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Someone at YouTube needs glasses

jayd.ml

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Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#141

Post by bluGill »

pizzathyme wrote: post #112

I always laugh at these shots from the hip criticizing YouTube and Google. As though Google doesn't have a entire team of data scientists and top tier engineers managing this experiment and driving it to optimal results. (Spoiler: they do) If you don't like the service, you can stop using it. And if you do, they have already factored that into their metrics guardrail, and it was the right decision.

I have a background in human machine interaction and I can tell you without even being there to tell you that a lot of changes didn't have proper UX design work done on them.

Now they did have AB testing and likely are better at the metrics Google cares about: making money. However they are worse for users in ways that real user testing would catch. Again though, real user testing would likely cost them money.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#142

Post by alex1138 »

One thing that made Youtube work well in its early days was a robust and interesting recommendations system (for those who are old, like me). There was also a robust Trending section

They chipped away and chipped away at the usefulness of Youtube and the recommendations got worse and worse (and sometimes blatantly corporate), then they lied about what was trending, and now it's just a mess (some of the recommendations can still be good). And I'll forever maintain they absolutely do regularly remove videos (or demonetize channels) for reasons of 'misinformation' (which they aren't, at least some of the time); they've taken an ideological stance. And there's a reason why the default homepage isn't your subscriptions page

Companies do not listen to their users. I guess in part it's because if you did you'd have to take on board every asinine suggestion under the cover of "the customer is always right" but there's a middle ground, y'know? They just really don't seem to care, giving any sort of feedback is like screaming into the void

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#143

Post by film42 »

dcchambers wrote: post #58

I am BEGGING someone, anyone at Google/YouTube to let me permanently disable YouTube Shorts. I HATE Short form video content and no matter how many times I select "show me less of this" I still get them front and center when I open the app or website.

Same. Shorts are actually a great product in terms of capturing attention, but I don't want them on youtube. I hear someone from the back shouting, "you're not the customer, you're the product!" but I pay for youtube premium... that makes me the customer; and I pay for the long-form content without ads! But 50% of Youtube shorts are just ads or product marketing. I never feel good after going on a youtube shorts binge. Please, youtube, let me turn it off.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#144

Post by rambambram »

I thought it was just me experiencing this last week. I thought I accidentally changed some setting, even checked my browser's zoom mode, and then just lived with it.

Also the lack of 'gutters' to lay my mouse cursor to rest while scrolling is annoying.

But hey, I subscribed to your RSS feed. That's at least some good news.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#146

Post by AlienRobot »

dcchambers wrote: post #58

I am BEGGING someone, anyone at Google/YouTube to let me permanently disable YouTube Shorts. I HATE Short form video content and no matter how many times I select "show me less of this" I still get them front and center when I open the app or website.

I go to TikTok, shorts.

I go to Youtube, shorts.

I go to Instagram, shorts.

I go to Facebook, shorts.

I go to Imgur, shorts.

I go to Pinterest, no shorts because it only plays 1 video per screen, but on mobile the screen is smaller so, shorts.

I go to Reddit, shorts.

I go to Bluesky, shorts.

I don't go to Twitter.

Tumblr is probably the only social media that isn't filled with vertical videos and that has an algorithmic feed. I go to Explore and I get dandelions. A static photo of them, not a video. I'm crossing my fingers it stays that way.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#147

Post by jackcooper »

dcchambers wrote: post #58

I am BEGGING someone, anyone at Google/YouTube to let me permanently disable YouTube Shorts. I HATE Short form video content and no matter how many times I select "show me less of this" I still get them front and center when I open the app or website.

Summary of the proposed solutions to block YouTube Shorts:

-Enhancer for YouTube extension (Firefox) — mopsi

-Unhook extension (Chrome/Firefox) — jabroni_salad, kelvinjps10

-YouTube-shorts block add-on — timbit42

-ReVanced for mobile — kelvinjps10

-Shorts filter list in Brave browser (works on mobile) — my personal favorite

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#148

Post by karmakaze »

rozab wrote: post #46

For a long time the grid of videos on the homepage has been slightly misaligned. I imagine the different rows belong to different teams. This means you can't hover your mouse in the gaps between columns while you scroll to prevent videos autoplaying when moused over. I find the autoplay so annoying because it hides the thumbnail which was carefully designed to communicate why I should click on the video and replaces…

I never noticed that weird space between videos not stopping autoplay--I always just kept moving my mouse around until it stopped. You can start by entering the thumbnail space, but to stop it you have to enter another thumbnail space or get very close to it--the main spacing between won't stop autoplay. There's hysteresis between the start/stop edges.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#149

Post by gregorymichael »

dcchambers wrote: post #58

I am BEGGING someone, anyone at Google/YouTube to let me permanently disable YouTube Shorts. I HATE Short form video content and no matter how many times I select "show me less of this" I still get them front and center when I open the app or website.

Huge +1. Please.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#150

Post by vault »

nobodywasishere wrote: post #131
dcchambers wrote: post #58

I am BEGGING someone, anyone at Google/YouTube to let me permanently disable YouTube Shorts. I HATE Short form video content and no matter how many times I select "show me less of this" I still get them front and center when I open the app or website.

You can disable watch history on your account, which completely disables it. No need to install any extension (which may not work on all your devices) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42795204

Not sure what you mean with "completely disables it". I have watch history disabled and still see shorts in search results or subscriptions results https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions
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