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YouTube rolls out new tools to help you stop watching

wcunning 8y ago
YouTube did that at the beginning of April by enforcing new content standards that disallowed content I liked. Deciding to exercise editorial and "parental" control over the platform is going to kill it for me, and extrapolating from current trends, probably do so in the next 12 months or less.
watwut 8y ago
My issue with youtube is not that I cant stop watching. I have two issues: 1.) I watched one historical nazi movie due to attempt to learn. Why is it suggestig so many "holocaust did not happened" pieces and genuine white supremacist bs? Real story. 2.) I started with metal search. Why is it reversion g to pop so fast? I want metal. Definitely not Peppa the Pig. Wtf, I started with metal, not Peppa.
montrose 8y ago
Noprocrast comes to YouTube!
runevault 8y ago
First the new tools coming in Android P, now this. Interesting to see how serious Google appears to be about helping people better understand how they use their time.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  It's the problem generator that helps you deal with the symptom. Strangest thing, they could just stop being the problem.
  - runevault 8y ago
    Can they do it without someone else simply filling the vacuum left in their wake? Or do you mean something other than stopping creating things that steal attention/etc?
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      They could just design the system in such a way that it does not push for overconsumption to begin with. The whole thing is set up the way a drug pusher can only dream about and then they go and make these token efforts to stop the addiction. The same happens here in NL with casinos, only the government is supposed to run them because they are so concerned for our well being and the potential for gambling addiction, but I've never seen them refuse someone gambling the childrens college fund away in a single evening.
  - kolpa 8y ago
    You want everyone to stop making computers, because some people overuse them?
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      I don't think I mentioned everyone stop making computers, is this answer meant for some other thread?
      - eric_h 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
rbongers 8y ago
I really hope Google keeps moving in this direction. I think it will be great for the company's long term reception and I'm excited to apply this to my own life.
- sw007 8y ago
  Wonder if other companies will follow suit?
- AndrewUnmuted 8y ago
  Rather than giving people an exit strategy from a predatory and addictive UX, did it ever occur to Google that they may instead try to improve the UX itself so that “tools” like this don’t need to be made in the first place?
  - ralusek 8y ago
    "Predatory and addictive UX" in this case just refers to the fact that they have a good algorithm and setup that correctly shows me additional related content that I actually want to see. This is like getting mad at the restaurant by your house for having food that is so good that it's making you fat and poor. Personal lack of self control is the problem, not good UX. A tool like this is attempting to assist with the problem, not bring the functionality of the site to a point that services the shortcomings of the lowest common denominator.
    - IshKebab 8y ago
      No he means stuff like autoplaying a random video after you finish watching one by default. I don't think anyone really wants that.
    - AndrewUnmuted 8y ago
      Why would you say what I meant by "predatory and addictive" instead of just asking me what I meant? Your statement is a broad oversimplification of my point, and this makes your argument intellectually dishonest. You and I may understand the need to engage in self-control and personal responsibility for sites like YouTube, but that's because you and I have an insiders' perspective on the dangers of not doing so. YouTube has precipitously catered to the lowest common denominator and took advantage of their mass gullability. It is overwhelmingly obvious that YouTube designed their site in a way that would get people addicted to the point of needing a tool like this. The fact that they auto-play videos when they know the viewer is a child is downright disgusting. YouTube did this instead of taking a more sophisticated approach of catering to directors, actors, and producers. YouTube had the chance to elevate the conversation and make digital media higher-minded, but instead decided to cater to people making content for the lowest common denominator - stupid, shlocky trash. The fact that you refer to what YouTube provides as "content" shows that you are not at all concerned with the way that YouTube has cheapened our digital media in order to get people hopelessly hooked. Just because one can do something effective to increase the immediate bottom line and revenues of their product, doesn't mean they should. I am all about personal responsibility and I do agree that the blame largely lands on the individual at the end of the day. But YouTube is obviously preying on these individuals' largesse and that is just as immoral as being a lazy slob that watches YouTube all day is. YouTube could have taken a proactive approach and showed the world how the web could enable much higher quality video, while limiting your digital footprint. But instead, they did the opposite, which is why I refuse to publish on their "platform."
