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Comment by Jordan-117 | Hacker News Reader

I used to scoff at the idea of paying for YouTube, but I'd absolutely consider it if they had a cheaper plan that excluded YouTube Music.

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It just caused me to stop paying for Spotify. Spotify is clearly better, but Youtube music is really 'good enough'

Same.

Isn’t this behaviour exactly what got Microsoft in anti-trust hot water?

The government doesn't care about anti-trust much anymore. It's been two decades since it lifted a finger.

Single instance of bundling two crossover apps (read as Youtube and Yt music) is different from Microsoft bundling every kind of apps on its platform, with frugal dev support.

Nobody is stopping Spotify to bundle with another video app or create one themselves.

Same here... I did keep Spotify for a while for Joe Rogan, but their Android TV app is crappy and video support sucks badly. YouTube Music is good enough, but the previous incarnation was slightly better IMO.

I recently started paying for YouTube, it sucks way less without all the ads, and I generally feel I get my money's worth. I know I could technically use AdBlock or something, but it feels really nasty to do so. YouTube Music is okay, but I still use Spotify, as the interface of Spotify is better.

I still do.

I just started using a minimal ad skipper chrome extension called Clear Skies and youtube is back to being usable.

I won’t pay for YouTube as long as they keep trying to make Shorts happen. It’s everything I dislike about the Internet in one feature.

Edit: Why would this get downvoted? Do people really find value in shorts?

> Do people really find value in shorts?

Yes. Obviously. This is an absurd question.

I think it probably isn’t depending on what you think value means. At a surface level people watch them ergo it has value. But peer deeper and it seems fair to think about whether that’s a good or bad thing and so on.

Depending what value means... I think that shorts do not bring any value, just mindless filler. In my books that has no value. Some might disagree.

I’ve learnt about a lot of things through shorts. It’s not just crap

Mind naming some positive examples? All I get is right-wing political propaganda and "Whatever"-podcast antimodernwomen crap. I would pay to get rid of this blatant negativity.

https://youtube.com/shorts/5QUqxmqBOQI?si=Fep5LxAr6Boe6pBn

https://youtube.com/shorts/RxZ77kjmnU8?si=uCNLl3nZCIbLHjk6

https://youtube.com/shorts/0ja1E-OwrVI?si=WNsEVV_yyS-F3khY

https://youtube.com/shorts/FAZpx1EucQw?si=FKQiESLTuhfANGL1

https://youtube.com/shorts/3iotlZfJjH0?si=x3ND5rVR54LbieN9

Those where in the first 10 shorts I got

This is pretty far shy but it’s just fun

https://youtube.com/shorts/j7SByXWWVzU?si=7Et5jRKpEbV93Sia

Had a couple of clips from start trek which came up too.

Obviously people find value in mindless filler - look at junk food, or reality tv

Some people find value in watching other people watch tv, or watch other people play games.

People find value in TikTok, obviously, and Google wants part of that pie and is willing to degrade all of our YouTube experience in order to chase it.

But very unclear if anyone finds value in Shorts.

My shorts feed is far higher quality than my tiktok feed right now. I definitely find value in it

TikTok has a clunky Web UI (there was an experiment they accidentally rolled out for a day in 2022 to make it much better, but it was rolled back and never seen again). YT Shorts work fairly well. It also supposedly pays out to creators better than TikTok.

Although I have to use `document.querySelectorAll('video').forEach(e => e.playbackRate = 2);` in my console for either service since they don't have native playback speed control on the web.

There are extensions that can do that if you get tired of it (Stop The Madness has an option to restore native video controls which includes playback speed control)

I'm not one of them, and clearly you're not one of them, but: Yes, some people do find value in things like YouTube Shorts.

And these people are real people.

(But complaining about downvotes is a sure-fire way to get downvotes -- even as far back as Slashdot, where such a complaint could only be levied pre-emptively or as a reply to oneself.)

I find shorts quite helpful if you’re intentionally looking for a quick explainer.

There are unfortunately lot of how to videos on YouTube that are 10 seconds of content in 13 minutes of filler.

The trick is just to never scroll through shorts, but instead navigate back to search afterwards.

Perhaps I use YouTube differently:

If I am using YouTube for learning, then: My bullshit meter trips very quickly when I detect needless filler, and then I go find another video to watch (or, ideally, a writeup instead of a video -- away from YouTube). Shorts never enter the equation.

And if I am using YouTube for entertainment, then: I want more entertainment than a YouTube Short typically provides.

It's tough for everyone when they find out they aint the main character.

Mostly use it on Android TV... Almost never see shorts as a suggestion. They're there, but I don't really use them or notice much.

I mean it's a pretty reasonable price if you do the family plan with a few people.

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