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It genuinely disgusts me that the world's largest media company shoves addictive, short form content down users throats (especially young people). Anyone workin

It genuinely disgusts me that the world's largest media company shoves addictive, short form content down users throats (especially young people). Anyone working on it at Google should be ashamed of what they're doing.

ssenssei 6mo ago
I actually currently run youtube out of firefox in mobile and web, and its pretty much amazing in both and doesn't feel janky. The upside of that is that if you add the correct script to the ad blocker extension, you'll never see a youtube reel for the rest of your life, which HEAVILY improves the experience on youtube. this is the filter list I use: https://github.com/i5heu/ublock-hide-yt-shorts https://github.com/i5heu/ublock-hide-yt-shorts
sheept 6mo ago
The social media companies got so large because they optimized for engagement over all else. If they were any less addictive, they'd have way fewer users, and we wouldn't be talking about them now. This can probably only be addressed with regulation
- asdfman123 6mo ago
  Yes, you can be the guy at a social media company who says "perhaps earning a few extra billion in revenue this way is bad for children," but the executives are just going to replace you.
FrustratedMonky 6mo ago
Its what people want. Time to stop thinking corporations will suddenly start policing themsleves.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
Gagarin1917 6mo ago
Where is it being shoved down anyone’s throat? You literally have to intentionally click a short video or use the shorts tab to see any YouTube short.
- kotaKat 6mo ago
  You click the button to hide the card of Shorts on the home page and it just says We'll show you fewer Shorts on Home Not "no more", but "fewer". Which means you don't get a choice, YouTube will still shove them down your throat.
  - Gagarin1917 6mo ago
    That’s not shoving them down anyone’s throats. If you don’t want to watch a short, don’t click on it. Just like if you don’t want to watch a video about a certain topic, you don’t click on it. Seeing that they exist is in no way an inconvenience or annoyance. You’re supposed to just watch what you want.
    - 8593376393 6mo ago
      [dead]
    - greenchair 6mo ago
      Sure it is Sundar. When I go to youtube i see a few videos in the top half. The bottom half of screen is a row of Shorts that I don't want and have to scroll past. In a normal world there'd be a profile setting that lets you opt-out of Shorts being shown. In a normal world there wouldn't be a fake 'show fewer shorts' button that does absolutely nothing.
      - Gagarin1917 6mo ago
        In a normal world people just scroll past the things they aren’t looking for without even processing the stuff they don’t want. It’s extremely easy to never click on a Short. I don’t understand the emotional response to these things at all. I’m sure there’s tons of normal videos you don’t want to watch that’s you simply scroll past that don’t elicit emotion whatsoever.
ajross 6mo ago
YouTube is actually the least engagement-driven/addition-maxing social video provider, by far. Meta and TikTok are famous for discouraging external linking, limiting reach to non-targetted users, heavily moderating content to match engagement metrics, disguising advertisement as content, etc... YouTube for the most part just serves what you post, does minimal content moderation, stuff a dumb insurance ad on the front (of the long-form content) that looks like a dumb insurance ad, and then does it for everyone else. I mean, sure, they could do better. But really if the world of amateur video content was all YouTube it would be a better place.

ssenssei 6mo ago

I actually currently run youtube out of firefox in mobile and web, and its pretty much amazing in both and doesn't feel janky. The upside of that is that if you add the correct script to the ad blocker extension, you'll never see a youtube reel for the rest of your life, which HEAVILY improves the experience on youtube. this is the filter list I use: https://github.com/i5heu/ublock-hide-yt-shorts https://github.com/i5heu/ublock-hide-yt-shorts

sheept 6mo ago

The social media companies got so large because they optimized for engagement over all else. If they were any less addictive, they'd have way fewer users, and we wouldn't be talking about them now. This can probably only be addressed with regulation

asdfman123 6mo ago
Yes, you can be the guy at a social media company who says "perhaps earning a few extra billion in revenue this way is bad for children," but the executives are just going to replace you.

FrustratedMonky 6mo ago

Its what people want. Time to stop thinking corporations will suddenly start policing themsleves.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

Gagarin1917 6mo ago

Where is it being shoved down anyone’s throat? You literally have to intentionally click a short video or use the shorts tab to see any YouTube short.

kotaKat 6mo ago
You click the button to hide the card of Shorts on the home page and it just says We'll show you fewer Shorts on Home Not "no more", but "fewer". Which means you don't get a choice, YouTube will still shove them down your throat.
- Gagarin1917 6mo ago
  That’s not shoving them down anyone’s throats. If you don’t want to watch a short, don’t click on it. Just like if you don’t want to watch a video about a certain topic, you don’t click on it. Seeing that they exist is in no way an inconvenience or annoyance. You’re supposed to just watch what you want.
  - 8593376393 6mo ago
    [dead]
  - greenchair 6mo ago
    Sure it is Sundar. When I go to youtube i see a few videos in the top half. The bottom half of screen is a row of Shorts that I don't want and have to scroll past. In a normal world there'd be a profile setting that lets you opt-out of Shorts being shown. In a normal world there wouldn't be a fake 'show fewer shorts' button that does absolutely nothing.
    - Gagarin1917 6mo ago
      In a normal world people just scroll past the things they aren’t looking for without even processing the stuff they don’t want. It’s extremely easy to never click on a Short. I don’t understand the emotional response to these things at all. I’m sure there’s tons of normal videos you don’t want to watch that’s you simply scroll past that don’t elicit emotion whatsoever.

ajross 6mo ago

YouTube is actually the least engagement-driven/addition-maxing social video provider, by far. Meta and TikTok are famous for discouraging external linking, limiting reach to non-targetted users, heavily moderating content to match engagement metrics, disguising advertisement as content, etc... YouTube for the most part just serves what you post, does minimal content moderation, stuff a dumb insurance ad on the front (of the long-form content) that looks like a dumb insurance ad, and then does it for everyone else. I mean, sure, they could do better. But really if the world of amateur video content was all YouTube it would be a better place.