mrguyorama 8y ago
Interesting that google now has a "design ethicist", but in my opinion, the fact that he's not allowed to shut down the company means he has already failed
- ionforce 8y ago
  Correct. Anyone that's in these positions of moderating are only as effective as they are granted the power to potentially stop everything. If that person doesn't have the power, then it's just lip service.
- dyarosla 8y ago
  Is your remark witty? Sure. Does it add to the conversation? Not so much.
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    As a baseline it adds more than yours, right? He is for example, using humor to make the point that a toothless gesture doesn’t address the core issue. By contrast you’re just being pissy and reactive.
    - dyarosla 8y ago
      (removed)
      - Semirhage 8y ago
        If only you had said that instead of the single line, Reddit-like bit of venom you actually wrote!
- dageshi 8y ago
  Given the utility of Google Search, I would really rather they not shut it down...
Semirhage 8y ago
While these changes to YouTube are opt-in, it’s an interesting – and arguably responsible – position to take in terms of helping people manage their sometimes addictive behaviors around technology. It would be easier to make that argument if they weren’t opt-in, and layered on top of an attention-monetizing economy.
ReidZB 8y ago
Related: as far as I know, there's no way to permanently disable the "Up Next" autoplay on the desktop site for an account, which drives me crazy every day pretty much. I hope this new design philosophy will end up with a way to disable autoplay... but I'm not holding my breath.
- 51Cards 8y ago
  I have Auto Play disabled on my YouTube account for regular channels. The control is above the Up Next list and I've had it off for well over a year now. https://i.imgur.com/qaK6W8W.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qaK6W8W.jpg Playlists though keep going which is annoying.
  - sp332 8y ago
    Right, but you have to set that on each individual browser. It doesn't apply to your account.
- runevault 8y ago
  Are you talking playlists or period? On directly going to a video mine is disabled on the desktop site unless I load in incog window where I lose my settings. Playlists, however, I know of no way to fix it.
- c54 8y ago
  I’m pretty sure this option exists in the youtube settings, I found it and disabled autoplay at one point. Poke around, you’ll find it.
  - trumped 8y ago
    but you have to be logged in for that setting to be effective and most of the time I'm not logged in when browsing YouTube... Sometimes I just let it play in the background to eat up their bandwidth for no reason because i don't like stupid default settings. I get it that google is trying to turn the Internet into a TV, but soon you won't even have to type anything in Google Search... the results will come to you.
Giorgi 8y ago
Yeah, well they are not earning any money after the ad is played so might as well suggest to stop playing.
bahmboo 8y ago
I wonder if this phenomenon is age related. I chose not to regulate my game playing hours to something "healthy" in my teens and my early twenties. As I aged it wasn't an issue. I guess this is a thing now? How about you've been working 10 hours time to take a break? You've been married 20 years time to move on? Somewhat facetious but I was genuinely surprised they actually built these tools because that implies it's not a trivial issue in the population.
artur_makly 8y ago
youtube kids should have better addiction and content controls
tomc1985 8y ago
By night, YouTube and Facebook secretly take baseball bats to the windshields of our minds. By day, YouTube and Facebook sell us glass repair services, at a special price no less! YT and FB could fix these social issues overnight, if they wanted to: turn off autoplay, turn off recommendations, restore chronological timelines, and dial down the ads. But they won't because that is the core of their business model. Instead they offer bullshit mind-repair services to fix the damage they continue to do.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  Or: auto logout. It's how I effectively dampered by Facebook usage. No apps on the phone, log out when done on the desktop. Adds a picosecond for considering whether you're tabbing over out of addiction or free will.
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    Have you considered not using fb anymore? Try the delete account feature - they give you a few weeks before it's actually deleted. I found that I didn't actually miss it.
    - joshvm 8y ago
