New YT interface looks like it was designed by a drunken monkey

[RoGeorge]

Don't know how it looks like for mobile, but for desktop the usability went down to the drain.

The new interface requires more clicks to navigate, switches formats and arrangements of the window split for no reason, it is inconsistent (for example still shows 'more...' at description, when the description details are already displayed), it puts in front what I don't want to see, and hides what I usually want to see, for example the comments need an extra click.

Not to say, most browser plugins for customizing the YT look and behavior, won't work with the new interface.

The good thing is (for now) there is still possible to bring back the old interface, found some ways to revert here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1cx6glr/comment/l50hw1t/

Tried the uBlock Origin filter and it brings back the old interface (add this line as a custom filter in uBlock settings -> My filters):

Code: [Select]

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.kevlar_watch_grid, false)

[SiliconWizard]

Not sure what you are refering to, I don't see any of this. I use Firefox though on the desktop. What browser do you use?
The experience has gotten worse and worse though when using Adblockers, but of course that's well known and intentional.

I use Opera on tablet though (Android), and the YT interface has always been different. It kind of sucks, but is ok for mobile use I guess.

On the desktop, when the browser interface irritates me too much, I play YT videos in a third-party player. VLC doesn't work anymore for me with YT, but there are others that still do fine.

[RoGeorge]

For now I'm using "LibreWolf" as a browser, which is a fork of Firefox with more "security" whatever that means.  Usually YT does not deploy its testing schemes all over the places at once, so many might not see the new interface yet.

My hope was the AI bots will notice the negative title (BTW, "monkey" is not a pejorative term, they used that term for announcing YT issues like ), and and revert to how it was before.

[soldar]

Using Brave and Linux I now get the suggested videos below and the comments on the right. The have switched them over. I don't like it. At all.

It seems to many people have to justify their salaries by making "improvements" which are anything but. 

[MK14]

I agree, it does seem really bad.

It is as if, the people at the top of google, just want to scrape every last penny of revenue (such as for ads), even if it is a disaster and messes up, the (real customers), users of their platform.

They seem to be doing the same/similar, with google searches, which instead of like in the distant past.  The early results (after a sponsored advert link, based on your searches), had what you were really searching for.

These days, you seem to get, more like pages and pages, of search results, favoring ones which probably pay google money, one way or the other.  Which can be, relatively useless and time wasting, for the user.  Because the websites that they really want/need, are either absent or way, way down the list, of search results.

I suspect, it is because of management, at or near the top of Google.  Who are purely interested in greedily exploiting the market, in every way they can, and don't seem to care, even slightly about the users of their products and services.

Hence, that could be going to end up as a bad strategy for Google, in the longer term.  As, sooner or later, competitors, will corner the various market(s), and Google will fall out of favour.

I.e. Going for short term profit, over long term success.

[coppice]

YouTube is endlessly changing, and new bugs pop up all the time. Their QA seems very lax. One general quirk I find annoying is a new video appears on my phone. It looks interesting, but I want to see it big. I go to the lounge and try to watch it on the big TV. For some time - maybe a couple of minutes, or maybe an hour - the TV app can't find the video. Do they have a special slowly updated system that the TVs apps access?

[EPAIII]

I can only imagine that people in these big companies are clawing for a way to be noticed. They want to get promoted or at least survive the next blood bath. So they propose constant changes. Anything that will bring in more $ $ $. They can't leave "well enough" alone.

And the users SUFFER!

I agree, it does seem really bad.

It is as if, the people at the top of google, just want to scrape every last penny of revenue (such as for ads), even if it is a disaster and messes up, the (real customers), users of their platform.

They seem to be doing the same/similar, with google searches, which instead of like in the distant past.  The early results (after a sponsored advert link, based on your searches), had what you were really searching for.

These days, you seem to get, more like pages and pages, of search results, favoring ones which probably pay google money, one way or the other.  Which can be, relatively useless and time wasting, for the user.  Because the websites that they really want/need, are either absent or way, way down the list, of search results.

I suspect, it is because of management, at or near the top of Google.  Who are purely interested in greedily exploiting the market, in every way they can, and don't seem to care, even slightly about the users of their products and services.

Hence, that could be going to end up as a bad strategy for Google, in the longer term.  As, sooner or later, competitors, will corner the various market(s), and Google will fall out of favour.

I.e. Going for short term profit, over long term success.

[Sal Ammoniac]

My biggest YT issue is with the mobile apps (for both iPhone and iPad). If I'm watching a video on one of these, and pause it and try to resume it later, the app goes back to the home screen and loses my place in the video. I have to find the video in History. Sometimes the History has the place where I paused the video, but more often than not the pause point either isn't accurate or the video isn't in History at all.

[tooki]

…

These days, you seem to get, more like pages and pages, of search results, favoring ones which probably pay google money, one way or the other.  Which can be, relatively useless and time wasting, for the user.  Because the websites that they really want/need, are either absent or way, way down the list, of search results.

I suspect, it is because of management, at or near the top of Google.  Who are purely interested in greedily exploiting the market, in every way they can, and don't seem to care, even slightly about the users of their products and services.

We don’t have to guess: recent lawsuits have led to internal emails becoming public record, and indeed since the head of advertising became the head of the entire company, they shifted the goal towards getting search users to stay on the site longer so they can monetize views.  🤦 Good search results of course don’t cause you to dwell, so…

Ironically, the original paper by Page and Brin actually mentions, and warns against, the conflict of interest of search and advertising!

