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It seems the feature has been restored. As of the November 7th update: > TeamYouTube has confirmed that they are working to bring the sorting options back to t

It seems the feature has been restored. As of the November 7th update: > TeamYouTube has confirmed that they are working to bring the sorting options back to the platform. Furthermore, they said that the options were removed due to some issues. It's not clear if they wanted to remove it and reverted due to backlash, or if there were genuine technical issues/limitations that needed to be addressed.

kasabali 4y ago
Why do you think it "has been restored"? In the quote it says " they are working ". I can confirm Youtube web site viewed on Firefox still lacks the option.
willsmith72 4y ago
> due to some issues This is amazing, I wanna use it someday. Were the issues technical? Maybe. Were the issues problematic decision makers who've been overridden? Also maybe. We'll never know
- texasbigdata 4y ago
  Lehman Brothers was temporarily disrupted due to “some issues”. Did it come back? Irrelevant.
- kleiba 4y ago
  Right, that's only half a step up from "due to reasons".
- Gareth321 4y ago
  This is what happens when a company becomes a monopoly. They don't give a fuck anymore because "what are you going to do? Leave? Lol."
  - maximus-decimus 4y ago
    Windows isn't technically a Monopoly, but that's still how it feels? "We'll show them ads in the logout menu. What are they gonna do? Switch to Linux?"
justsomehnguy 4y ago
> were genuine technical issues/limitations I can't even imagine what can be a technical limitation to break sorting on something what worked for more than a decade.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  The fun thing is, it’s probably because they stuff everything into a big giant database and that just doesn’t play well with the fact that any user ever accesses a millionth of a millionth of a percent of those database rows.
- zinekeller 4y ago
  > I can't even imagine what can be a technical limitation to break sorting on something what worked for more than a decade. The default sort (which is reverse chronological) is more likely cached than chronological order. It could be that it's not really about if it could be done but assuming this is really a good-faith problem it could be that the chip crunch made optimising performance a priority and removing effectively-uncacheble (or alternatively space-consuming) chronological order did remove some pressure.
rroot 4y ago
>due to some issues How messed up does your DB schema need to be that you have issues with ordering entries by date?
- hjanssen 4y ago
  I think with the scale requirements of YouTube, we can not assume that the search is powered by one single DB or any traditional, relational DB at all. Some things that are easy with one DB, get surprisingly hard when you scale up. Lets give them the benefit of the doubt regarding technical issues here.
  - soulofmischief 4y ago
    I don't give them the benefit of the doubt, because they should have had proper testing in place before anything like this reached production. This is either intentional or grossly negligent.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      What are you going to do, go somewhere else?
      - soulofmischief 4y ago
        I've written a YouTube clone, so yes, that's my plan eventually. That's the same argument used in domestic abuse situations.
  - dontlaugh 4y ago
    Going by Vitess, they may still be using heavily sharded MySQL.
    - osser 4y ago
      Not any more https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/9760#issue-1147218047 https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/9760#issue-114721804...
seydor 4y ago
> TeamYouTube has confirmed that they are working to bring the sorting options back to the platform. OK this kind of grandiose framing makes me giggle
- superdisk 4y ago
  They're leveraging new ORDER BY technology to deliver amazing product experiences.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    Somebody should probably patent those "DESC" and "ASC" things...
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
> It's not clear if they wanted to remove it and reverted due to backlash, or if there were genuine technical issues/limitations that needed to be addressed. I dunno seems clear as day to me... Like what are the odds the company that processes the largest amount of data in the world on a daily basis can't sort some results by date.
crazygringo 4y ago
I think it's UX rather than technical. It used to be a drop-down box, now it's pill buttons that (confusingly) are usually used for filtering rather than sorting. So I'm assuming it was something to do with the UX rewrite getting in the way.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Well I for one, like that it's now possible to sort channel videos at all on mobile. The dropdown was completely missing before in Vanced, but the pill buttons show up now.
hedora 4y ago
The thread later says they're running a poll asking users for feedback. Do you really use "sort by oldest"?, etc. I'm guessing they'll end up killing it.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  I do!

