Honestly, it’s the terrible content moderation policies that are going to kill YouTube, not a certain type of video.
Bingo. I don’t find shorts all that appealing (especially since I can’t cast them to a TV! Wtf, seems like core function there) but I agree, the REAL problem with YouTube is how much creators have to top toe around demonization.
“Demonetization” is just what YouTube’s promises to advertisers look like when they affect video creators.
Money on YouTube flows from advertisers. The revenue from charging advertisers to show ads is split between YouTube/Google and the video creator. If your video is not shown with ads, then there is no revenue to split.
YouTube gives advertisers a very small control over what videos their ads are shown on. They have a few different classifications of videos, and advertisers can choose which ones they want to be seen with. Advertisers are paying for the service of YouTube putting their ads on videos — but only the videos that YouTube thinks the advertiser does want to be seen with.
If your video is fully “demonetized”, that means YouTube has decided that no advertisers want to be seen with it; or that they are not willing to take revenue from showing ads on that video. But they’re still hosting it, making it available to viewers.
Video creators’ revenue is a share of the ad income from YouTube showing the video (and accompanying ads). A “demonetized” video is one that doesn’t show any ads — so there is no revenue to split. It’s not that YouTube is taking all the revenue and leaving none to the video creator. They’re not making any, because they don’t think the advertisers would be okay with being charged to be seen alongside that video.
However, the creator of a “demonetized” video is still receiving value from YouTube. It is not free to host that video — especially if it is popular. Network bandwidth, data storage, and transcoding of video for viewers’ browsers are not free; YouTube covers the cost of these. YouTube is willing to host a lot of videos that they make zero money from, at their expense, rather than censoring those videos by taking them down.
YouTube is willing to host a lot of videos that they make zero money from, at their expense
That’s just not true…they’re hosting it because they data-farm the living shit out of both the creator and anyone that gets tangentially close to their site. More content = more people visit = more data on these people = more money…They make a lot of money on this data, even if no ads are shown on a video, and are by no means doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
Yeah, but they aren’t making nearly the amount of money on the video as they would with the ads, and no where near enough to compensate the creators beyond free hosting.
You can still publish demonetized content, just don’t expect to make money from it on YouTube.
I didn’t say it’s charity. I said the video creator (who wants people to see their video) is receiving a service from the video host for no charge, which otherwise the creator would have to pay for. Hosting your own video on your own storage and network bill is not free. If you don’t believe me, go try doing it yourself.
If the creator didn’t think they were receiving any benefit, they would just take that video down. They sometimes do, but usually they don’t.
Publishing a book costs money. Someone has to buy the paper from the paper makers, and the ink from the ink makers. Someone has to line up the print on the page. Those people have to get paid, so they can go buy a sandwich and pay their rent. So, publishers exercise some judgment in not printing books that they don’t expect to sell, because they’ve gotta pay their bills, including parts and labor.
Same goes for video. Hosting a video costs money. Servers cost money. Power costs money. Network connectivity costs money. The people who run those services need to get paid so they can buy a sandwich and pay their rent. If YouTube is hosting your video, even if they’re not paying you a share of any ad revenue (because they’re not getting any), they’re paying bills that otherwise you would have to pay.
I’m not saying you’ve gotta be grateful or something. I’m saying if you want to understand what’s going on in the world, you can’t do that without understanding the actual bills that people are actually paying.
To put it simply: The hosting costs of demonetized videos are paid for by the hosting of monetized videos.
Don’t believe me? Take your video and store it on a server that you pay for, with network connectivity you pay for. That’s a thing you can do. You can even do it with Fediverse technology. However, it will in fact cost you some amount of money.
they’re all paying the bills by hawking raid shadow legends anyways, may as well not rely on youtube monetization anyways and host elsewhere
Case in point, when youtube buried one of Caitlin Doughty’s documentaries from Ask a Mortician.
The video in question: The Forgotten Disaster of the SS Eastland. It’s 43 minutes long, both well done, and respectfully done. Her team did a good job on it then some youtube automated system buried it for “violating community guidelines”.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=cN5hNzVqkOk
https://piped.video/watch?v=UCHt2MOVCbg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I’m not even sure it is bad policies. I am pretty sure that they just don’t have moderators.
I doubt anyone reads 99.9% of reports.
So you get bigotry and hate, you get insane and deadly DIYs, you get 12yo girls being creeped while posting random 5s clips from their lives.
Not to mention just the vast amount of extraordinarily low-quality content YouTube serves up. It’s amazing how bad a lot of the videos it thinks you will like are. The algorithm makes no sense.
But hey, here’s 16 different Joe Rogan clips with sigma male music in the background.
