What's the actual point of Youtube Sharts? It just seems like encouragement for people to film vertically and not frame the shot well.
And on the watching side you're pushed into a needlessly unfriendly UI. Like I generally just use the YT web interface and don't go out of my way to routinely yt-dlp or Newpipe, but now I might have to change that.
I don't know, I hate them, it was just the only video I actually found when searching for the flight name on YouTube. Personally I actively avoid that feature, closing the "Shorts" shelf on YouTube at any opportunity I see.
I really, really dislike short looping videos, when it starts looping I get irrationally angry and close the window. Instagram Reels is another feature I fucking detest.
I might be showing my age, I don't understand the appeal of TikTok, it just makes me stressed, haha.
I wasn't directing that at you, content is content (and FWIW that link works fine with yt-dlp). Rather I'm blaming Google for foisting this terrible UI on the world when they already had a decent one - from what I can tell there is no seeking, and scrolling up/down with arrow keys or mouse wheel stops the video and moves to the next one. (oof)
I think the "appeal" is for people stuck in dopamine loops on their phone, where the continual stimulation of looping plus the quick-next functionality are "features". Of course being older and more deliberate about technology choices and use, these are actually grating anti-features.
Sure, I meant for the people actually using it. Like if you want TikTok just continuing using TikTok, which you know is "mobile-first" and thus craptastic in a regular browser but presumably you don't care. But Google seems to have just blindly copied TikTok and enshittified their existing product to push it, when they could have integrated it into normal Youtube and made something better than both.
I don't want TikTok. Mostly because I don't want to use yet another app or account. Then there's the thing about it being from China, but to be honest, as a European it doesn't reeeally matter to me if an app is from the US or China. I did actually try TikTok during the pandemic but became too addicted due to constant WFH and boredom.
I have Instagram because I like to upload my favorite pictures. Then they started with Reels, I checked it out, liked it, so I now use it.
When I feel like Reels bore me, or that the algo seems to currently push things I don't care about[0], I switch over to YT Shorts.
There, the youtubers I'm already subscribed to upload shorter videos and I generally see different kinds of videos.
Instagram mostly shows me memes and cat videos. YT shorts is more about stand-up comedy bits, science stuff etc.
So my usage of these apps depends on how I currently feel like.
[0] Both Insta and YT sometimes start to flood me with content about annoying Entrepreneur/Online Marketing bs, Andrew Tate or far(ish)-right-wing trash or half-naked women. No amount of "not interested" seems to help, so I either switch app or do something else.