      It gets quite fun if you don't use it. Facebook starts sending really needy notifications like "X just commented on a picture" or "Y just liked this" to try and make you login. I think there's an apocryphal metric (which is probably true) that users must always have one unread notification when they login. There's no way of turning these messages off short of unfollowing every one of your friends individually.
      - ryandrake 8y ago
        Interesting. My FB account is dormant but not deleted. I have not used it in over 5 years, and I don’t recall seeing emails like this.
vinayms 8y ago
Lately, I am reading about such product features a lot. I wonder if there is some kind of intelligence about class action suits in the making against tech sites like YouTube, Facebook etc for being addictive and dangerous to health, because I can't imagine these companies taking interest in these sort of things suo moto. Seems they are preempting a future legal hassle.
- zrobotics 8y ago
  AFAIK there's no legal threats in the pipeline, I think they are wanting to avoid the negative media attention Facebook has been receiving. There doesn't need to be a legal threat, enough negative press could be very detrimental to their business model, which revolves around YouTube being a de facto monopoly in the video space.
- HNthrow22 8y ago
  Share a similar cynical view of this, smells like a preemptive CYA move. Reminds me casinos with the help numbers for gambling addicts posted. There's been high profile articles shining a light on the predatory design tactics in tech recently so the awareness of the issue is on the rise. The idea of a 'design ethicist' while novel seems fundamentally opposed to the attention-economy. Overly cynical view is this is google angling to make the case to self-regulate vs. managing an intrusive regulatory body investigating/fining them for violations once more people are aware of the current shenanigans.
  - eric_h 8y ago
    > Reminds me casinos with the help numbers for gambling addicts posted At least one of the problem gambling hotlines has an IVR option to redirect you to a hotel reservation system.
joecool1029 8y ago
Surprised nobody brought it up when talking about terrible UX. The current YouTube UI is this shit called polymer. It's terrible, on most systems it delays loading any text around the player until the player is loaded. (Especially bad in Firefox/Edge) This can be disabled by appending disable_polymer=1 to the URL, but it can't be saved as a cookie or set per account. I have a greasemonkey script to it. For me it's an annoyance, for my blind friend it means no working screenreader when polymer is enabled.
- sushid 8y ago
  Really? This certainly can't be a limitation in the language, correct? I find it hard to believe that Google doesn't have accessibility support for one of their websites written in their own language.
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    YouTube's Polymer UI uses Web Components and Shadow DOM, which are natively implemented in Chrome but not Firefox or Edge yet. So YouTube serves slow JavaScript polyfills for JavaScript to non-Chrome browsers. Firefox and Edge (on my Windows laptop) take about five seconds to replace a YouTube page's wireframe layout with text. But if I append "&disable_polymer=1" as joecool1029 recommends above, the text loads instantly in Firefox and Edge. Is YouTube's new Polymer UI sooo much better that is worth five second page loads in non-Chrome browsers?
    - cpeterso 8y ago
      Correction: I did some more research and YouTube's Polymer UI uses Chrome's non-standard Shadow DOM v0 API, so even when Firefox and Edge ship the standard Shadow DOM API (which is in progress), YouTube will still be 5x slower than in Chrome. :|
    - progval 8y ago
      It's almost as if Google wanted to push its own web browser
- 8y ago
trendia 8y ago
Is there any way to create a playlist of videos and then resume playback at the same point? For instance, I have about 20 C++ videos I'd like to watch, and each is an hour long. I rarely have a whole hour, but maybe 20 minutes. I have yet to figure out how to resume playback where I left off, which would be a very useful feature!
- nix0n 8y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/feed/history https://www.youtube.com/feed/history will at least tell you which one you watched last
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  mps-youtube Killer feature. https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube
chasing 8y ago
Stop promoting videos that are low-content, mindless listicles, or flat-out misleading. Or promote stupid behavior. I'm relatively savvy, but every time I go poking around YouTube it takes a fucking effort to avoid this garbage. Those videos are designed to be as addicting and empty as eating piles and piles of candy and YouTube cannot be a mentally healthy place as long as they're constantly pushed to to forefront.
- Reedx 8y ago
  I rarely see any of that, actually. The key is to be logged in, build up some history and subscribe to high quality channels. Most of what I see is related to things I've watched or new content from said channels. Plus subscribe to Youtube Red, so don't have ads injecting garbage.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    I don't want to be logged in or spew my personal viewing interests to some cloud-hosted ads-and-marketing AI's behavioural manipulation engine. Why not client-based tools that locally retain channel blocklists?
