I deleted YouTube App because of YouTube shots | Hacker News Reader

I deleted YouTube App because of YouTube shots

6 pointssaikiran916 comments

My Background: I have been using YouTube since 2008. I am not a content creator, but I still post random videos once in a while. But I can say I am a heavy consumer of YouTube, and it really made a great contribution to my career goals. I am currently a Software Engineer and achieving almost all my goals, all thanks to Google, Stack Overflow, and YouTube. I use YouTube for all kinds of purposes like learning, entertainment, etc.

The problem with YouTube: In recent years, the mobile app has been flooded with shorts (Short Videos), and they try all the ways to pull us into the rabbit hole and waste our precious time just to compete with other players. Honestly, I am not strong enough to fight against their algorithm and couldn't stay away from shorts. I think the situation is the same for most YouTube users.

Believe your users: I believe most of its users are there for quality and not for quantity, like Reels and TikTok. Also, YouTube removed the dislike button, and it made it hard for the consumers to find quality content. So I don't understand why YouTube is finding ways to make it harder to find quality content. Is it in the wrong hands?

YouTube has to trust its users and probably create a separate app like for "YouTube Shorts" to pull the users who are into short video stuff. Or at least give users an option to disable shorts in the YouTube app. Until that happens, I am not going to keep the YouTube app on my phone. However, I will still continue to use YouTube on my computer web browser, but consumption will be way lower as I don't carry my laptop with me all the time. I hope YouTube will listen and make the changes soon before someone else comes up with another "Truth Tube"

I watch videos (on YouTube) but I choose the content.

I follow a number of channels, but never could subscribe because this requires a Google Account and that's a no. I also wanted to avoid using YouTube proper because I like to keep control on what code runs on my computer so I favor free software. So I took the habit to use Invidious, and ended up hosting an instance for myself. This will allow me to share playlists as well.

On Invidious, you can subscribe to channels and you see all your channels on your subscription page, ordered by the date of the last posted video. The UI also tries to highlight newly posted videos since your last visit. There's no filter depending on whether you click on subscribe AND THEN click on the bell AND THEN click on the thumb AND THEN… just a silly algorithm showing you anything new channels you follow post. Simple model to understand.

I am able see new videos on channels I chose… whenever I decide to watch something, and to go away when there's no new thing. No pushed notifications.

Plus, Invidious is actually pleasant to use and lightweight. You can listen to videos (play an audio only version), download them in the format you want, there's the automatically play next feature, it can play in background, there are the YouTube suggestions and comments if you like them, it's compatible with SponsorBlock. It also works fine on mobile, though if you have Android you may like NewPipe.

I can recommend. If you don't want to self host, there are several good public instances.

You don't need notifications. Just go watch something when you feel like it, don't let your devices dictate when you should watch videos.

> YouTube has to trust its users and probably create a separate app like for "YouTube Shorts" to pull the users who are into short video stuff.

That wouldn't work. If YouTube is to stay in competition with a distributor of digital crack (as i heard TikTok being called) the way to do that is to offer the same product to their captured audience. A second app doesn't do that.

> I believe most of its users are there for quality and not for quantity

Big difference between what you believe and what youtube's analytics knows

hhttp://www.youtube.com/user/Evanijo

I was also really annoyed by Youtube Shorts and that you can't disable them, but if, when you see the shorts reel, you say "Not interested" to all of them, they will be gone (for a while at least).

I watch loads of Youtube channels specific to my areas of interest, outdoor sports and musical instruments and tech. I see the odd short on the feed but I just ignore them.

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