Hacker News Reader

Comment by nverba | Hacker News Reader

As someone who pays for YouTube, I don't understand why I can't disable shorts fully. They already have my money. What more do they want?

View on HN

The subscription revenues is a decent chunk of your lifetime value (LTV) as a customer, but it's not all of it. The goal here is to squeeze as much value from you aside from that as possible, measured mostly by two things, really: the direct ad revenue, measured by dollars that go on the balance sheet, and the indirect "engagement" value measured by the KPIs (think daily, weekly, monthly active users) that go into the quarterlies. The more time you spend on the platform, the more "things" you have got used to interacting with (aka day-to-day, week-to-week "retention"), the more they can potentially "sell" to you -- and it's not just ads / youtube subscription upsells, it can be and often is other "products" on the same platform: their music streaming, their search, their documents and emails, maps, drive, etc. etc. And it just so happens that the short format is _really, really_ engaging for many folks.

The more time you spend in the mall, the fuller are the bags on the way out, be it out of chance, habit, or convenience.

> The goal here is to squeeze as much value from you aside from that as possible, measured mostly by two things, really: the direct ad revenue, measured by dollars that go on the balance sheet

There are no ads on a sub, this doesn’t make any sense as such to the parents comment.

They mean the premium subscription, not channel subscriptions.

You don’t get ads with the premium subscription. Have I misunderstood the intent of this correction?

They also own the ad slots everywhere else.

You don't get ads on YouTube with a premium sub, your activity data (views, for how long, what topics, what times of the year, of the day, so on and so forth) is still collected, and appended to your profile, the same profile that is used by AdSense to show you ads around the rest of the web.

That's right, but it's not just products that they can "sell" you. It's all about your data, which is worth much more than any upsell opportunity.

Whether the user pays for YouTube Premium or not, they still have access to your behavioral data, your interests, they can easily determine your location, and so on. All of these data points contribute to your profile, which is a literal gold mine for their entire business. How much value they extract from it exactly is likely something not even Google knows. But given that it can be exchanged on dark data broker markets in perpetuity, the price can only go up.

It's a goddamn racket that needs to be made visible and subject to thorough public and legal scrutiny.

> How much value they extract from it exactly is likely something not even Google knows. But given that it can be exchanged on dark data broker markets in perpetuity,

Companies like Google and Meta don't sell your data, on dark markets or otherwise.

They keep it in-house for advertising targeting purposes.

If they sold it to other companies it would reduce their competitive advantage. It's not even worth it for them.

Google doesn't want to sell your data. They want to keep it internal as much as possible so their ad platform is valuable.

They won’t sell your raw data, but they will use your data to charge a premium for their ads.

It’s indirectly “selling your data”.

Its monetizing the data. Selling the data (directly or indirectly) is inaccurate.

Countless studies have shown how to extract personally identifiable information from Google’s monetization platform by giving them money.

They sell your data by any definition of “sell” that existed before they redefined the term so that it excludes their businesses.

Maybe you're right as I haven't seen the studies you're claiming prove this. I based my comment off my own experience using AdWords around 2013-2016 and then again around 2019-2021.

Selling something means you deliver it to another party.

If they’re not delivering your data to another party, they’re not selling your data.

The comment above literally claimed they were selling data through “dark data brokers”. It’s a false claim and I called it out.

Whether they're directly doing business with data brokers or not is not the point. They're indirectly profiting from the profiles they build by selling access to them via their advertising platform. It's just a roundabout way of doing business, as is common in advertising.

Besides, even if they're not selling these profiles, they will end up on data broker markets one way or another. Whether their lack of security allows companies to export it, as in Meta's case, or simply by using their tools to gather as much information about people as possible.

The reality is that nobody outside of these companies, and likely only people in executive positions, knows how they operate internally. They have an army of PR and legal people to do their bidding. Whatever practices the public thinks these companies are or aren't involved with is mere guesswork, but one thing is certain: they don't maintain their size and power by keeping their hands clean. But then again, I'm probably on the wrong forum for this line of thinking.

> Whether they're directly doing business with data brokers or not is not the point.

That was literally the point I responded to.

> They're indirectly profiting from the profiles they build by selling access to them via their advertising platform

That’s very different than the “selling your data” line that keeps getting repeated.

There’s a motte and bailey game that gets played every time this topic comes up. The argument starts with claims they’re selling your data, then when that’s revealed as a false claim the argument pivots to something else with strained arguments that it’s equally bad.

