We're going in the wrong direction

The Picard Maneuver@startrek.websitemod to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 1625 points –
193

Leave it to big tech to introduce the same exact product with less features while they gaslight you into believing it's a shiny new product that you should be excited about.

Give it a year after people has gotten used to it and forgot how it was. They'll sell it back to you as a premium feature.

Big tech is about big money, it has less and less to do with tech

The new feature is how much they shove them down your throat.

When I see "New and improved!!" all I get is "We have found a way to make more money, and we sure as fuck ain't passing the earnings to you", or potentially "We faced a lawsuit so have since begun to follow the smallest possible set of FDA guidelines the law allows for, making OUR product safer for YOU!"

Sure our product is made by Filipino children, and sure it pollutes pristine wetlands, and yes, it does unfairly contribute to an insanely skewed distribution of wealth, but think of the INNOVATION!

Pro tip: if you replace "shorts/" with a "watch?v=" in the URL of a YouTube shorts video, you can watch it like a normal video.

Another pro tip: if you replace the entire URL to "https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health", you can learn about mental health, which is an essential piece of knowledge in the case you watch YouTube shorts.

I use an extension that auto opens any stupid short in full video version.

Would you kindly link this extension?

I think YouTube Enhancer has that functionality as well.

Sadly it’s been removed from the add-ons repository

Hm? For which platform/s? I use it on Vivaldi since ages, and Firefox too. Vivaldi is Chromebased, so I know it supports that including Edge and Chrome. Are we talking mobile? Because then I'm not sure but at least FF should have it.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/

It’s been removed. If you already have it, it still works, but you can no longer get it.

Not at my Computer right now but its called Youtube Shorts Block

no shit right

buncha asshats just telling everybody they've got a secret in this thread. useless punks

Install “enhancer for youtube” (chrome web store) and in the settings for it check “convert shorts”

You’re welcome

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YouTube is the worst with this, because they've even gone so far as to convert older videos under 1 minute to shorts. They weren't uploaded as shorts, but now congratulations you can't scrub through the video or share a timestamped link anymore.

I think there's client sided stuff to do to solve that still, I'm 90% sure on my pc shorts open as normal videos due to an add-on I added a long time ago (the most popular for modding the look and feel of it, someone definitely can add it because I'm out of the house)

EDIT: Someone who deleted their comment (saw the notification that stayed) got it right, it was Enhancer for YouTube. It's the bees' knees, very recommended for everything (except adblock, for that get uBlock origin)

Yeah don't have the name now but at least for Firefox there is an addon that just plays them as normal videos.

Hello, it's me, the one deleting their comment :))

I thought I'd be able to reply to that other comment of yours but it didn't seem to work so I'll just paste it here:

Oh interesting, I pretty much instantly deleted my comment again because I remembered seeing that the shorts thing in the enhancer was only experimental and assumed it didn't work well yet.

Can't find this comment of yours in the thread now but I can reply from the inbox :))

Youtube Enhancer is my bet. There are others but that's the most popular. Also removes ads but I'm not sure that works anymore. uBlock and GreaseMonkey with the git script is the way to go for ads, just as a public service announcement.

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If you pause the video you can scrub by dragging the end of the bar. It's terrible UX but it's technically possible

OMG! I didn't know that! Thank you! I've been having to watch videos again from the start when I accidentally navigate away.

Granted it's a short time frame but still.

You can scrub shorts on mobile (might have to pause it first), but not desktop for some reason...

It's annoying, but you can covert the garbage at the end of like the youtube.com/shorts/afaftxsdds to youtube.com/watch?v=afaftxsdds and it'll behave and be able to be interacted with like a normal video.

Anyone wanna make a firefox plugin or something for this?

I'd be very surprised if there aren't a bunch already. Have you looked? This behavior doesn't apply to any of my usecases so I wouldn't know.

Considering you just have to change a word I wonder why did they implement the features that people want and lock it behind a word change. What am I saying thinking more about this is just making the mistake of assuming morons don't exist.

They fucking what!?

Anyway, the "Enhancer for YouTube" addon has an option to force a normal player for the shorts.