    - vatueil 8y ago
      As a website YouTube probably doesn't have much interest in working on client-based tools, especially not for a niche audience. Though I do wish they would at least give even logged-in users a way to block channels. There are browser add-ons that can block channels or certain keywords: - Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/video-blocker/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/video-blocker/ - Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-blocker/jknkjnpcbbgcbdbaampbjlhkcghmgfhk https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-blocker/jknk...
      - dredmorbius 8y ago
        I was under the impression chanel blocking had been recently added, possibly not. I've certainly advocated for it. Absent that, the downside risk for offensive or abysmal content is minimal. Blocking puts skin in the game.
hungerstrike 8y ago
I don't need a babysitter to tell me when to stop doing things, but I'd love to be able to login to YouTube without having to be logged into the rest of Google. That's one reason I think Twitch is killing YouTube in live-streaming: Like Reddit, I'm able to create a new Twitch account without having it affect the rest of my life online and I can be completely anonymous - they don't ask for a phone number or anything.
rconti 8y ago
Am I the only one who has 0 youtube addiction? I find FB far more compelling, though I derive quite a bit of value from it. I watch YouTube to watch a video or two I want to watch. that's it. Frankly, when someone sends me a video to watch, I resent it, because I hate spending 5 minutes of my life watching something that probably won't be funny. Some nights I'll pull up YT on the TV and play a Wendover productions vid, or an AvE vid, or a car video or two, and that's it. I don't ever feel sucked in or addicted to it. If anything, I often want to watch something but can't find anything interesting to watch; nothing sounds that compelling, or I get 3 minutes in and am bored so I try to find something else. Am I unique in that way? I've also never gotten into video games, they just don't hold any appeal or hold my attention. That's not to say I haven't spend 12 hours gaming at a LAN party once in a blue moon (actually far less frequently, maybe 4 or 5 times in my life).. but I don't get sucked in in the same way I get sucked into other internet distractions. I can go down HN rabbitholes or keep refreshing FB or some news site hoping to find something interesting, but YT doesn't do it for me.
- aarbor989 8y ago
  I go on YouTube like once a month, at most. So yea I’m with you. I’ve actually _tried_ to get “addicted” to it by forcing myself to search for interesting videos just to see what all the fuss about, but I just never end up going back to the site for more
- ghba66 8y ago
  I am exactly like you. I hate videos. Videos are a loss of time compared to text. They are slower, you can’t consume them at your own pace, you can’t go back easily or read a particular part slowly and then read the rest faster or skip sections or paragraphs or... Also I can’t imagine anything lamer than YouTube personalities.
  - Jemmeh 8y ago
    This. It kind of depends on my mood or what I'm doing, but reading is generally so much faster. Though I realized a while back that this is mostly true for people who read quickly. Some of my older family members prefer videos to having to put on reading glasses. And a lot of people just read slowly in general. Now that I think about it, it's usually when my eyes are kind of aching (long days at screens) that I start to prefer videos even for things that don't require a visual.
sodosopa 8y ago
They added Logan Paul to every video didn't they?
pathseeker 8y ago
It's like a cigarette company offering a gum you chew that reduces your smoking from a pack a day to half a pack a day. Whoopee!
balls187 8y ago
Youtube, start by killing all content aimed at little kids.
twothamendment 8y ago
Potato chip company: "We tired to make you stop eating them." Customer: "Sell me more, I don't care if I'm fat." Potato chip company: "OK, but make sure you read the nutrition panel on the back." (Hey guys, increase production, we have them hooked now!) As long as auto play lives on, they show they have no interest in helping anyone watch less - and why should they pretend they care?
sokoloff 8y ago
I find it amusing that one of the choices is 180 minutes. Yes, please remind me every three HOURS of non-stop videos that I watch that it might be time to take a break...but don't offer me a choice of every two hours.
Aardwolf 8y ago
> You set Wind Down when you’d like to go to bed, and Android P will shift into a gray-scale palette Oh they should really make this red-scale (red on black, no white light), not grey-scale, red is the only color that does not disturb night vision, and grey contains blue so disturbs sleep.