Google is a monopolist. They have no real competitive pressure, so they're incentivized to extract as much value from you as possible rather than waste time trying to retain you as a user (cuz where are you gonna go lol). Forcing short form video on you could be seen as either an attempt to get you addicted to the format, or just a way for some product manager to fluff up their metrics for a promotion.

No matter what you decide to do, they're going to profit off of you. The only remaining question is "how much".

Personally, I don't want to make it easy for them. That's why I like to use alternative YouTube frontends that limit data collection and block ads. I sure as shit don't pay for premium. Whatever effect that has on their business is likely negligible, but it at least makes me feel better about the situation.

But Youtube isn't a monopoly. It's competing with Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu Instagram, Tiktok and Twitch off the top of my head. So they do have to make Youtube competitive

Your theory of

> just a way for some product manager to fluff up their metrics for a promotion.

is the most likely culprit

It is a monopolist in the format it specialises in - medium length 'creator content' that the creators typically post every 2-10 days. Some do post to Nebula and Patreon, but really, there's nowhere else to go for that kind of content, and that's the content that most of their ad revenue is attached to.

How are Netflix, Hulu, Instagram, Tiktok, and Twitch compared to YouTube? It doesn't make sense, they aren't the same niche, you won't find Numberphile, 3Blue1Brown, on those platforms, you won't find reviews of appliances, tech, nor tutorials for how to fix your dishwasher, etc. on those platforms.

YouTube has a whole vast amount of independent production (and some now independent-looking but owned by private equity) which it has cornered into the platform, nowhere else you can find the sort of content that exists in there.

You are just conflating "streaming video" into a single homogeneous market, it's not the case.

I've definitely watched repair videos on tiktok. And one of my favorite (indie) tv shows was only on YT for some reason instead of Hulu or Netflix. My kid watches videogame playthroughs on YT, not twitch. And that's completely disregarding you can listen to music on YT.

When defining a monopoly you can't just say "only this subset of the market is the market we're considering" you have to look at everything it does. As the FTC just learned

There's some thoughtful comments here already, but I wonder the same thing constantly as a fairly addicted user of YouTube who wants to avoid short form video altogether.

I think Premium users tend to be the most affluent desirable group for ad targeting (similar to iOS users on other platforms) and even though YT Premium lets you avoid ads on YouTube, I suspect one's activity feed/"algorithm" on YouTube factors a lot into Google (and others'?) ad targeting. The same eerily effective feedback loop for getting TikTok and YouTube suggestions works better with short-form video, so even if users aren't seeing ads, YouTube still has an incentive to have people use it. So, there's money to be made in dialing in your "algorithm" from using YT Shorts even if you're a premium user.

I'm sure the other stuff about KPIs for increasing usage of shorts to compete with other media sites is accurate too

They want more of your money. They will monetize you as much as they can. You're just a well-supported, paying product.

They don't make more money from showing you shorts once you've paid to remove the ads.

The default reason some feature doesn't exist is simply because no one bothered to make it. Maybe they don't think there's a big demand from their users to disable shorts completely.

I would wager some VP at YouTube in charge of shorts has their performance evaluations tied to how many hours of shorts are watched. So that's one incentive. Another is customer retention. Make current paying users addicted to shorts, and maybe they'll be more likely to keep paying.

I think you're basically right, but the comment I replied to was saying they'll somehow get more of that specific user's money. While the shorts may improve retention in aggregate, this particular paying customer doesn't want them.

What you want and what behaviors you may be induced toward via a nonstop campaign of unwanted UX changes are two different things.

When a pusher gives you some free drugs, they are not taking into account whether you want to be addicted to drugs. Not part of the business model.

It's possible that particular user, despite not wanting the shorts, will keep paying for YouTube for longer because they enjoy shorts. It's also possible that they genuinely don't like them and are less likely to keep paying because of them. People are different. What keeps some customers engaged can turn off others.

> The default reason some feature doesn't exist is simply because no one bothered to make it. Maybe they don't think there's a big demand from their users to disable shorts completely.

My guess is they know exactly what users are doing with the app and website, and know that people use shorts more often than we think.

This is one of their prime products, and they're Google, the biggest surveillance company on the planet. Of course they know how users interact with their service.

Yes, as you say, maybe there isn't a big demand to disable shorts completely.

They can still use it to learn your preferences and tighten their profile of you for all the searching and other ad-enabled activities you take.

They use your data to target ads at you elsewhere on the internet, improve their analytics platforms and give it to oppressive regimes. It also often ends up at shady data brokers.

They make all sorts of money doing that, but they get upset when people say Google is “selling” the data.

This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium should be all about optimizing for the experience the user wants, without the same dark patterns as the ad-supported site.