Now that you mention it I sometimes forget I have YouTube enhancer until I stop and remember oh wait YouTube isn't normally monochromatic blue. Man I had too much fun redesigning my YouTube css.

Wait, even videos that aren't in the vertical aspect ratio? I've got an 18 second video posted to Youtube and I'm going to be quite put out if they crop it and shart it out as a "short."

The timestamp no, but the scrub works. I think on TikTok creators could disable that, not sure if YouTube offer that.

And the timestamp thing yeah... Although for so short videos to me is not that annoying. But yeah sucks.

In any case can you share an example of this converted videos? I have never seen it.

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Perfect example of continual enshitification, there's no reason even a 15s "short" or other quick media couldn't have video controls, it's just intentional because some dogshit behavioural phycologist they've paid said that's the best way to coerce more engagement.

Behaviour psychologists should have a morality clause in their oath.

Behavioral psychologists working for TikTok, Instagram and the likes are like physical doctors working for McDonald's to make their junk food more addictive while blindly accepting that it will become even more unhealthy.

What a miserable waste of workforce.

I don't know how anyone can do either job and not hate it. It's the kind of work that has negative value

They don't see it as doing something wrong but as a challenge that they must overcome. The ethics don't really come into play in their minds because someone else will just do it anyway and they're just doing their job. Just like a police officer with their knee on someone's throat.

Lol oath they are mostly just glorified teachers. Although maybe teachers should have oaths come to think of it.

That is incompatible with a capitalist business model. Morality is nice and all, but please do that on your own time, during company hours we literally own your life.

Or when it looks like it's going to be a 15 second video, but actually it's been going 2 minutes and still hasn't got to the bit you'd have skipped to had it had controls, so you just close it in disgust.

The best days of the internet are behind us.

Yep when everybody got smartphones it let all the dumb people on the internet who couldn't use computers.

Then the portrait video orientation became the dumbass default video mode, even when the majority of videos would look 9000% better in proper landscape orientation. It all comes back to narcissism - people filming their own face and body in portrait mode because they think people need to see their face talking about every asinine opinion they think needs to be shared for attention-getting purposes.

Tiktok is the perfect example of everything wrong with it all now.

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Seriously, Youtube Shorts, Tiktok, Facebook stories can go to hell.

Let's build the Internet again, starting from Lemmy, Mastodon, etc. One step at a time.

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I also hate players where the overlay doesn't go away. My girlfriend still watches videos on Facebook sometimes, and when she sends them to me, it always drives me crazy. You can't see like 30% of the video, often the part of the screen where the captions are

Instagram reels and TikTok are the worst for this. Half the screen is useless shit.

Tbf a lot of the actual content is useless shit too

Right? The less I see of that shit the better. Make the whole video view one big playback interface, I'd rather fuck around with that.

You can hide it all on tik tok iirc

It's designed to keep you rewatching until you get the info you want or give up and keep scrolling. Eroding your attention span in the process.

TikTok is an evil platform that I will never use till the day I die. Don't @ me

TikTok has video controls you can move to any part of the video. It also has 2x play speed.

The meme lied?!?!

How can someone do this? Lie on the Internet!!!

All jokes aside, I am wrong in this specific regard then, but in my opinion the way the tiktok is designed as a whole is extremely harmful.

And you can hold down on the left-hand side of the screen to go to 2x temporarily, like YouTube does (but doesn't do for shorts). I find that very convenient.

I always wondered why people say "Don't at me". Finally figured out its because it meant to be "@" as in a ping.

VLC Media player is still the best way to watch a video.

Is there a way to make it pause/run by clicking on the video instead of having to mouseover the play icon? It is annoying to have to click on the little play icon every time.

I think that might be a browser issue I use Firefox and I can click anywhere to pause/play by default

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VLC does it all. You can even use it to save streaming videos from the web to a file for storage or use on your personal media server. I also use it to view my security camera feeds sometimes.

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If the site that hosts the video you want me to watch doesn't have an audio slider, I won't fucking watch it.

TikTok has controls now actually.