YouTube did that at the beginning of April by enforcing new content standards that disallowed content I liked. Deciding to exercise editorial and "parental" control over the platform is going to kill it for me, and extrapolating from current trends, probably do so in the next 12 months or less.

watwut 8y ago

My issue with youtube is not that I cant stop watching. I have two issues: 1.) I watched one historical nazi movie due to attempt to learn. Why is it suggestig so many "holocaust did not happened" pieces and genuine white supremacist bs? Real story. 2.) I started with metal search. Why is it reversion g to pop so fast? I want metal. Definitely not Peppa the Pig. Wtf, I started with metal, not Peppa.

montrose 8y ago

Noprocrast comes to YouTube!

runevault 8y ago

First the new tools coming in Android P, now this. Interesting to see how serious Google appears to be about helping people better understand how they use their time.

jacquesm 8y ago
It's the problem generator that helps you deal with the symptom. Strangest thing, they could just stop being the problem.
- runevault 8y ago
  Can they do it without someone else simply filling the vacuum left in their wake? Or do you mean something other than stopping creating things that steal attention/etc?
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    They could just design the system in such a way that it does not push for overconsumption to begin with. The whole thing is set up the way a drug pusher can only dream about and then they go and make these token efforts to stop the addiction. The same happens here in NL with casinos, only the government is supposed to run them because they are so concerned for our well being and the potential for gambling addiction, but I've never seen them refuse someone gambling the childrens college fund away in a single evening.
- kolpa 8y ago
  You want everyone to stop making computers, because some people overuse them?
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    I don't think I mentioned everyone stop making computers, is this answer meant for some other thread?
    - eric_h 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

rbongers 8y ago

I really hope Google keeps moving in this direction. I think it will be great for the company's long term reception and I'm excited to apply this to my own life.

sw007 8y ago
Wonder if other companies will follow suit?
AndrewUnmuted 8y ago
Rather than giving people an exit strategy from a predatory and addictive UX, did it ever occur to Google that they may instead try to improve the UX itself so that “tools” like this don’t need to be made in the first place?
- ralusek 8y ago
  "Predatory and addictive UX" in this case just refers to the fact that they have a good algorithm and setup that correctly shows me additional related content that I actually want to see. This is like getting mad at the restaurant by your house for having food that is so good that it's making you fat and poor. Personal lack of self control is the problem, not good UX. A tool like this is attempting to assist with the problem, not bring the functionality of the site to a point that services the shortcomings of the lowest common denominator.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    No he means stuff like autoplaying a random video after you finish watching one by default. I don't think anyone really wants that.
  - AndrewUnmuted 8y ago
    Why would you say what I meant by "predatory and addictive" instead of just asking me what I meant? Your statement is a broad oversimplification of my point, and this makes your argument intellectually dishonest. You and I may understand the need to engage in self-control and personal responsibility for sites like YouTube, but that's because you and I have an insiders' perspective on the dangers of not doing so. YouTube has precipitously catered to the lowest common denominator and took advantage of their mass gullability. It is overwhelmingly obvious that YouTube designed their site in a way that would get people addicted to the point of needing a tool like this. The fact that they auto-play videos when they know the viewer is a child is downright disgusting. YouTube did this instead of taking a more sophisticated approach of catering to directors, actors, and producers. YouTube had the chance to elevate the conversation and make digital media higher-minded, but instead decided to cater to people making content for the lowest common denominator - stupid, shlocky trash. The fact that you refer to what YouTube provides as "content" shows that you are not at all concerned with the way that YouTube has cheapened our digital media in order to get people hopelessly hooked. Just because one can do something effective to increase the immediate bottom line and revenues of their product, doesn't mean they should. I am all about personal responsibility and I do agree that the blame largely lands on the individual at the end of the day. But YouTube is obviously preying on these individuals' largesse and that is just as immoral as being a lazy slob that watches YouTube all day is. YouTube could have taken a proactive approach and showed the world how the web could enable much higher quality video, while limiting your digital footprint. But instead, they did the opposite, which is why I refuse to publish on their "platform."

