Thoughtful article that doesn't even mention Youtube Shorts, perhaps the most glaring example of the trend.
When online services maximizes the number of daily users, perhaps in the hundreds of millions, the vast majority of them won't be very interested. So of course any data driven service will optimize keeping uninterested users occupied. That does explain a lot actually.
I'm mixed on the shorts. I like it when they do a "you fix this by pushing this button here" in 15 seconds instead of it being 8+ minutes so they can get mid roll ads.
Every time I view one I think to myself "I really should make a userscript that changes the '/short/' to '/v/' in the url" but I never view them often enough that this annoyance has manifested itself in action.
Agreed. It's like a different video playing application popped up in the middle of YouTube. Also weird when you exits shorts, the previously watched long video starts playing.
The Youtube app (on android at least) now lets you use more of the normal controls (particularly seeking and adding to playlists) on shorts as of a few months ago. I thought the lack of those controls was intentionally permanent but I was relieved to find out it wasn't.
Tbh half of the instructional shorts are just flat out wrong and even dangerous. So many electrical advice videos showing awful tips and techniques. Comments full of people pointing out the problems but most people won't read them.
They are created more for entertainment and to blast out as many videos as possible without any concern to accuracy.
The other thing I find amusing about things like Shorts (as well as things like Reels or Tok Tok) is that it is the perfect example of Goodhart's Law.
Basically all these platforms use dwell time as an indication that you liked (or at least were interested in) a video. So then these sites got flooded with completely inane videos of the "Just wait for it!!!" variety that last for 5 minutes, always making it seem like something is going to happen, but it's just video of an intersection or people at the grocery store or whatever.
When online services maximizes the number of daily users, perhaps in the hundreds of millions, the vast majority of them won't be very interested. So of course any data driven service will optimize keeping uninterested users occupied. That does explain a lot actually.