Someone at YouTube needs glasses • Hacker News Board

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#161

Post by huslage » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

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 want something that blocks them from the AppleTV App. Even if I did like them, it's so stupid to watch shorts on a TV.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#162

Post by rsanek » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

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.

>Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.

More guidelines available at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#163

Post by fernvenue » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

Exactly, and maybe YouTube have a plan, have a god damn plan...By the way, I use https://github.com/KcodeGG/UserStyles this to make YouTube back to old style :)

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#164

Post by tuetuopay » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

xnzakg wrote: post #83

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…

Hmm, on one hand I agree that autoplaying videos should be illegal but on the other hand the clickbaitiness of YouTube thumbnails has reached a point where it's almost better. (cue deArrow comment)

Why I do agree, the autoplay is a distraction preventing me from reading the video title and which channel posted it. Also, the clickbaitiness ends up being a feature for me: they have a specific "style" that's recognizable almost immediatly. A bit like AI-generated images, that have some eerie feeling to them. This way, I know I don't want to watch them.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#165

Post by dfxm12 » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

film42 wrote: post #143

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 bing…

You're still the product. Paying to remove ads doesn't change this. You're still being tracked. Unless something has changed recently, you're still being recommended videos.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#166

Post by matsemann » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

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…

What kills me with the autoplay (at least on mobile), is that the video continues from where it was when you click it. But the autoplay had no sound, and I probably didn't watch it closely. So I always have to scroll back to the beginning, as I've just now been put in the middle of a sentence a bit into the video. Especially for channels which actually gets straight to the point (like Numberphile) it's annoying. Such a stupid design.

Additionally there's a bug on the Android app that it sometimes doesn't show video titles (or the worlds worst A/B test?), so scrolling through I just see talking heads (since it autoplays instead of showing the video thumb) and have to force restart it to actually understand what's going on.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#167

Post by afavour » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:33 PM UTC

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.

Are you still using YouTube despite this frustration?

If yes, then they don't care. Sorry. If you'll tolerate it and some other cohort of users will engage with the site for 0.1 seconds more than they would otherwise, it stays. YouTube is an optimization machine.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#168

Post by slater » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:33 PM UTC

Starlevel004 wrote: post #40

It used to be 12 videos until about a year ago. If you zoom in and out the thumbnails don't change size! The worst casualty of the current design is the search. You get three videos before it inserts completely irrelevant and unrelated algorithmic recommendations. No? Fuck off? Do what I tell you to do!

I just wish they'd fix the "sort by date" bug in search. I search for something, it gives me endless results. If I then choose to sort by upload date, whoopsie, no results found!

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#169

Post by eraviloi » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

jackcooper wrote: post #147

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

[dead]

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#170

Post by nanna » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

AlienRobot wrote: post #146

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 algorith…

I go to HN, text.

Hallelujah.