The worst is search. Shorts are fine as a row in the recommended stuff that I can watch if I want something short or mindless, but when I search I almost always want a normal video. In the iPhone app I can filter for normal videos, but on the AppleTV, the search is 85% shorts to the point of being useless.

> This is my frustration as well. It seems like Premium should be all about optimizing for the experience the user wants, without the same dark patterns as the ad-supported site.

Why would it be?

Cable TV (which was just YouTube for the 80s and 90s) figured this out early: the attraction isn't the user experience, it's the content. They started off without ads, because, hey, you're paying. Then they introduced ads, because they wanted both your subscription fee and advertising dollars.

Did people cancel their subscriptions because of the ads? Hell no. They ordered the premium package to watch Cinemax, HBO, and pro sports. They paid for Pay-Per-View boxing bouts and rented movies. Then they bought the DVR and digital cable subscription, because HDTV was the new hotness.

Your kid's head will explode if he doesn't get to watch Mr. Beast like his friends at school get to, so you keep putting up with whatever enshittification Google carries out on YouTube. You won't stop, I won't stop, no one will, and they know that.

From what I’ve heard, Google makes more on Premium subscribers than from ad-watchers. This should incentivize Google to get as many people on Premium as possible. The content is the same, Premium or not, so if they want more people to sign up, they need to give the users features worth having.

In terms of content. Very little of what I watch is must-see. It’s just something to kill time. Right now I’m watching some guy jump a bicycle through two moving truck trailers. If this was cable in the 90s, I’d probably be watching How It’s Made. These things are essentially interchangeable for me.

Sadly this requires a browser plugin. Happily, those exist. I also pay for YT and use "enhancer for youtube" which can do a plethora of things, one of which is to disable shorts.

I use the Unhook extension, which is also very good.

Yeah, I find it odd how hard they push it, like trying to shove it down my throat levels of pushing shorts. I already use their platform heavily, just for regular videos. My guess is they get more data from how you interact with shorts and they find that to be super valuable info over what they get from regular video watching.

Funny enough, last I saw, shorts of course are less profitable than videos, because they can't carry as many ads, and supposedly advertisers would rather put their ads on longer videos anyway. This would imply they just want to stay relevant. After all, if they didn't make short form videos, someone somewhere would be convinced they are missing out (personally I find shorts a lot worse than long videos).

Get Unhook extension (for desktop)

yup, this one :up

You can. Turn off Youtube history, it disables shorts. Not an ideal solution if you actually did want to keep your Youtube history, but this works.

By being a paying subscriber, you've indicated:

* that you grow attached to video content if they can get in front of you

* that you have disposable income

* that you're willing to spend disposable income on video content and probably other things

* that people associated with you, those you network with on their system and those you share content with via links, are more likely to share one or more of these traits with you, compared to people they know nothing about

By paying them, you've inherently invited them to try to squeeze more value from you and betrayed that your own social network probably includes many similarly ripe marks for subscription sales or effective ads.

So pushing the content they think best represents their future income streams, in hopes that you eventually grow attached to it, or at least occassionally share it with your network of ripe marks, is of course going to be their strategy.

In the modern marketplace, subscriptions don't buy you out of ads or capitalist annoyances, they just suggest that you're an even more valuable target for sales and marketing than those who haven't.

Why would a user who hates shorts so much that they want to disable them in the app be sharing links to shorts with their friends?

If a paying user want to disable shorts, wouldn't allowing that ability make it more likely they will continue to pay?

The reason I started paying for Youtube premium was to turn off the ads. I hate YT shorts and I get annoyed when I accidentally open one. If YT continues to shove shorts down our throats, I'll probably cancel my subscription because I hate shorts that much.

> Why would a user who hates shorts so much that they want to disable them in the app be sharing links to shorts with their friends?

Because the user thinsk it's a funny penguin and that their friend will laugh. The reality is that for almost all users, the demonstrated and disturbing reality is that they will engage with what you put in front of them if you can tune it right. They may wish you didn't do so, and may idly lament to people about how much they resent you for not giving them more control, but they still engage, and in cases like yours, still subscribe. They're that attached (addicted) and therefore that valuable.

> If YT continues to shove shorts down our throats, I'll probably cancel my subscription because I hate shorts that much.

What modern online media companies learned is that they really don't have to care about that. Individually, you and your subsription don't matter to them at all, and most people just don't get indignant enough to storm off over stuff like that as long you you put the right funny penguins and half-naked women in front of them, so it all works at scale regardless.

And if you were to cancel your subscription, are you ready to go so far as to give up the platform entirely, or would you just fallback to being an ad target who's demonstrated all the appealing targeting characteristics you already have, while still being fed shorts?

