Shorts risks cannibalising core YouTube business, say senior staff
ft.com
ft.com
It's a bit like news is now often luck of the draw as to whether you're getting an article, an audio clip or a video. It's jarring.
If there was a simple toggle button between videos/short/both all this wouldn't be an issue.
www.youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer a.yt-simple-endpoint path[d^="M10 14.65v-5.3L15 12l-5 2.65zm7.77-4.33"]:upward(ytd-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-mini-guide-renderer a.yt-simple-endpoint path[d^="M10 14.65v-5.3L15 12l-5 2.65zm7.77-4.33"]:upward(ytd-mini-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-rich-item-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-grid-video-renderer,ytd-rich-item-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-search .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] ytd-video-renderer .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-item-section-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="trending"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-search .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-rich-shelf-renderer[is-shorts]
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer
m.youtube.com##ytm-reel-shelf-renderer
m.youtube.com##ytm-pivot-bar-renderer div.pivot-shorts:upward(ytm-pivot-bar-item-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-compact-video-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-search ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-compact-video-renderer,ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-single-column-watch-next-results-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer span:has-text(/^(0:\d\d|1:0\d)$/):upward(ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
youtube.com##ytd-rich-grid-row, #contents.ytd-rich-grid-row:style(display:contents !important;)
Perhaps I am in a tiny minority, but the introduction of shorts has completely changed how I use YouTube. I have blocked all modules on the homepage, YouTube recommendation modules on other pages, secondary navigation, etc with uBO. Have only watched maybe 5 shorts in total, and even then only by accident when clicking links on other domains.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H6st2yl6jNE
As they said, I think it might be good for discovery. My personal habits back that up, I'm aware of some channels I wouldn't otherwise be without shorts.
Shorts will capture your attention for longer and display ads in-between more frequently.
I find musicians and naked ladies via shorts, but I rarely extend my science and programming channels via shorts.
(Auto-Redirect Short To "Normal" Video URL would be a good extension if I knew how to do one or had time to learn.)
I'd forgive her if she was a beginner, but she's been uploading videos for years.
In a way a commercial for the content except it’s a lie roof the content.
If I'm watching proper long-form content for that same 10 minute window, then maybe 2-3 creators are getting a view out of me.
Multiply that across the millions of users of YouTube, and it's pretty lucrative to make content for Shorts. Your dollar-per-view is likely lower, but the massive amount of views you pick up end up working out in your favor.
Is that your idea of consent, youtube?
Even then: https://github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus has a "Hide Shorts Cells" options :)
This is like me complaining about gas mileage on a 1000km car trip and someone saying "you could always walk there!"... Yes I could but it's such a worse option overall.
For me that works with shorts, maybe it’s a recent change.
Also, if you are casting videos from your phone to a TV, and you accidentally (a well planned accident) click on shorts , it ends the TV cast
inb4 it's just showing me what I like. In icognito mode go to YouTube and watch a single video that might suggest you are an 18-45 year old male, and then look at your suggested shorts.
Not so much on tiktok or any fb property. They really force the onlyfans market-funnel jiggle videos into your face..
This is a silly and stupid argument. I was searching for some programming tutorials and it showed suggestive content in search results in maybe you might also like section or something like that. WTF is that.
let's not confuse creators and creator communities progressing and evolving, with state of platforms they happen to be on.
This has absolutely negatively affected my YouTube view time since I am annoyed at having to guess the topic and whether it is worth suffering an ad for it.
I put this in YouTubes court since they control what is shown to users and what isn't.
You can copy the video ID into the URL of the normal player and play it like any other video. There's a Tampermonkey script that changes the player automatically: <https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/439993-youtube-shorts-redi...>
The government needs to step in and regulate ads, because ads destroy content and at some point , quality content is a societal good that needs to be protected.
I too long for those days, trust me, but it's just not a fair comparison.
Clearly market forces often lead to a horrible product many of us don't like.
Even if cost per user hasn't gone up (which I would actually bet it has, if we had a way to measure it), the total cost has gone up, and for a distributed non-commercial Internet you need to have a total cost, not a per-user cost, that is affordable for lots of people, not just for large market leaders, like it is today.
What I don't agree with is that the current state of affairs is necessary due to scale.
We have adverts thrown in our faces and tracking everywhere we go, even on sites that could be profitable without it, simply because it is easy to do and almost all sites do it.
