Submitted 1 day ago by pelespirit@sh.itjust.works to technology@lemmy.zip
In a 2025 deposition of John Harding, the Vice President of Engineering for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, lawyers representing more than 10,000 plaintiffs confronted Harding about the apparent admission.
"Goal is not viewership, it’s viewer addiction,” an unnamed YouTube employee noted in the email to others. The note appeared to be part of a collection of thoughts from something called “iOS Creator App review.”
Unfortunately works on me. I don’t know how to quit 😅 at least I only watch long form, and with an adblocker, so they’re probably losing money on me. But I just cannot stop, and it’s a bit of a problem…
Maybe the ads would help you getting rid of the addiction.
I don’t generally get addicted to things online and have always avoided yt shorts. Last couple months it somehow managed to sneak into my regular routine. Historically when I did find a rare watchable one I’d convert the link to not be the somehow even worse than the normal viewer.
How the fuck did they suck me in? I don’t know how it started, I don’t even like watching the fucking things. Now I’m considering blanket blocking yt because of it. Insidious bastards
If you want to remove them, you could use something like the unhook.app extension. I only know about it because Pewdiepie linked to it in a recent video, so your milage may vary, but I do know it supports removing shorts entirely.
Have you considered a platform like freetube that allows you to fully block shorts?
I’ve been using it for ages now (desktop application, I use it on Linux, works great), but other platforms for watching YouTube without ads are also likely to have “distraction-free” mode where all that obnoxious shit gets blocked or turned off, like when I view a creator I’m subscribed to the -only- thing that comes up are full-length videos. No community page, no shorts, no playlists and follows, nothing but videos which is what I’m there for.
You also get the perk of blocking ads and sponsored segments, self promotion, etc. so very nice to use.
It seems to primarily be a problem when viewing stuff on my phone tbh, since my laptop is already basically in lockdown. I’m admittedly an old person when it comes to phones; millenial but I didn’t decide to get one until like 2020. Any particular suggestions for something similar that could work well on android?
They still try sneaking up on me byloading the shorts section on the app. I’ll usually see it and close the app and come back later. But sometimes I’m stuck like a deer in headlights
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
I wouldn’t say I’m addicted but Youtube is my go-to site for most things. I can watch anything from the “Crime Story” series from the 1980’s to someone showing me how to mix mortar for basement stone work.