The algorithm seems like it is optimized for profit, not for actually being a good platform.
That should mean engagement. It serves up such bad videos that I disengage.
Once in a while I’ll realize I just spent 20, 30 minutes looking at a streak of pretty decent stuff. Rare enough to be remarkable. Usually after just 3 or 4 consecutive crap clips I’ll close it down and get back to work.
I doubt anything disengages a user faster than low-quality content. I bet it does it even faster than the authoritarian politics and bigotry YouTube seems to inexorable serve you.
If that were true, it wouldn’t be the way it is.
Just because it causes your disengagement, doesn’t mean it causes disengagement with the vast majority of their userbase.
They’re also more concerned with ad views and clicks, so if you’re not the kind of person who gives a crap about ads… they don’t really care that much about you.
This is predicated on the belief that Google/YouTube is run in a 100% hyper-competent way. I don’t buy that.
Google does things the easiest way possible to make tons of money. They make unforced errors all the damn time.
They don’t have to be 100% competent, but they are very competent at what they want to do… which is monetize the technologies and services they provide. They’re not trying to make something that people can use well and enjoy… they’re making things to make a shit-ton of money. The two goals are not generally mutually inclusive.
Yours, on the other hand, is predicated on the belief that they’re all super-incompetent and have no capability of doing anything right ever… which is confusing considering they’re a multi-billion dollar company and not just some guy in a shack banging rocks together to see how they sound.
Yours, on the other hand, is predicated on the belief that they’re all super-incompetent and have no capability of doing anything right ever
Nope. It’s only this specific thing that I necessarily think they’re doing a bad job of. And I’m right; they are. Their algorithm is a struggling baby compared to TikTok and YouTube at large is not a major profit center (and indeed may not be profitable at all – but they maintain it because abandoning it would be too costly for them).
TikTok is so good at doing this thing that it is a profitable business for them. YouTube is struggling, and we can clearly see why.
The terrible content moderation policies are what keep it alive. No one subscribes to youtube so it’s primary customers are the ad agencies. And they want content moderation
This Shorts issue seems to have measurable, constant and immediate effect in ad revenue and therefore platform profitability. Bad content moderation may or may not decrease engagement but in the end Google is a commercial enterprise that’s looking at the numbers at hand.
Yup, exactly. Some of the creators I’ve seen tell some horror stories about how YouTube work. Videos being demonised for random bullshit, YouTube giving 0 support to them as it’s Googles usual behaviour.
I feel like if some other big tech makes a decent alternative with ad revenue share it might fuck over YouTube. (And you can see how this can apply to X…)
I’m mostly fine with shorts, except for two things:
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You can’t move around in them, it’s either play or pause and repeat, which sucks (as shorts don’t have to be short…)
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On the homepage it doesn’t show who the short is from (which channel) without opening them
You also can’t adjust the volume in browser. You have to go to a normal video, change it, and then go back.
Install Better YouTube Shorts. You can thank me later.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/better-youtube-shorts/
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/better-youtube-shorts/pehohlhkhbcfdneocgnfbnilppmfncdg
Just use the system audio control?
But why do I have to do that when every other video player has a volume slider?
On the contrary, why bother hunting the down the slider for every different player when you could just use the system?
Just curious, since I use the youtube slider like once a month.
I’m not the guy you asked, but I assume they do as I do. My system volume is calibrated for all the various applications I use day to day, including video conferencing. If I have to adjust that, it means everything else is the wrong volume. I’d rather modify YouTube to be the right volume than everything else.
This. My system volume is calibrated to be similar across all applications, games, etc. This means all apps are individually adjusted to reach similar volume level. Why should I have to mess with all of my other volumes just random manager at Youtube decided a volume slider on shorts isn’t necessary despite the site still using volume from regular videos where it can be adjusted? This isn’t an issue with any other app or platform. Maybe the last Youtube video I watched had overly quiet or loud audio compared to the norm and I either have insanely loud audio or I can’t hear a damned thing and I can’t fix it quickly like on any other Youtube page.
Not everyone had a set of dedicated volume buttons, or wheel, etc. on their keyboard, so having to go into Windows settings or reach for a knob or button on the speakers themselves to adjust is a lot more than getting a slider like every other website in the world gives you.
You can’t move around in them, it’s either play or pause and repeat, which sucks (as shorts don’t have to be short…)
Oddly enough, this seems to be a desktop limitation. I can scrub backwards and forwards just fine on my phone.
Hopefully desktop PC hardware will become powerful enough to gain the ability to skip around in 30 second videos someday. I think I read that they expect them to be at parity with smartphone hardware in the next decade or two.