There's a scrollbar, playback speed, PIP mode, zoom, captions, and you can remove the Like, Comment, Share buttons as well (they call it Clear Display mode). Videos with different aspect ratios can also be put in landscape mode for better viewing.

Hopefully that means all the trend chasers trying to copy tiktok will copy that too.

if they had their way they'd glue you to your seat, staple your eyes open, pin your arms down and play endless ads at you, purchasing on your behalf (with your credit card, of course) every time you watched one. Your ability to choose interferes with their business, which is sodomizing you and your family's wallets.

Can we standardized the PornHub video player already?

PornHub is going to rebrand and take over the video streaming market, watch.

If I recall correctly there are already people uploading tutorials on porn hub. Granted there tutorials like how to sterilize a flesh light or how to draw a wolf dick. Stuff like that.

It's designed to be controlled with only one hand.

You get to an age where new shit doesn't seem like a good way to spend time. TF anyone wants to watch a stupid tiktok hand dance video for is beyond me. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some DVDs to alphabetize. I'm going to be watching some sick special features for Blade Runner while idiots wave their hands around to chipmunkified "oh no" song for internet points. I don't know who's winning.

Why are there so many people in the comments staning YouTube?

I, for once, defend Youtube because at least it allows me to change the volume via an extension (YT Magic or whatever the name is).

On the other end, all of the Vine (yes, I am that old) style videos don't have native volume control, which drives me insane. Talking about PC, phone has it's own built in VC. Kinda explains where the market is going, eh?

Wait I'm sorry, you're defending Youtube... because a third-party extension re-adds the controls they don't provide?

Well, yes. I defend their "short videos" part, not the site as a whole.

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YT Shorts, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook Reels... These are things I just don't bother watching.

The only reason social media companies took the controls away is because they know the videos being uploaded are shit but they want you to watch the whole thing for engagement. So they take away the controls to force that engagement. Go fuck yourself.

Also people who upload using these services - especially Shorts and Reels when other options exist on the same damn platform - are literally worse than Hitler.

Comparing video uploaders to genocidal dictators is a bit much. Especially when you can just use yt-dlp and watch the video in a media player instead

literally worse than Hitler.

Any minute now, somebody's gonna argue that it's incorrect to use literally this way. Happens every time I see the word used here on Lemmy lol

There's a name for that - it's called Cunningham's Law.

True, but only given that the first comment was wrong, which I wouldn't say so. But I've seen people who would, so it works lol

And they're wrong every time. You can use "literally" as a rhetorical exaggeration, bam, debate over. They're the same as the "could care less" crowd. "I already care very little, but I could care even less", solves it.

Well. You kind of did. Are you like Switzerland here?

Oh no haha, I don't agree that it's incorrect. I'm firmly on the pro-literally-as-a-hyperbole side lol

Shorts You can replace 'short' in the link to 'v' and its a regular video page and doesnt repeat and plays in the normal player

There's also the Firefox browser pluggin shorts blocker

Idk about shorts but for TikTok, creators have the ability to turn this feature on or off, this isn’t the norm.

Installed an extension to be able to see forward and back and change the volume. Volume is another one in a bad direction

Or the fact that I can't change video quality. Esp bad when previously I watched on minimum video quality because it was a music video. Then when I click on a short I suddenly can't up the god damn quality

YouTube shorts do have controls, you can scrub through the video with the progress bar along the bottom edge of the screen? Unless they're getting rid of it.

It doesn't super matter to me, I try really hard to avoid short form content. My attention span is bad enough as-is

It used to not work like that when shorts first came out, there wasn't even a bottom bar iirc this must be an old meme

you can scrub through the video with the progress bar along the bottom edge of the screen?

Stop leaving question marks at the end of statements.

I will do what I please, thank you very much.

The point of language is to convey ideas, and sometimes the most succinct way to communicate what you think and that you're open to people disagreeing or alternative perspectives is to end a statement with a question mark.

Telling other people how to communicate because what they said disagrees with rules you arbitrarily made up is dumb. The text you quoted conveyed exactly what I meant.

Its annoying? All it does is convey an inflection? People that talk like this in real life are fucking idiots?

