anyone on ios, i recommend unwatched. this has shorts turned off by default and its great and ad free with sponsor block
I’m not getting the options to set them to 0 minutes. 15 min is the minimum. Guess Google realised their new setting to pay lip service to how much they respect their users’ time proved a bit too popular for their taste…
Fuck that. Newpipe baby.
in 10 years we will probably get an option to hide feed altogether and forward users to their subscriptions.
I absolutely hate that my subscription page is basically just recommendations and shorts at the top that I have to scroll past.
I see a trend of corporations at least trying to deshittify their products a little.
But I have a theory, that there will be a separate app for Shorts, and nobody will use it, unless it will be pre-installed.
I hate that youtube music did that when google music worked better and allowed you to run it without connecting periodically. Now I have Grayjay and a music app I use in graphene, never been happier to listen to the people I subscribe to only and have to go out of my way if I want to doomscroll.
The Youtube Music experience is abysmal for own music upload :( GPM was so good
Me on new pipe and invidious:
Are you self hosting? Public domains have been getting hit hard
That’s not the face I make. Usually there’s more eyebrow commotion going on as I try to figure out why it’s taking so long to load the video or why I’m getting some random error message that means nothing to a rando trying to watch a video on their phone.
But is there also an option to show only shorts? Real free choice settings would offer that.
Can we also turn off community posts? Why am I seeing them from random people I don’t give a shit about. I don’t even want to see them from the people I do care about.
I don’t have a YouTube account, and have no interest in getting one. I hid shorts with this browser add-on:
On your phone, assuming you use Android, there are many apps that allow disabling shorts.
tl;dr:
App only. Account -> Settings ->Time Management -> Shorts feed limit
Browser: I use a couple plugins to purge sharts from existence. One of them that also does a LOT of customization and usability fixes: https://github.com/code-charity/youtube
It’s a dark-pattern control just to say they are doing something about it.
It only limits the number of minutes you can death-scroll Shorts. You’re still drinking from the Shorts firehose for up to 15 min, minimum.
You can’t turn shorts off.
Edit: this may be only in the U.S.
Europe here, 15min is minimum.
15 was minimum for me too (I’m in Denmark) a few days ago, but now it’s 0. They’re probably rolling out gradually, just check again in a few days and make sure the app is updated.
Even when set to 0 you’ll still see shorts, it just stops (or limits) the infinite scrolling.
I’m already filtering out sharts with various plugins, but I wanted to enable this setting anyway to signal yt to fuck off.
Turns out, 15min is the lowest timer. Can’t turn it off completely
I had 15 mins at the lowest setting a few days ago too. Now it’s 0. I think it’s rolling out gradually, just check it again in a week or so.
The article says that’s the previous limit. So they probably do a staggered rollout
Lowest or longest timer?
lowest
What’s the maximum time you can set it off for?
It’s a dark-pattern control just to say they are doing something about it.
It only limits the number of minutes you can death-scroll Shorts. You’re still drinking from the Shorts firehose for up to 15 min, minimum.
You can’t turn shorts off. Edit: this may be only in the U.S.
Okay now get rid of the in-video ads and AI slop and I might consider actually using a first-party interface again.
uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock works just fine. When it comes to AI content, just ignore it and it’ll dissapear from your recommendations.
For virtually everything wrong with youtube there’s an add-on to fix it or a behavior to change. So many people can’t help but watch short-form content for example and then they complain their feed is all shorts - I wonder why.
I think you may have overlooked the part about “first party interface”.
The youtube website itself isn’t enough “first party” to you?
It is still a first party web interface.
Hi! I’m one of the few people who enjoy YouTube Shorts.
I don’t hate the idea of TikTok, I hate the privacy and political implications. I installed it on my Android phone (already a privacy nightmare) and I didn’t hate it. Made an account with a burner email. They send 2-3 emails a day. I didn’t get into TikTok per se, but I didn’t hate using it. I could have done something about the spammy notifications (which I was getting on my iPhone since I used iCloud’s Hide My Email feature), but ultimately I didn’t like using it.