mrguyorama 8y ago

Interesting that google now has a "design ethicist", but in my opinion, the fact that he's not allowed to shut down the company means he has already failed

ionforce 8y ago
Correct. Anyone that's in these positions of moderating are only as effective as they are granted the power to potentially stop everything. If that person doesn't have the power, then it's just lip service.
dyarosla 8y ago
Is your remark witty? Sure. Does it add to the conversation? Not so much.
- Semirhage 8y ago
  As a baseline it adds more than yours, right? He is for example, using humor to make the point that a toothless gesture doesn’t address the core issue. By contrast you’re just being pissy and reactive.
  - dyarosla 8y ago
    (removed)
    - Semirhage 8y ago
      If only you had said that instead of the single line, Reddit-like bit of venom you actually wrote!
dageshi 8y ago
Given the utility of Google Search, I would really rather they not shut it down...

Semirhage 8y ago

While these changes to YouTube are opt-in, it’s an interesting – and arguably responsible – position to take in terms of helping people manage their sometimes addictive behaviors around technology. It would be easier to make that argument if they weren’t opt-in, and layered on top of an attention-monetizing economy.

ReidZB 8y ago

Related: as far as I know, there's no way to permanently disable the "Up Next" autoplay on the desktop site for an account, which drives me crazy every day pretty much. I hope this new design philosophy will end up with a way to disable autoplay... but I'm not holding my breath.

51Cards 8y ago
I have Auto Play disabled on my YouTube account for regular channels. The control is above the Up Next list and I've had it off for well over a year now. https://i.imgur.com/qaK6W8W.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qaK6W8W.jpg Playlists though keep going which is annoying.
- sp332 8y ago
  Right, but you have to set that on each individual browser. It doesn't apply to your account.
runevault 8y ago
Are you talking playlists or period? On directly going to a video mine is disabled on the desktop site unless I load in incog window where I lose my settings. Playlists, however, I know of no way to fix it.
c54 8y ago
I’m pretty sure this option exists in the youtube settings, I found it and disabled autoplay at one point. Poke around, you’ll find it.
- trumped 8y ago
  but you have to be logged in for that setting to be effective and most of the time I'm not logged in when browsing YouTube... Sometimes I just let it play in the background to eat up their bandwidth for no reason because i don't like stupid default settings. I get it that google is trying to turn the Internet into a TV, but soon you won't even have to type anything in Google Search... the results will come to you.

Giorgi 8y ago

Yeah, well they are not earning any money after the ad is played so might as well suggest to stop playing.

bahmboo 8y ago

I wonder if this phenomenon is age related. I chose not to regulate my game playing hours to something "healthy" in my teens and my early twenties. As I aged it wasn't an issue. I guess this is a thing now? How about you've been working 10 hours time to take a break? You've been married 20 years time to move on? Somewhat facetious but I was genuinely surprised they actually built these tools because that implies it's not a trivial issue in the population.

artur_makly 8y ago

youtube kids should have better addiction and content controls

tomc1985 8y ago

By night, YouTube and Facebook secretly take baseball bats to the windshields of our minds. By day, YouTube and Facebook sell us glass repair services, at a special price no less! YT and FB could fix these social issues overnight, if they wanted to: turn off autoplay, turn off recommendations, restore chronological timelines, and dial down the ads. But they won't because that is the core of their business model. Instead they offer bullshit mind-repair services to fix the damage they continue to do.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
Or: auto logout. It's how I effectively dampered by Facebook usage. No apps on the phone, log out when done on the desktop. Adds a picosecond for considering whether you're tabbing over out of addiction or free will.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  Have you considered not using fb anymore? Try the delete account feature - they give you a few weeks before it's actually deleted. I found that I didn't actually miss it.
  - joshvm 8y ago
    It gets quite fun if you don't use it. Facebook starts sending really needy notifications like "X just commented on a picture" or "Y just liked this" to try and make you login. I think there's an apocryphal metric (which is probably true) that users must always have one unread notification when they login. There's no way of turning these messages off short of unfollowing every one of your friends individually.
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      Interesting. My FB account is dormant but not deleted. I have not used it in over 5 years, and I don’t recall seeing emails like this.