kasabali 4y ago

Why do you think it "has been restored"? In the quote it says " they are working ". I can confirm Youtube web site viewed on Firefox still lacks the option.

willsmith72 4y ago

> due to some issues This is amazing, I wanna use it someday. Were the issues technical? Maybe. Were the issues problematic decision makers who've been overridden? Also maybe. We'll never know

texasbigdata 4y ago
Lehman Brothers was temporarily disrupted due to “some issues”. Did it come back? Irrelevant.
kleiba 4y ago
Right, that's only half a step up from "due to reasons".
Gareth321 4y ago
This is what happens when a company becomes a monopoly. They don't give a fuck anymore because "what are you going to do? Leave? Lol."
- maximus-decimus 4y ago
  Windows isn't technically a Monopoly, but that's still how it feels? "We'll show them ads in the logout menu. What are they gonna do? Switch to Linux?"

justsomehnguy 4y ago

> were genuine technical issues/limitations I can't even imagine what can be a technical limitation to break sorting on something what worked for more than a decade.

eurasiantiger 4y ago
The fun thing is, it’s probably because they stuff everything into a big giant database and that just doesn’t play well with the fact that any user ever accesses a millionth of a millionth of a percent of those database rows.
zinekeller 4y ago
> I can't even imagine what can be a technical limitation to break sorting on something what worked for more than a decade. The default sort (which is reverse chronological) is more likely cached than chronological order. It could be that it's not really about if it could be done but assuming this is really a good-faith problem it could be that the chip crunch made optimising performance a priority and removing effectively-uncacheble (or alternatively space-consuming) chronological order did remove some pressure.

rroot 4y ago

>due to some issues How messed up does your DB schema need to be that you have issues with ordering entries by date?

hjanssen 4y ago
I think with the scale requirements of YouTube, we can not assume that the search is powered by one single DB or any traditional, relational DB at all. Some things that are easy with one DB, get surprisingly hard when you scale up. Lets give them the benefit of the doubt regarding technical issues here.
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  I don't give them the benefit of the doubt, because they should have had proper testing in place before anything like this reached production. This is either intentional or grossly negligent.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    What are you going to do, go somewhere else?
    - soulofmischief 4y ago
      I've written a YouTube clone, so yes, that's my plan eventually. That's the same argument used in domestic abuse situations.
- dontlaugh 4y ago
  Going by Vitess, they may still be using heavily sharded MySQL.
  - osser 4y ago
    Not any more https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/9760#issue-1147218047 https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/9760#issue-114721804...

seydor 4y ago

> TeamYouTube has confirmed that they are working to bring the sorting options back to the platform. OK this kind of grandiose framing makes me giggle

superdisk 4y ago
They're leveraging new ORDER BY technology to deliver amazing product experiences.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Somebody should probably patent those "DESC" and "ASC" things...

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

> It's not clear if they wanted to remove it and reverted due to backlash, or if there were genuine technical issues/limitations that needed to be addressed. I dunno seems clear as day to me... Like what are the odds the company that processes the largest amount of data in the world on a daily basis can't sort some results by date.

crazygringo 4y ago

I think it's UX rather than technical. It used to be a drop-down box, now it's pill buttons that (confusingly) are usually used for filtering rather than sorting. So I'm assuming it was something to do with the UX rewrite getting in the way.

moffkalast 4y ago
Well I for one, like that it's now possible to sort channel videos at all on mobile. The dropdown was completely missing before in Vanced, but the pill buttons show up now.

hedora 4y ago

The thread later says they're running a poll asking users for feedback. Do you really use "sort by oldest"?, etc. I'm guessing they'll end up killing it.

Robotbeat 4y ago
I do!