It’s also annoying that you can’t save them without using the hack where you change the URL.
You can scrub around in them. Look for the red bar on the bottom after the short starts. You can tap and drag on it and a little red circle will appear that will show briefly after you release.
You can move around in them. Atleast on Android, there is a hidden red bar at the bottom which becomes visible if you pause the video.
I simply prefer TikTok for short form videos due to unique community and reasonably entertaining algorithm.
I enjoy YouTube to the point of paying for Premium but I hate that my YouTube subscriptions feed on TV is littered with shorts that I have no way of disabling other than hiding them one by one (which I do to make a point).
Suits at Google will try to shove it into everyone’s throats until they get bored and someone adds it to killedbygoogle.com so why would anyone even bother with it.
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Might? It already has.
If shorts were simply a separate section of YouTube with all of its functionality, then that’s understandable. But as they stand, shorts are just YouTube with both reduced functionality (forced vertical aspect ratio, no seek bar, time limit) AND all of the existing flaws (bad recommendation algorithm, reposted content, etc. )
Unless you are some kind of tech contrarian hipster, I don’t think there is one thing that YouTube shorts does better than TikTok, or heck, Instagram Reels.
no seek bar
I really don’t understand who thought that removing the seek bar from a video player was a good idea…
It’s actually there on mobile, just hidden.
Even TikTok has a seek bar and has for a long time.
I have a seek bar, is it because I’m using Revanced? I just that ot was there
Pretty sure that’s one of the Revanced patches.
Plus no volume control so you often get instantly ear blasted
You should be able to remove Shorts from your feed. I never watch them and yet they fill my feed up making it jore difficult to find real content. I’m specifically talking about the smart TV app which throws them all in together.
I’m using some custom ublock origin filters that I found somewhere to block shorts across all of youtube:
!Youtube Shorts www.youtube.com###guide-content #endpoint[title="Shorts"]:upward(ytd-guide-entry-renderer) www.youtube.com###items #endpoint[title="Shorts"]:upward(ytd-mini-guide-entry-renderer) www.youtube.com##ytd-browse #dismissible ytd-rich-grid-slim-media[is-short]:upward(ytd-rich-section-renderer) www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"]) www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"]) www.youtube.com##ytd-search ytd-video-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"]) www.youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer ytd-compact-video-renderer:has(span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"]) www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] ytd-video-renderer span.ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[aria-label="Shorts"]:upward(ytd-item-section-renderer) m.youtube.com##ytm-reel-shelf-renderer m.youtube.com##ytm-pivot-bar-renderer div.pivot-shorts:upward(ytm-pivot-bar-item-renderer) m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-video-with-context-renderer:has(ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]) m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-compact-video-renderer:has(ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]) m.youtube.com##ytm-search ytm-compact-video-renderer:has(ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"])Also separately, for blocking videos that don’t exist yet, which I also dislike:
!Youtube upcoming videos www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-grid-video-renderer:has(ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[overlay-style="UPCOMING"]) www.youtube.com##ytd-browse ytd-rich-item-renderer:has(ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[overlay-style="UPCOMING"]) www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] ytd-video-renderer ytd-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[overlay-style="UPCOMING"]:upward(ytd-item-section-renderer)He’s talking about smart tv app. If those “shorts” are being pulled from some other subdomain then perhaps a block rule on that domain set on the router would help. But best just not to use youtube.
I’m pretty sure shorts are just Youtube videos but with a different UI.
You can take the video ID from the URL of a Shorts clip and put it in a normal Youtube URL and the shorts video plays with the normal Youtube player.
I don’t know what I would do with this. And I mentioned to someone else that I mostly watch YT on a Shield. Is this even relevant to me?
Surprising no one jumped onto you with thw revanced suggestions.
There’s a few firefox plugins that do this. I forget which one I am using but I honestly forgot shorts existed.
There’s a little hidden button on the Shorts pane that you can see when you hover it. It gives you the ability to hide them for 30 days if you click it.
They’ve started putting them in the recommended videos pane on the right when playing videos in a browser. Worst of all, they put it near the top and in a much larger cell than the rest of the recommended videos.
I watch YouTube mostly on my TV (using a Shield) so I don’t think that would work for me.
Can’t you just cast what you want to your TV?
But the Shield was specifically bought to stream.
Mind you those are (at least some of) the guys that killed animation and comedy sketches on youtube because they made it necessary for videos to be 10+ minutes long to be relevant.
Which I get a laugh out of, because in the early days youtube would not let you post any video longer than 10 minutes, unless you were a “special” approved account. Now, only 10+ minute videos matter. A complete about face.