vinayms 8y ago

Lately, I am reading about such product features a lot. I wonder if there is some kind of intelligence about class action suits in the making against tech sites like YouTube, Facebook etc for being addictive and dangerous to health, because I can't imagine these companies taking interest in these sort of things suo moto. Seems they are preempting a future legal hassle.

zrobotics 8y ago
AFAIK there's no legal threats in the pipeline, I think they are wanting to avoid the negative media attention Facebook has been receiving. There doesn't need to be a legal threat, enough negative press could be very detrimental to their business model, which revolves around YouTube being a de facto monopoly in the video space.
HNthrow22 8y ago
Share a similar cynical view of this, smells like a preemptive CYA move. Reminds me casinos with the help numbers for gambling addicts posted. There's been high profile articles shining a light on the predatory design tactics in tech recently so the awareness of the issue is on the rise. The idea of a 'design ethicist' while novel seems fundamentally opposed to the attention-economy. Overly cynical view is this is google angling to make the case to self-regulate vs. managing an intrusive regulatory body investigating/fining them for violations once more people are aware of the current shenanigans.
- eric_h 8y ago
  > Reminds me casinos with the help numbers for gambling addicts posted At least one of the problem gambling hotlines has an IVR option to redirect you to a hotel reservation system.

joecool1029 8y ago

Surprised nobody brought it up when talking about terrible UX. The current YouTube UI is this shit called polymer. It's terrible, on most systems it delays loading any text around the player until the player is loaded. (Especially bad in Firefox/Edge) This can be disabled by appending disable_polymer=1 to the URL, but it can't be saved as a cookie or set per account. I have a greasemonkey script to it. For me it's an annoyance, for my blind friend it means no working screenreader when polymer is enabled.

sushid 8y ago
Really? This certainly can't be a limitation in the language, correct? I find it hard to believe that Google doesn't have accessibility support for one of their websites written in their own language.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  YouTube's Polymer UI uses Web Components and Shadow DOM, which are natively implemented in Chrome but not Firefox or Edge yet. So YouTube serves slow JavaScript polyfills for JavaScript to non-Chrome browsers. Firefox and Edge (on my Windows laptop) take about five seconds to replace a YouTube page's wireframe layout with text. But if I append "&disable_polymer=1" as joecool1029 recommends above, the text loads instantly in Firefox and Edge. Is YouTube's new Polymer UI sooo much better that is worth five second page loads in non-Chrome browsers?
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    Correction: I did some more research and YouTube's Polymer UI uses Chrome's non-standard Shadow DOM v0 API, so even when Firefox and Edge ship the standard Shadow DOM API (which is in progress), YouTube will still be 5x slower than in Chrome. :|
  - progval 8y ago
    It's almost as if Google wanted to push its own web browser
8y ago

trendia 8y ago

Is there any way to create a playlist of videos and then resume playback at the same point? For instance, I have about 20 C++ videos I'd like to watch, and each is an hour long. I rarely have a whole hour, but maybe 20 minutes. I have yet to figure out how to resume playback where I left off, which would be a very useful feature!

nix0n 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/feed/history https://www.youtube.com/feed/history will at least tell you which one you watched last
dredmorbius 8y ago
mps-youtube Killer feature. https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube

chasing 8y ago

Stop promoting videos that are low-content, mindless listicles, or flat-out misleading. Or promote stupid behavior. I'm relatively savvy, but every time I go poking around YouTube it takes a fucking effort to avoid this garbage. Those videos are designed to be as addicting and empty as eating piles and piles of candy and YouTube cannot be a mentally healthy place as long as they're constantly pushed to to forefront.

