed.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/how-to-go...

There is something important that I want to say is much more basic going on though with respect to "authenticity": Instagram (which I am going to stare at; I appreciate it isn't YouTube Shorts, but I want to juxtapose how amazing TikTok feels) has--for as long as I can remember--and almost exclusively, recommended accounts that repost content from other accounts; it is like an entire industry of people who scavenge Instagram for photos or memes or comics that match some theme and then repost and aggregate the content for purposes of gaming karma and then claiming to be a way for other accounts to get discovered... I never want to follow accounts of that form. I have spent a lot of time on TikTok over the past year and a half, and I have never even seen an account like that there? It isn't a complex concept to execute--I feel like most of the people who do those aggregator accounts are amateurs--and TikTok is assuredly mature enough to be targeted... I frankly get the impression (which might be wrong? I'd love to know if there is something else going on) that if you try to repost content someone else made, for any reason, that that's both sufficiently against the terms of service and sufficiently against the community norms that you will get reported and quickly removed. Like, I appreciate that "authenticity" also often talks to the premise of "an individual with a camera bearing their soul" as opposed to "a corporation creating high production videos", but Instagram--if you aren't actively coming there to follow specific people (maybe friends off of Facebook) and are instead just trying to explore its world--feels like nothing more than a bunch of "content farming spam", which is about the least authentic arena you could possible cause to exist.

Very good observations. On Instagram Reels if I like a video from the original user once, the IG algos will keep showing me the very same video via these aggregation/content farming accounts for good next two weeks — until I eventually select “not interested” a couple of times. The algo is basically working against itself — at that point I dislike the vid not because I dont like it, but because I’ve seen it 20x now ugh. IG doesn’t know seems to know that. Very primitive.

No such nonsense on TikTok — always new original, highly targeted and personalised content.

YouTube has no idea about any of this, just showing random shit that’s trending per country and language lol. Stone Age!

I think what you discribed is already happening on Douyin (the China version), on which the initial novelty had long worn off, people no longer just/or largely post for fun.

It's all about monetization now, any view is meant to generate profit, every poster is peddling something, like the Instagram accounts you described, there are endless regurgitating of news events, movie and TV show digests.

There are content factories searching for beautiful faces to appear in their merchandise tiktoks, but only the face part (kind of a remote job?), not the voice and acutal body, those will be produced in their assemly lines and match with your face.

Maybe western users are accustomed to higher standard videos, but the late stage will inevitably come. And the lower the entry barrier, the uglier the scene will become.

I love YouTube shorts, but it's such a bizarre miss that they don't work on Chromecast. I want to sit and watch them on my TV while I eat lunch, but Google physically prevents them from playing on Chromecast through the app. You instead need to cast your screen, which is an absolutely wild product choice.

I get it, the form factor is weird (aspect ratio), you either need user input or autopay, and latency isn't super low. But it seems absurd that it's simply not available at all.

YouTube, amazingly, has the absolute worst Chromecast integration of any app on my phone. Netflix, YouTube music, Amazon prime, Google tv: all work just fine. YouTube feels like theirs was outsourced and built with code samples by a junior dev.

The slides mention that the video on Youtube shorts is a screen recording of TikTok.

It's likely that the TikTok video was simply downloaded using the download button, no trickery required. In contrast to Instagram and Google's walled gardens, TikToks videos are easily shareable and so often end up being uploaded onto these platforms[0] - with the branded watermark leading viewers back to the original source.

Part of the reason for their success I think.

[0] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/instagram-will-now-lim...

I get screen-recorded TikToks sent to me all the time--for some odd reason, that download feature is actually only available on a seemingly random selection of videos, and creators can't control it either.

Source: I've uploaded a lot of TikToks, and some of them just don't have a download option. Doesn't seem to matter whether there's copyrighted content present or not, genuinely seems almost random.

YouTube is a terrible platform to discover videos and creators you don't already know that are relevant to your interests.

How so? I discover only what I need, which is perfect.

I will watch a video about fixing something on a car, I don't need to watch the poster's whole channel.

Do you frequently use YouTube? Most users don't specifically search for every video they watch.

I use subscriptions to curate videos from channels I'm interested in. So yes, I generally do want to watch the whole channel if I'm subscribing to it.

No, not frequently, it's basically Video Google Search + Music for me.