To be fair, that was likely due to storage capacity concerns. As yt’s used storage grows by the petabytes we are sure to see this again. In fact, new accounts have a limit on video length already. It is capped at 15 minutes. When I tried to upload a long video on an alt account, not even a particularly fresh one, it tried asking me for my ID.
Though it is possible this limitation has been there for a while and I was just not aware of it.
…
Okay I need to complain a bit more but that website now won’t even let my decade old account put a link in any of its video’s descriptions unless I send them my ID first, because they are sooo adamantly fighting against spam. Thanks YT, how are the crypto scams going by the way.
And yes, the final nail in its coffin™: shorts.
might? Shorts are the main reason I found alternatives like Freetube, Newpipe and Invidious; and continue to look for actual alternative platforms.
if there was just a checkbox to turn them off forever I’d probably still be on the mainpage.
There’s a firefox plugin to remove all shorts.
I already have around 50 plugins to unfuck youtube specifically … which I should really uninstall now that I never visit the site
Thats how reddit got, too many plugins. Plus it’s bad faith to hide dark mode behind an account, and new reddit sucks so that doesnt count.
Shorts also cannot be cast from a mobile device. If I’m going through my curated channels while casting, the app give an error and requires me to stop casting before I can watch the short. I just skip it and don’t bother anymore.
Yeah, most of the youtube I watch is cast to the chromecast of whatever room I’m in. I can’t add shorts to the queue, so I just skip them.
Using revanced. Disabled shorts. Watching these YT shorts & recommendations decays my brain cells
The terrible content moderation policies and adblock bans will ruin it long before shorts.
Perhaps it’s a little too late for YouTube to ride this trend. TikTok is even pivoting to long videos, as they know where the money is.
> tf4 Dr bhx
They’re pushing it way too hard, just like the google+ shit back in the day but even more in your face. Stinks strongly of “we have tiktok at home”
Since they added it I’ve moved over to revanced which allows you to remove it.
They are right that Shorts are harming YouTube, in the same way that Windows 8 harmed Windows.
YouTube and TikTok are different things. People go to TikTok for a specific thing, people go to YouTube for something else. And YouTube sees a bunch of people on TikTok, and says ‘if that’s what people want we should be the ones to give it to them’. But in doing so, they are ignoring the people who WANT YouTube and NOT TikTok, by making YouTube more like TikTok.
This is just like Windows 8. Microsoft saw a bunch of people ditching desktop PCs in favor of iPads, so they said ‘let’s make Windows more like an iPad’. Thus, Windows 8- only one app open at once, touch-focused interface that was frustrating with a mouse. It ignored the people who WANT Windows and NOT iPad, by making Windows more like iPad.
The simple fact is, Shorts are frustrating. The lack of a scrub bar and volume control are a big part of why I DON’T like TikTok, especially on PC. And seeing that same crappy format on the desktop YouTube web interface is a big turn off.
If there was an option to just ‘never show me Shorts’ I’d click it in a heartbeat.
There are much bigger problems with YouTube than Shorts though. One of the biggest is their content moderation. I get it, there’s 50 hours of video uploaded every minute and you can’t watch it all so you let automated system handle it. Problem is, people RELY on YouTube to make a living in many cases. And when some asshole can destroy their livelihood by filing a couple hundred obviously false bot reports, that makes creators think twice. Same thing when the policies you DO have seesaw between allowing some really offensive stuff, and persecuting types of content that people in California dislike.
What YT needs to do is rethink the whole way demonetizing works. Rather than being a single flag that instantly makes a video ineligible for monetization, they should have categories of advertisements. So that way if someone wants to post a video that has controversial themes like (for example) firearms or marijuana use, rather than being entirely demonetized, the video can show ads from gun companies or smoking supply companies. Advertisers could specify what sort of controversial content they are willing to be promoted alongside, so everybody could win.
Another huge problem is their awful ‘engagement algorithm’. It seems expressly designed to make low quality content bubble to the top, while the really good stuff is harder and harder to find.
I wish I could watch shorts from only my subscribed channels.
This isn’t a bad format inherently, it’s just being abused. I like seeing short Blender clips, or short guitar tutorial on a riff, or stand up bits that sit well within the time frame.
The short time restrictions have started to foster an animation revival. Youtube long ago fucked animators by prioritizing longer videos. I’m happy to see Shorts, I just think youtube needs to pump the brakes a bit on pushing it. Let it grow organically so you can butcher it at random because Google.
I don’t have an issue with the shorts, I have an issue with how they’re mixed in with regular content and other than being recent often have little to no bearing on what the user is viewing or searching for
Yeah, that is a gripe I have with them. I’d like to stick to one topic sometimes, youtube.