This is a great point. A disproportionate part of internet economy is from upper middle class people willing to spend money.

I would consider paying premium if they allowed me to disable shorts

The best thing you can do is stop paying and wean yourself off YouTube. It’s terrible for your mental health.

YouTube can be used in a healthy way: use NewPipe and subscribe to channels with edifying content and then, when a new video appears that you would want to watch properly, send the direct video link to yt-dlp on your computer. You then avoid the actual website, its algorithm, and its enshittification like short-form videos.

Choosing edifying content requires, of course, some caution. Avoid individual “content creators” who might feel pressure to slowly conform their content to the algorithm and sponsors’ demands. Instead, follow e.g. local arts organizations who do their events as part of a whole offline ecosystem, and then just upload video of it to YouTube. Or universities who create teaching content for their own needs but then upload it to YouTube, etc.

Oh sure - or, just realize that 99% of content is absolute garbage and go use your time in something else entirely. It’s what I do - I understand if others choose to do differently with their time and resources.

They want you to never unsubscribe, which requires your addiction.

Incentive to addict + Ability to addict = outcome

It doesn't require addiction though. It only requires an aversion to watching ads, or the more general aversion to being annoyed.

Use the Brave browser and look at the inbuilt filtering (search for "Content Filters" in settings), it allows explicit removal of shorts via enabling of "YouTube Anti-Shorts" filter list. Does the job beautifully.

As a premium paying user, I am also using Vanced-patched Youtube on android and I have a browser extension for desktop to largely remove this shorts bulls*it. It's just Google being evil, I guess...

On pc i use chrome plugins to block all these distractions from me. It work's pretty well. Any idea how to do it on android phone. You can't intercept http requests or edit apps here that easily.

Also the weird YouTube Playable Games thing that shows up every few weeks.

There is a 3rd party Android app that uses the accessibility APIs to (supposedly) track and limit my short video use. However, it's broken, so I can't watch short videos at all :)

People are less likely to quit buying something when they’re addicted to it.

Google wants you to be addicted to YouTube. It makes you more likely to renew.

And it helps keep you off competing platforms (TikTok, reels, etc).

But users like me who hate shorts so much that they want to disable them in the app aren't addicted to shorts because we refuse to open them. And there's no risk of me going to Tiktok or reels because I hate short-form video.

I use ublock origin for this. Also the NYT Opinion section because ain’t nobody got time for that nonsense.

Despite YouTube's attempts at blocking adblockers, I am still using YouTube successfully without ads. That said, at times I do have to reload the page for the video to load properly.

If YouTube was an independent company, which it'd be nice if it was, then by paying for it you'd be supporting YouTube (in case you decided it was worth it and they treated you nicely). But as it is, you're supporting Google, which is arguably an undesirable thing to do given how "evil" they've become. So a first course of action could be to close the tap and don't give them your money for a service that they've enshittified in the name of profit.

They could also make the experience out of the box like SponsorBlock and skip the sponsorship segments, but they don't do that either for their paying users.

Honestly, I use revanced on my android phone which lets me disable all shorts content appearing. and on browser if i stick to the subscriptions tab and maybe the sidebar on videos, there's no shorts.

companies don't work like people, there is no limit to their desires. Trying to appeal to the good taste of a trillion dollar company is, as the anecdote goes, like letting a tiger swallow you up to the shoulders and then demand that it spare your head.

> companies don't work like people, there is no limit to their desires.

public companies specifically force this kind of capture all possible revenue capture to the point of hurting long term profits.

Take Valve, a private company that understands that its not worth pissing off your customers in the long term and have an incentive structure that supports that.

they want your time

attention is all they want

Attention is all they need.

Can't we just give them a hug instead if they're that lonely?

uBock origin + some filters works fine.

I wonder what the issue is with shorts? Usually if I look something up on youtube (say a how-to or a product review), I don't want to see a half hour of blithering that could be compressed to a tweet. I generally pick the shortest video I can find about whatever it is. If it's limited to under a minute that's great. I'd really rather have a text post than a video, but those don't seem to exist any more.

Your comment made me see that there are two kinds of "shorts." The best analogy is print magazines. The one you prefer is like when someone tells you that Byte has a short review of a new device - you go to a library, find the issue, and look up the info. TikTok and YouTube Shorts are like glossy magazines often available in waiting rooms, these can be read (or rather consumed) from any page to any page until you're next in the queue. The mere existence and success of such glossy magazines means there will always be demand for this kind of consumption, this time just on another medium.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com