Even on my TV, I was fine with the vertical videos. Vertical videos shouldn’t be a thing because you can/should turn your phone (and some phones used to make you do it to record video!), but I don’t hate that they are a thing. I only don’t like footage that is cropped to look like vertical video. It’s like Pan & Scan (4:3 video format that slides back and forth along the original video frame as needed, popular on VHS) all over again.
What really fucks me off about YouTube is the AI generated shit. I listen to a lot of Japanese music, so AI generated subtitles are not the worst thing in the world. Thing is, I took this song (“Anima” by ReoNa) and I took several translations, including an AI one, and rolled my own subtitles for the video, taking what I assumed to be the artist’s intent and going with the words I thought conveyed her meanings as best I could (not knowing Japanese). Like you can say “konnichiwa” means hello/good day, but when you’re talking about a philosophical song about the colour of the soul, asking if a person’s bravery or hesitation (bordering on cowardice/fear) makes them brave or not… you’re not gonna get a very accurate translation, which is why all the translations suck, including mine. But mine is what I chose to go with and it’s about as accurate as the others.
The worst part is the ads, but it only affects my Apple TV box. On my Macs I use Firefox with uBlock Origin. I also have Wipr2, but that only affects Safari. On my iPhone, I use Safari with Wipr2 and it gets most of the ads. On my Android phone, I use Firefox with uBlock Origin. The only place I’m not protected is my Apple TV, which is why my next one will be a gently used Mac mini so I don’t have to use the derpy tvOS — though, notably, tvOS itself is the best smart TV interface (no ads, just icons). I think I can make macOS into a better smart TV platform, with just a few icons on the dock and maximum magnification on hover, the highest zoom setting, and whatever else — I haven’t really begun planning it yet. But, I think, with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo (like a Logitech K400 or similar, or one of those game controller looking keyboards you can get on Amazon from China), a Mac (or Linux PC) could be the best TV interface. (I’m not ruling out a Raspberry Pi, which kinda seems obvious, I just like Apple stuff.)
tbh, the concept of tiktok-style videos is really good for science and small useful info bits. the problem is that creators have to make money -> they optimize for the algorithm -> make trash
tbh, the concept of tiktok-style videos is really good for science and small useful info bits.
What? That’s… absurd.
I mean in the context of science, how is a tiktok style short video in any way superior to a longer form video? I mean there’s some really great science content on YouTube, vertasium, smarter every day, 3 blue 1 brown, minute physics, etc. But if you only watch a short snippet of video, what you’re cutting out is the entire scientific method, the part where they ask the questions, investigate, form a hypothesis, explain some experiments. Invariably, the short skips right to a conclusion, without any of the context. It’s like providing the right answer on math homework without showing your work, it’s functionally useless. It’s like science candy, it tastes great, but has zero nutritional value.
I can’t see any way to avoid concluding that YouTube shorts are terrible for science.
short-form content isn’t superior to long-form content or lectures, of course. however, it can be useful for explaining some ideas simply. for example, a quick visual video demonstrating a maths proof or a brief “what if” scenario can be effective. 3blue1brown, minutephysics, etc. also create some great short videos. it’s not a replacement for a lecture, but rather a brief intro / overview.
I’m with you about not hating shorts. My YouTube algorithm is great, the shorts it recommends are very geeky or from topics that I’m very interested in and I can just jump to my subscriptions if I don’t want to see random shorts/videos
I just hate the format. I don’t have ADHD, I can handle longer content.
I’m one of the few people who enjoy YouTube Shorts.
Seek help.
Man, I love shorts. My shit is curated af though. My algorithm is good to me. Mainly science facts, wood working, badminton, web dev tips, comedy, and Rocket League clips. Just what I like.
I love shorts.
They’re comfy and easy to wear.
ChatGPT? Is that you?
It’s a pokémon joke. In the first games there is a kid who has a very random line about his love for shorts, and since then they’ve put someone like him with a similar quote in a lot of games.
lol okay! I haven’t played Pokemon 😅 Thanks for the context!
mobile only
so, they enable it the least disruptive place (for their shorts) at least IMHO, because more likely people on their phone would look at shorts over a set top / desktop environment watchers. Hopefully it rolls out to these as well
Mobile is the only place where it matters. On a desktop, in a browser, you can use plugins to kill shorts, but there’s no workaround like that on mobile.