Reedx 8y ago
I rarely see any of that, actually. The key is to be logged in, build up some history and subscribe to high quality channels. Most of what I see is related to things I've watched or new content from said channels. Plus subscribe to Youtube Red, so don't have ads injecting garbage.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  I don't want to be logged in or spew my personal viewing interests to some cloud-hosted ads-and-marketing AI's behavioural manipulation engine. Why not client-based tools that locally retain channel blocklists?
  - vatueil 8y ago
    As a website YouTube probably doesn't have much interest in working on client-based tools, especially not for a niche audience. Though I do wish they would at least give even logged-in users a way to block channels. There are browser add-ons that can block channels or certain keywords: - Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/video-blocker/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/video-blocker/ - Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-blocker/jknkjnpcbbgcbdbaampbjlhkcghmgfhk https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-blocker/jknk...
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      I was under the impression chanel blocking had been recently added, possibly not. I've certainly advocated for it. Absent that, the downside risk for offensive or abysmal content is minimal. Blocking puts skin in the game.

hungerstrike 8y ago

I don't need a babysitter to tell me when to stop doing things, but I'd love to be able to login to YouTube without having to be logged into the rest of Google. That's one reason I think Twitch is killing YouTube in live-streaming: Like Reddit, I'm able to create a new Twitch account without having it affect the rest of my life online and I can be completely anonymous - they don't ask for a phone number or anything.

rconti 8y ago

Am I the only one who has 0 youtube addiction? I find FB far more compelling, though I derive quite a bit of value from it. I watch YouTube to watch a video or two I want to watch. that's it. Frankly, when someone sends me a video to watch, I resent it, because I hate spending 5 minutes of my life watching something that probably won't be funny. Some nights I'll pull up YT on the TV and play a Wendover productions vid, or an AvE vid, or a car video or two, and that's it. I don't ever feel sucked in or addicted to it. If anything, I often want to watch something but can't find anything interesting to watch; nothing sounds that compelling, or I get 3 minutes in and am bored so I try to find something else. Am I unique in that way? I've also never gotten into video games, they just don't hold any appeal or hold my attention. That's not to say I haven't spend 12 hours gaming at a LAN party once in a blue moon (actually far less frequently, maybe 4 or 5 times in my life).. but I don't get sucked in in the same way I get sucked into other internet distractions. I can go down HN rabbitholes or keep refreshing FB or some news site hoping to find something interesting, but YT doesn't do it for me.

aarbor989 8y ago
I go on YouTube like once a month, at most. So yea I’m with you. I’ve actually _tried_ to get “addicted” to it by forcing myself to search for interesting videos just to see what all the fuss about, but I just never end up going back to the site for more
ghba66 8y ago
I am exactly like you. I hate videos. Videos are a loss of time compared to text. They are slower, you can’t consume them at your own pace, you can’t go back easily or read a particular part slowly and then read the rest faster or skip sections or paragraphs or... Also I can’t imagine anything lamer than YouTube personalities.
- Jemmeh 8y ago
  This. It kind of depends on my mood or what I'm doing, but reading is generally so much faster. Though I realized a while back that this is mostly true for people who read quickly. Some of my older family members prefer videos to having to put on reading glasses. And a lot of people just read slowly in general. Now that I think about it, it's usually when my eyes are kind of aching (long days at screens) that I start to prefer videos even for things that don't require a visual.

sodosopa 8y ago

They added Logan Paul to every video didn't they?

pathseeker 8y ago

It's like a cigarette company offering a gum you chew that reduces your smoking from a pack a day to half a pack a day. Whoopee!

balls187 8y ago

Youtube, start by killing all content aimed at little kids.

twothamendment 8y ago

Potato chip company: "We tired to make you stop eating them." Customer: "Sell me more, I don't care if I'm fat." Potato chip company: "OK, but make sure you read the nutrition panel on the back." (Hey guys, increase production, we have them hooked now!) As long as auto play lives on, they show they have no interest in helping anyone watch less - and why should they pretend they care?

sokoloff 8y ago

I find it amusing that one of the choices is 180 minutes. Yes, please remind me every three HOURS of non-stop videos that I watch that it might be time to take a break...but don't offer me a choice of every two hours.

Aardwolf 8y ago

> You set Wind Down when you’d like to go to bed, and Android P will shift into a gray-scale palette Oh they should really make this red-scale (red on black, no white light), not grey-scale, red is the only color that does not disturb night vision, and grey contains blue so disturbs sleep.