If all the time and money spent on figuring out tracking and ads had been put into micro-payments or distributed infrastructure, we'd be better off.
But people want stuff "for free" and big companies don't want to give up control, so here we are.
The early days of the internet didn’t facilitate trillions in economic value like it is now.
We can use that anecdote as inspiration but it really has no merit on the modern internet.
Neither does ads. The “trillions” in economic value are what's driven by the businesses using the internet for their business (say to order food, taxis, hotels, online games, etc.).
The ads-based internet generate only a tiny fraction of that value. In fact, it only generates the low-quality value for which people aren't willing to pay anything. Youtube is probably the only exception here, and in fact if they decided to go fully paid, then many people would probably still pay for it, like they pay for Netflix.
Trillions of dollars of shit is still shit, but shit is at least useful for compost where ads are useless at best.
With all those additional trillions there should be enough overall wealth for everyone to afford a completely ad-free internet now more than ever.
That lasted all of 5 seconds before banner ads and auto-playing ads became the norm. Bandwidth isn't free.
i.e. anyone can register a domain, but if an ad or paywall is found on a site there's a warning -> suspension -> domain unregistered. Only donation links accepted but they cannot provide extra content.
Hobbyist/amateur sites would thrive there as there would be attraction due to visitors being confident they won't be met with ads or paywalls.
It would be awesome until the registrar inevitably caves and gradually bends the rules to increase revenue.
Then of course almost immediately once bandwidth got fast enough there were image ads and an explosion of GeoCities sites.
The few people donating money will never donate enough to sustain the platform that also serves non-donating users. And those same people that donate will never even find any platform that hasn't already become popular thanks to the free ad-supported tier. There's no way out. The griftnet is here to stay
Ads generated more revenue.
Then Netflix came along, and their core value prop was that there were no Ads, it was subscription only. Like their DVD service. This obviously fundamentally changed online consumer viewing habits and revenue sources.
Until of course Netflix decided to look into Ads as a way to feed to the beast that is Revenue Growth.
Attempts at a Netflix for other types of media seem to have largely failed to capture and change the market in the same way.
Apple News is a ghost town. Maybe old Media and Magazines are just mostly dead anyway?
YouTube Shorts is an obvious TikTok knockoff, a platform heavily optimized for mindless consumption. Problem is, it is so mindless that people forget the ads. There is so much stuff happening so fast that nothing sticks, neither content nor ads. And advertisers are starting to realize that their return on investment is not that great despite the high number of views.
No way! How could greatest talents and best innovators of Silicon Valley make just a copycat of a Chinese app for kids?
Created by the same developer as the wonderful SponsorBlock extension.
Replaces titles and thumbnails from videos with community-sourced, click-bait free versions.
Long form content which is artificially long, because of what platform rewards. Those videos cold easily be 2min long or less, but how would they justify placing a 30s ads before it? Also - majority of streaming takes place on mobile.
Short format is straight to the point and what Internet needs. No one has time to go through 10min of clickbaity spam chopped by sh*y YouTube ads.
The issue is that platforms are also forcing these reductive, drain-circling usage patterns motivated by competition and profitability, but it especially sucks when you do it to a well-established user base. Especially since it’s the easiest thing in the world to just let users decide if they want shorts or not.
You are in your right to think that long form videos are bloated click bait. I’m in mine to think that shorts are predominantly attention deficit trivialities for memes, influencer trash, and also clickbait. What sucks is that I can’t get away from shorts, and worse than that, shorts circumvent YouTube’s neutered, paltry search and recommendation algos and are constantly pushing even lower quality and uninteresting if not completely irrelevant (and sometimes inappropriate) rubbish higher than things I’m actually looking for.
You at least can go to TikTok. I will have to wait until a critical mass of my favorite content creators migrate to a less shitty platform.
I would strongly disagree.
Short form encourages TikTok style click-bait/outrage-farming content.
I much prefer the much more thoughtful longer content you do find on Youtube.
I think that's the important bit.
Long form content that is artifically long does exist (see the trend of making videos exactly 10 mins or longer to maximise ad revenue).
But on the other end of the spectrum some of the best content I've watched on YouTube have had longer runtimes than some movies.
For every thousand click-baity creators on video platforms there are always a handful of people producing truly thoughtful, interesting content.
They are different forms of content, just on the same platform. Seems like a a non-sensical article for the click of driving engagement on The Verge - and I guess it worked.