If you misuse it to convey an inflection that doesn't contextually make sense and use it over and over again, yes, it certainly is annoying.

You know what else is annoying? Badgering random people on the internet about using language in a way that you wouldn't, despite the fact that it served their needs perfectly and conveyed exactly what they meant. You might even say that it's something only "fucking idiots" who desperately need to feel smarter than others would do...

Also, in what world is "it only conveys inflection" a meaningful criticism- inflection is a vital part of communication thats often lost when interacting with people online. It helps convey what I mean, and therefore is an important part of communicating.

The bar is there, but I've never actually gotten it to work, it ignores any presses/clicks that I make

Can’t speak for TikTok as i’ve never really used it, but Shorts and Reels do have a seek bar at the bottom of the screen. It’s barely noticeable at first but it’s there. And on Shorts you can tap once on the screen to pause the video if you’re on mobile.

Now, I love to hate on the smartphone-ification of web video as much as the next person, but this meme just feels like bait.

It's not every YouTube short

There's no need to skip forward with Facebook's shorts, because the answer is no, there will be no pay off.

To be fair for Tiktok it doesn't matter much since it's selling point is shorts anyway. It's basically Snapchat but less personal but with extra memes

Some TikToks have seek bars but it seems only longer ones do. Short ones don't.

tiktok you can 2x long pressing on one of the icons right bottom can't remember which

At least YouTube shorts has controls now. But videos more than a minute long are nice too.

Instagram does have time seeker, it is just like 0.01mm thick at the bottom and if you have fat fingers, good luck

also it has no proper pause button, if you want to pause, you must hold your finger (like a dead man's switch lol)

Ok joker might be real and he's the guy designing the Instagram UI instead of fighting a billionaire wearing a spandex bat costume

They experimented with a hold temporarily to pause permanently type of thing, but removed it for what I can only assume is an interface dark pattern

i swear shorts have always had video controls, at least for picking a spot to skip to like regular videos

Revanced for YouTube fixes that on android and there's a couple of Firefox extensions that add controls and autoplay to shorts.

And Instander, an Instagram clone, gives you video controls for Instagram

longpress the bottom of the screen, it brings up the seekbar.

Also ... there's a moded APK out there that removes ads, blocks some metadata capture and enables the seek bar on every video (and allows downloads)

100% agreed most videos are enjoyed best played in reverse! 👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️

I thought for shorts they added a controller. I use it.

Now can you get rid of all that text and buttons all over the place? It takes up half the screen and I can't see the subs.

TikTok has video controls. Tap to pause/play. And there's a progress bar you can drag to seek. Instagram and YouTube shorts are much more difficult to control

Edit: you can even hold either edge of the screen to speed up the video in TikTok. And a 2 finger hold hides the caption and interface

why is tiktok the only good short video platform

I can't be the only one feeling FOMO because I don't use it? YouTube has no content so they just cycle through old shit, old jokes Spotlight is better but doesn't have a good algorithm, And I don't use anything else because of fear of privacy.

It feels like I'm missing out on such a huge part of culture where I live today, my jokes are outdated and I feel unfunny because of it, while at the same time the other side of me is telling me that what I'm doing is good right now!

Some stuff I can do without and are better off dead. But yeah, part of culture is now locked away inside some of these platforms now.

The main reason I'm keeping away from Tiktok is addiction. I want to cling to the rest of sanity I have, and becoming a phone crackhead might not help. Tiktok can be used more privately if you sacrifice a bit of conveniency.

Well, I got annoyed about that, and found a browser addon that changes the url from shorts to videos.

Name of the add-on please 🙏

"Shorts to normal player" is the one on chromium (I used to use it in sandbox exclusively for YouTube). On Mozilla, the "YouTube Shorts Normal Player" seems to do the same trick it seems.

You can guess why I don't use Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube shorts and even that Reddit video player thingy.

For Youtube you can "get back the controls" by replacing youtube.com/shorts with youtu.be (at least for nooooooow).

They have controls both YouTube and TikTok. The creators might be able to disable them on TikTok I think.