Hence, that could be going to end up as a bad strategy for Google, in the longer term.  As, sooner or later, competitors, will corner the various market(s), and Google will fall out of favour.

I.e. Going for short term profit, over long term success.

I completely agree. Ruining search is basically melting down the crown jewels for scrap metal and abrasives. It’s incredibly shortsighted.

I’ve heard from Google employees (and/or their spouses) that this shortsighted mentality is also ruining morale, as the company has gone on a quiet firing rampage. But to avoid the bad press of laying off a bunch of people at once, they’re doing it little by little, with the layoffs planned to the day, so it flies under the radar. The consequence for employees is that nobody knows whether their job is safe or not, and if or when they need to start looking for someone else. Apparently, neither seniority nor importance on a project seems to protect one’s job. And of course the remaining team members have to pick up the slack, even as their team sizes shrink by 3/4. I think this is going to produce a brain drain and loss of institutional memory that will cost them dearly in the long run.

I hate when bean counters make it into positions of power.

[tooki]

My biggest YT issue is with the mobile apps (for both iPhone and iPad). If I'm watching a video on one of these, and pause it and try to resume it later, the app goes back to the home screen and loses my place in the video. I have to find the video in History. Sometimes the History has the place where I paused the video, but more often than not the pause point either isn't accurate or the video isn't in History at all.

Heck, especially on older iPhones, where there isn’t a lot of spare RAM, just quickly switching to another app (e.g. to respond to a message or check a map) is enough to cause the YouTube app to be quit in the background. One of the iOS design tenets for developers is that apps should save their state (and do so often) precisely because inactive background apps are subject to being terminated with little or no notice. It’s not even as though it’d be hard to do! It’d suffice to store literally two parameters, the video ID and the timestamp.

[soldar]

In one computer with one Internet supplier I get the "new and degraded" layout but in another computer with a different Internet supplier I still get the "classic" layout.

Both running the same browser on same OS.

[coppice]

In one computer with one Internet supplier I get the "new and degraded" layout but in another computer with a different Internet supplier I still get the "classic" layout.

Both running the same browser on same OS.

Are you logged in on one, and using the other anonymously?

[soldar]

Are you logged in on one, and using the other anonymously?

Nope. I never log in anywhere.

I guess they test it out by internet channel .

I get the new one using fiber supplier and I get the classic look when using phone data hotspot.

[coppice]

Are you logged in on one, and using the other anonymously?

Nope. I never log in anywhere.

I guess they test it out by internet channel .

I get the new one using fiber supplier and I get the classic look when using phone data hotspot.

I think they also do things with cookies. Do you allow those?

[soldar]

I think they also do things with cookies. Do you allow those?

Well, it could be that or other things. Both computers are configured pretty much the same but I suppose in one session I could have gone to places ... Who knows?  Not worth investigating.

But if I could choose I would keep the classic look.

I might look into it.

[madires]

I also had the pleasure of the new UI a few times. Seems that they are selecting it randomly (cookies are auto-deleted, not logged in). IMHO, the new UI is as bad or good as the old one, just shuffling things around.

[tooki]

YouTube has a long history of doing A/B testing, so it's no surprise whatsoever that only some users are seeing the new layout.

[coppice]

YouTube has a long history of doing A/B testing, so it's no surprise whatsoever that only some users are seeing the new layout.

They thoroughly A/B test against the best versions they have, and if the new one is buggier or more annoying it is quickly deployed across their entire network.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, something like that. But that's just because they don't care much about the user's perspective. All that matters is that the changes make it more effective for ads distribution.

[thm_w]

This probably won't help, yet, but has a huge number of improvements for the older interface: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/

[SiliconWizard]

This probably won't help, yet, but has a huge number of improvements for the older interface: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/

Yes, been using this one for a good while.
But even so, YT has become more and more annoying to use in Firefox with adblocking. As I said before, they had made recent changes that now make the player briefly display ads, while before you weren't saying any. And even more recently, now many videos just block on some ads. The ad doesn't play, but the player is stuck at it and doesn't move forward until you reload the page (which will restart the video from the start).
I increasingly use third-party video players to play YT anyway. That's still possible. For how long though... they've been very, very active making ads avoidance more and more difficult.

[Haenk]

As far as I know, they are making a loss running YT, so the pressure will rise to monetize it even further.

[madires]

We don't know if YouTube makes money or not, because Alphabet hides the numbers. In their last report for 2023 they only list the ad revenue for YouTube (US$ 31.5 billion). YouTube subscriptions are hidden in 'Google subscriptions, platforms, and devices' And all expenses are summarized. No way to derive anything from that.

Source: https://www.annreports.com/alphabet/.

[SiliconWizard]

True. Knowing a number of large online businesses though, the fact YT would run at a near loss is a high probability.
This kind of business model is not sustainable, and now that the "bubble" is blowing, they are all turning to much more aggressive business practices, which users start to notice.
The reason is that the costs of running it are very high and tend to increase faster than revenues. There's not even much they can do about it, short of turning into ugly cash cows. Those giant online platforms are just too costly to operate.

[Alex Eisenhut]

What I see is
1) When I use the browser's "back", as the page renders and shows video titles, suddenly it refreshes and shows a completely different set of videos
2) sometimes a video plays with the comments of the previous video
3) rarely, the sound of a previous video keeps playing even when exiting the video, and even when starting another video
Weird.