Also, the Verge is just poorly summarizing a Financial Times article...in other words, The Verge is providing 'short-form content' of ft.com, except, ft.com isn't getting the ad revenue (not the same publisher, afaik).
And for FT...their article does not cite a single person from YouTube. Just "a staffer in a meeting said..."...according to "YouTube staff".
I honestly expected better....from both.
Sure but if someone uploads short trailing / covering something they also cover in a long-form video (and I have seen several creators I follow doing this), there's a non-zero percentage of people who aren't going to bother with the long-form version because they'll have got the gist from the short. That's eating away at the long-form, no?
No there really is something to what they are saying. My husband is a HUGE youtube user and now on most of his devices his feed is 50% shorts. It completely changes the experience of consuming youtube content.
As a paying customer, it's infuriating.
- not enough time to provide quality content
- dilution of engagement, because the lack of meaningful content you can produce and consume in a few seconds/minutes
- further promote short span focus which is bad for long term development
The biggest issue though is how they've tied them to the vertical video format. That's okay if your content is singing or saying stupid things on camera, but for pretty much anyone who covers tutorials or media or games, it basically mades the format a lose-lose situation for video quality. You either give up the reach Shorts bring by posting only normal content, which can at least be viewed in a decent aspect ratio without cutting anything off, or you try and make your shorter videos into Shorts, and end up with a nigh incomprehensible video due to not being able to fit important info on screen.
So what could be a cool way to show interesting clips and things that happened that might not deserve a full length video is basically only usable for the most vapid, surface level content.
Luckily you can use ublock origin and letsblockit, or other browser plugins, to completely erase them from YouTube.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-recom...
In addition, I use the Stylus extension with a custom stylesheet to restore the UI to the roughly pre-2016 look. This has allowed me to essentially treat my Youtube experience as a RSS feed viewer, which I feel is a much healthier experience.
However, by doing this you do lose out on the discovery factor that Youtube is known for.
(I did enjoy them, but not enough to actively seek out more.)
I watched a couple of old Dave Chapelle clips and then suddenly had a bunch of videos from the Taylor Tomlinson all recommended to me repeatedly, even though I had never heard of her before...
Yes, that's the weird thing. I've heard of Dave Chapelle, but I can't remember the last time I watched a clip of his or any other standup comedian. I'd never heard of Taylor Tomlinson before.
I think they serve a purpose i.e. when I don't have time to watch a full video, I can just watch a Short.
Basically when I'm on my computer, I don't watch Shorts. When I'm on my phone, and I have a few minutes to kill, but still want to learn something I'm interested in, I'll watch a Short.
Shorts are not just videos that are short. It also come with a player where you can't go forwards and backwards, that autoplays through an algorithmically generated feed, optimized for retention.
The system isn't designed for you to watch a short, in fact, it discourages it, it is designed so that you watch an endless stream of shorts.
Failed hard on me. Perhaps I am weird.
There are certainly many "weirdos" like us, but YouTube (and TikTok) don't care. As long as it turns on more people than it turns off, it is a win for them. If there are enough weirdos, some smaller company may get interested and cater to that niche.
In fact, I think it is how current tech giants may fail, by only focusing on the majority and dropping the niches, they may open themselves to a more nimble competitor that use these niches as a starting point to eat away their market share. Privacy is one such niche, but I think it is already an overcrowded market, plus, Apple is on it, so you can't rely on that alone. Maybe there is a niche for an anti-tiktok that can be exploited.
The real aggravating part is that Google has tried nearly everything, short of switching videos under my cursor, to sucker me into this instant-gratification loop.
I'd be way less frustrated about the existence of Shorts if Google hadn't been so ham-fisted about them
I don't understand what's good in short videos. Would you prefer to read 1 page book, watch 1 minute movie or go to a 1 minute concert?
No attention span required.
Other examples in other genres could be a meme based on a particular funny clip, outtakes/bloopers from a longer stream or video, part of a TV show or film that's somewhat iconic and can be enjoyed out of context, etc. Could be treated like an ad for the longer production, in the same way Nintendo thought their mobile games were a gateway product to their console ones.
People have opinons, what's this nothing burger?
The older ones go out of business and die.
Obviously investors and employees don't like going out of business. So they try to hop on whatever's becoming popular so they don't get replaced.
It may be confusing for consumers. But surely you can see the logic for app owners. And it also means competition is alive and well.
That explains why he vanished from my perception a while ago. Didn't even notice until now.
Better this than nothing, IMO.