YouTube is testing a new design that you'll probably hate instantly
YouTube is testing a new design that you'll probably hate instantly
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/13485819
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14192146
A selection of YouTube viewers have recently noticed there's a little something different with the look of the website.
YouTube keeps making things worse.
A few months ago they required that you have a watch history to display the homepage.
This week they're showing up next popups even when you have autoplay turned off.
Using an Apple TV I probably watch more YouTube than any other platform and was given a gift of a premium subscription. It removed all ads, gave me YouTube music, but the shitty experiments continue and there's no way to tell YouTube to sod off.
I've yet to find an alternative, but I'm looking..
A few months ago they required that you have a watch history to display the homepage.
I'm actually glad for this change. I hated the random junk they always suggest on my homepage. I spent ages clicking on the menu on each video and selecting "don't recommend this channel." It took a few years, but I actually got a clean, empty homepage. Then they changed their website and all the videos came back. I had to start over, cleaning out my feed again.
Now with this new change, my homepage is always clear. Thanks, YouTube!
For the record, I only watch my subscriptions. If I learn about a new channel, it's through another site/person recommending it. I don't let YouTube recommend me stuff to watch. And I definitely don't watch YouTube Shorts or whatever they call their vertical video nonsense.
Same. I love it. I go to YouTube home page, see nothing, and then go on doing what I was going to do anyway. It is a nice update.
You might want to look in to FreeTube if you 'only' watch subscriptions. It currently only does subscriptions and play lists, and doesn't use a google account, or any account if you want.
You'd have a better experience than the browser 'and' google doesn't get the metadata on what you're subscribed to and watch. Win-win.
I just use NewPipe. It gets rid of all the garbage.
Though, you say you use an Apple TV, so I'm guessing you have an iPhone. In that case, you're kind SOL until Apple allows side-loading.
You’re out of luck for Apple TV, but not for iOS. I uninstalled YouTube from my phone and use Orion browser as my default now. It lets you install extensions from the Firefox or Chrome store, so I have ublock origin installed on my phone now and YouTube ads are gone.
On Android TV I'm using SmartTube with Sponsor Block.
Playeur has a few decent creators, but we could always encourage more to cross post.
In some ways it's not terrible. Putting chat to the side makes sense. What I can't stand is polluting the viewing area with the top edge of the recommended videos, and not even the whole frame of the preview. It feels like the page isn't scrolled completely up or down and it's super distracting. Thankfully it's easy blocked with ublock.
I dislike the description not being under the video.
It’s not too bad, looks like the Twitch interface of having chat/comments be on the side. That said having to scroll through videos horizontally seems like a pain compared to scrolling through them vertically.
It's pointless to be on any platform in control of someone like this. Enshitification will come one day no matter what happens.
It's open source and self hosted, or barbarism.
Judging by the seemingly overwhelmingly negative response, we don’t see YouTube moving forward with this design. But tell us what you think. Let us know in the comments below.
This is a misunderstanding of how google works I think.
This is a very oniony title, and an oniony sentiment. Case in point.
“To test new ways to improve the experience.”
Read:
“To test new ways to juice engagement and watch time. We are seeing if this leads to further addiction.”
Look like the old UI. Anyone who think it's too busy would probably be better off with a vsmile.
They didn't oversize the recommended video thumbnails in the old UI. Either they couldn't figure out what to do with the whitespace resulting from stacking recommended videos horizontally so they just made em bigger. Or they just want persistent ads in your peripheral vision (the first recommended video will always be an ad for users not blocking them)
Looks fine to me honestly. I don't hate it. Reminds me of old YouTube in a way.
laughs in pipepipe
just stop using youtube. if you dont, youre just encouraging them to keep on doin what theyre doin
I use browser add ons to have the comments moved the right panel. I enjoy reading comments during the video and I don't want to have to scroll away from the video to read them. This design just makes sense to me.
What a strange title. Immediately biases the reader before any actual information is given about the change
As someone who has the "pleasure" to be selected as beta tester for YouTube changes all the time, I fully agree with the headline because I also have immediate bias when they change something. Every single time it has been awful and more often than not I get outright broken changes which is why I have a user agent changer installed to switch to an ancient Edge user agent when affected because YT's legacy UI often doesn't get the same changes.
Also, I'm a YT Premium subscriber. I'm not paying to be a beta tester.
Maybe by setting the expectation that the user will hate the update, when it becomes available to everyone it won’t be as bad as expected and thus more easily accepted.
I thought it was making fun of people for always initially hating on UI redesigns.
Same thing with logo changes
No trust me, it is an accurate title. I thought I was using some shit site hosting YouTube videos at first. It's atrocious.
Just give me a grid of videos. No shorts, no games, no BS. Just videos.
Yeah well. So far enshittification hasn't stopped yet. It's perfectly reasonable to assume a change is for the worse.