Ask HN: Did YouTube start recommending more short videos to you out of nowhere?

I don't watch YouTube Shorts and I also don't watch videos shorter than 3 minutes. And yet they still show up a lot on the recommendations page, even though I click "Not interested" button every time. I do use a Google account and YouTube history is turned on.

Does anyone else notice this?

Do you have the youtube mobile app? These videos show up there with a dedicated UI, a bit like Instagram stories. I have never used TikTok but I imagine it is a bit the same concept and a market they are trying to compete in. My theory is that through these short video UI elements people watch a lot of them (it keeps playing new, short videos, no-end, a bit like infinite scrolling I guess), this gives these videos a lot of views, the normal recommendation system is not explicitly aware that these videos are 'special' and recommends them outside of the short video UI because they seem to be popular because they get a lot of views. Hence your recommendation page is full of 30 seconds videos you are not really interested in...

This is my theory because I don't think the short video concept works outside of the infinite loop. I uninstalled the YT app after this. I must admit I was spending too much time on it after they added it. Really a shame, I really liked YT.

No. Mostly watch YouTube on my TV. I don't watch shorts even when on my phone. They are just too addictive and void of any real value.

I do get more #shorts in my feed recently. I don't know if all of them are from channel's I'm subscribed to.

Generally, some month ago, two?, I felt like the feed has changed for the worse.

It's not actually presenting anything new or interesting anymore. Feed turned more into an echo-chamber of the same topics just from different people. A massive waste of time. Hasn't always been like this, so I might be at fault for that to happen.