You make great points, obviously focused on the UX portion. I definitely agree. TikToks algorithm is just amazing too, incredibly personalised. Borderline addictive app.

A huge reason for TikToks success that might not be seen by the average user is that they spend a lot of their marketing budget on their content creators. This is something that not a lot of platforms do - they send free lighting equipment and have reps that teach up and coming content creators how to make better content.

I do wonder if YouTube did this more, that they’d get better traction on their other products. People follow the content creators not the platform so if the content creators start using a platform, people will follow.

Just my two cents anyway, for what it’s worth.

Borderline addictive? It is designed to be addictive.

Yeah, but not really the point I was making.

TikTok is a wild thing, my girlfriend gets absolutely mesmerized by it for hours on end.

Crazy dangerous mind trap, cognito hazard.

Mine too, it's getting to be super concerning but I've got my own issues so I say nothing.

When I want short videos I go to TikTok, when I went long-form videos I go to YouTube. I don’t understand why YouTube needs to compete with TikTok in the short video space.

If anyone want to join TikTok engineering team (US, Singapore, or China), I am help to connect and refer. You can reach out by sending email to fe-hiring@tiktok.com.

Some JDs are: - Full Stack Engineer: https://careers.tiktok.com/position/6756684226650704135/deta... - Frontend Engineer: https://careers.tiktok.com/position/6846496424085080328/deta...

You can also apply directly from our career sites, https://careers.tiktok.com/.

You should post job ads like that in the "Who is hiring?" thread that gets posted on the first day of every month. You might want to familiarize yourself with the expected format beforehand: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring

Being a YouTuber since 2006, I find myself getting sucked into Shorts for almost hours at a time. I snap out of the stupor sometimes feeling an emotional withdrawal after gazing at a chain of stupid 5 to 10 second clips.

The recommendation system of YouTube Shorts feels weighed down by rich and pretty 20 year olds at the gym, the beach, some mansion in LA, etc.

I wish the site was still small community friendly like it was 10+ years ago, but I understand they gotta get with the times. YouTube could've easily turned into Dailymotion and it's pretty remarkable they're still able to survive as merely a video sharing site. I guess that's the ubiquity you recieve with a Google acquisition. Even the name "YouTube" reeks Web 2.0 lol.

TikTok's recommendation algorithm is incredible, Instagram Reels is fundamentally the same feature on the mobile side, but the recommendation portion really lets it down and ensures TikTok is going to remain the dominant player in this space for the foreseeable future.

YouTube will eventually ruin shorts with advertising. I can't use regular YouTube now that they have eliminated the "Skip Ads" button in many cases, and also resorted to injecting ads in the middle of a video.

My initial impression was "Why heroin isn't as addictive as..."

Taking this comment way too seriously here, but one of the strongest predictors of how addictive a drug is, is the amount of time it lasts. The shorter lasting, the more addictive. So in this example TikTok would be more like crack cocaine since it gives the user short, intense bursts of dopamine rather than something longer lasting like heroin.

On youtube, I just sucked 2 hours of my life on Adam Neely videos that I wanted to be working on my side project.

I'd rank his channel leaning towards the productive entertainment side, I usually leave at least marginally more inspired or knowledgeable than before.

it's the one channel you can't really 2x speed

This is a pretty good analysis of the many UI/UX problems of YouTube Shorts, with a focus on the content creation process. The lack of basic search term completion in the music search widget, and the confusing visual cues and cryptic error message in the submission form are especially surprising. I was going to say rushed, but rushed alone doesn’t really explain these obvious problems.

Google has a "Web Stories" initiative. YouTube shorts might eventually get connected to that, videos appearing on Google Search creating a decentralized stories distribution/search/ad network. (Disclamier: founder@ alvin5.com where I am working on the same concept). I agree that shorts in the youtube app context is awkward, if they get traction, might spin out.

Interesting concept. Why wouldn't I just make a tiktok account for my business instead? That would have the added benefit for discovering more customers.

Tiktok stands out. Their algorithm is the best, it basically hooks you. YouTube shorts or fb reels most times a copied video from tiktok. One of them should buy tiktok or stand aside...

I found tiktok to be boring compared to youtube. With youtube I can skip with tiktok I have to slowdown and watch at least 5 - 10 seconds.

That makes YouTube addiction sound good. :D

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