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Someone at YouTube needs glasses

jayd.ml

521–530 of 720 posts

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all checks out if you recognize YouTube clearly doesn't consider the app and the website to be your turf. You are in their home, they have oreos all over the place and they will offer it to you over and over again. You'll ask if they have water, they'll bring it with a box of oreos. You'll ask where the bathroom is, and find an Oreo waiting for you by the sink in case you'd like to indulge.

This is the correct model. If you want your own home you can use something like Urbit. Generally in the web as it is, we are all serfs on other people’s computers.

In my analogy, YouTube was the grocery store, not my home. I don't think of it as a place that I own, but a place that I go shopping for vegetables (educational long-form content). I already made the decision not to enter the candy store on the same block (TikTok), and while I accept that the grocery store sells candy too, I would find it intolerable for them to be following me around waving Oreos in my face as I browse the vegetable aisle, when I keep telling them I don't want Oreos because I'm on a diet. In fact they're the ones asking me if I want to see candy in the vegetable aisle and I keep telling them no.

I don't think it makes sense to say that they are forced by the market to do this to compete with the candy store, when they already know I don't want candy in the first place. Instead, this sort of annoying practice pushes me to leave and visit the organic market instead (Nebula).

I don't think "revealed preference" is the right explanation here either, because these kinds of settings preferences are tailored to an individual account, and I never click on Shorts and always select the "hide" dropdown, so the preference that I have revealed is one that is strongly disinterested in Shorts.

I think the correct explanation is that someone's KPI is attached to increasing Shorts viewership, and they're trying to earn their bonus, even if it's at a cost to the success of the organization as a whole.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#522
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you click on one though and go to swipe (unless it's in your subscriptions) it doesn't allow you to "scroll". You can watch them when necessary but it's impossible to get sucked into an infinite feed.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call these features "dead birds" because they remind me of gifts that an outdoor cat will leave on your doorstep. They took quite the effort to do and were made with good intention, but ultimately I don't want them.

Careful there are programmers here watching. Pretend to like the bird.

Hissssss!

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#525
post #49

Thank you for writing this post! I opened youtube a few days ago to this as well. On a 24" 1440p monitor its ridiculous. It's incomprehensible there's a UI/UX team that gets paid millions of dollars per year and the result is changes like this. Thank you again for writing this post. After searching it seems like they've been "testing" this in segments for a while now. As a result I installed the "Control Panel for Yo…

It's not enough to have hindustantimes.com articles for local American news on google-- even YouTube must be sacrificed. The rivers of enshittification must flow.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The annoying bit is similar to reels, shorts are good for engagement. It’s similar to why I don’t buy Oreos. I like Oreos, everyone likes Oreos - they’re engineered to be liked, but they’re bad for you. The best way to not eat them is to not have them in the house. Short form videos are the heroin of media consumption - meta having to pivot instagram to it is because they’re facing competitive pressure. Same with You…

So you don't buy Oreos, and think the best way to eat them is not to have them in the house. I agree. That's why I don't have TikTok on my phone. So why can't I keep YouTube Shorts disabled? I'm telling them I don't want it. If I'm the kind of person who doesn't keep Oreos in the house to avoid eating them, why would I go to a grocery store that insists on slipping a pack of Oreos into every third bag of carrots?

> why can't I keep YouTube Shorts disabled?

> why would I go to a grocery store that insists on slipping a pack of Oreos into every third bag of carrots?

You can see how these are not analogous. The store _is_ slipping Oreos in your vegetables. So yeah… don’t install TikTok _or_ YouTube. I get that you’d rather YouTube to be YouTube-without-shorts, but it’s not a thing anymore, vegetables-without-Oreos is not an option at this grocery store

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#528
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 personally love the autoplay (on hovering), as often I just want to see some part of the video without having to click on it and see a bunch of ads before any playback.

Re: Someone at YouTube needs glasses

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unhook extension can get rid of them. It also gets rid of that nonsense they did to the search page.

Works for the website but not the mobile app (where shorts are pushed even harder).

It's funny/sad how even firefox is making it worse now. I tend to browse youtube in firefox because the youtube app is such a pain, and doesn't have tabs and other niceties. And then only view individual videos in the app because the player works better and it's nicer to interact with comments.

But for a while now firefox has been asking every single goddamn time whether I want to open this page in the app instead. With the only extra option to always in open in app. What about no? What about never?

shakes fist at sky

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