Why are sites forcing us to deal with features we explicitly don’t want? Take YouTube Shorts for instance. I’ve made it clear I hate these things, but they keep popping up on my homepage every other week. Every time, I have to click the “Temporarily Hide” button like a damn whiner.

I can just picture the internal YouTube meetings:

Manager: “We’re not getting enough engagement on Shorts.”

Developer: “Maybe our audience doesn’t like them?”

Manager: “I’ve got an idea! Let’s force Shorts onto everyone’s homepage for a week or two each time!”

Then, later, they celebrate like they’ve invented the internet.

Is this really how it’s supposed to work? Why else are companies shoving features down our throats we clearly don’t want? Is there no better way than to just keep throwing stuff at us and hoping we’ll stick around long enough to click “Hide This Annoying Feature” again?

🤔 What’s the deal with this endless pushing of features we hate? Are they just ignoring user feedback entirely, or is there some secret strategy I’m not seeing?

  • Gabadabs@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    20 hours ago

    You might be surprised how many people do watch YouTube shorts. They force then on you because they make a lot of money off them.

    • yarr@feddit.nlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      20 hours ago

      I don’t care if people like them. I DO care that seemingly YouTube has very clear data regarding me that I do not like them (I have dismissed them countless times) and chooses to ignore this and present them over and over again. It’s especially funny because in all other areas they brag about how much they personalize the experience for you.

      • Gabadabs@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        20 hours ago

        YouTube doesn’t care if you don’t care. The more they show them to you the more likely they are to finally get you to watch them and they can make money off you. It’s not like there’s many alternatives to YouTube.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      19 hours ago

      I’m one! Honestly don’t get the hate. There was a comment the other day that made me think the haters are phone users. Shorts work fine on a 47" TV, for me. Hate that you can’t turn the giant captions off on many videos, but the people I follow usually don’t do that.

      For me, shorts are a thing I can scroll past once and be done. Is it painful on a phone for some reason?

      • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        18 hours ago

        I wouldn’t say I hate other people for watching them, but for me it’s a personal think in that I have ADHD and shorts hack my brain. I just avoid them. But each ti their own.