FocusTube: A Chrome extension that hides YouTube Shorts

Speaking of which, what the fuck is wrong with product managers at big tech these days?

When I try to express:

> I don't want to see ANY shorts

instead, I get:

> show me fewer youtube shorts

when I want to say:

> NO

I'm only allowed to say:

> mAyBe LaTeR

Do the people behind these design decisions not realise they're monsters by gagging their users into only being able to express notions that appease them?

And YouTube doesn't really provide the option of showing less shorts. Try it. See if it really shows you less shorts there months later. Spoiler: it won't.

It doesn't matter whether they realize it. Even if they do, they just don't care. Most corporate leaders have high degrees of psychopathy. They are exclusively focused on their profits and nothing else. If gagging their users makes them more money than not gagging their users, they will gag their users and they will spare zero thought on how the users might feel about being gagged.

itS Our PlatfORM, wE do wHAT We waNt

This is the point. Youtube mobile has even started opening straight into shorts on occassion rather than opening to the home screen. Intentionally dragging users into shorts ups engagement and watch time. Letting users opt out or avoid shorts is exactly counter to their goals and metrics.

Same with AI at the top of search, I just want to to go away permanently. I will go to an AI app when I want to use AI

“We have invested in the ai, so the peons will _use_ the ai and we will get that ROI” - the PM’s, I imagine.

Their hard pushing makes me use it less. I've ended several subscriptions citing this

(and I like ai and find it generally useful, but not in ever f'n little space they can find to make back their overspending during a hype cycle)

From what I can tell, if you close the app while a short is playing, you’ll be dumped back into shorts when opening the app again. I’ve made it a point to always go back to the home tab before closing the app, which seems to avoid the issue.

I assume their goal is to make YouTube feel like TikTok, for those who want that.

Personally, I think there should be a setting so I can pick which page the app opens up to. I’d like it to open up to my Watch Later list, or subscriptions.

I have liked Kagi’s approach. If I add a question mark to the end of my search string it will show the AI results… or there is a button to display them. I almost always do this, because I find it helpful, but I like that I am opting into it as needed, rather than it feeling forced on me.

For a while last year and into this, NextDoor would allow you to reset your "presentation preferences", with the proviso that they would reset them back to their default every month or thereabouts. WTFF!?!?

This is what hostile software looks like. When you dominate a space, the choices you give to your users are: "Yes" or "OK". Choose wisely.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45559023

I'm more baffled by how you're baffled. The incentive chain is very simple: employee needs to have metrics demonstrating lots of users, so they can get promoted, so they make it hard to opt out. Boom, lots of users in the metrics, promoted

Chances are you'd do the same thing

Same with Apple News. If I block a news channel, it still shows it to me but darker font. It’s actively hostile

> Chances are you'd do the same thing

I would never be a slave to metrics like this, certainly never on my own dime. A long term refrain of mine is that businesses tend to over-optimise what they can measure and under-optimise what they cant. This is just orgs outsourcing their thinking into a black box so they don't have to consider the ethical ramifications of chasing "number goes up" like a government A/B testing themsleves into "kill all the poor" as a strategy to cut welfare.

You can make it go away, there was hn post showing how to configure browser to not use it.

Good for you then. Everyone says that, but talk is cheap. I hope you're one of the very few who would actually follow through.

"Yo, the customer be a virtual crack addict, the customer be fucked up and take whatever we be slinging. Yellow top, blue top, shit be weak, shit be strong, they be coming back.." free after the Wire.

Product managers keep taking the… “SA” approach to consent.

Whichever two initials you’d like to extrapolate SA out to, both of them still fit just perfectly here.

steve austin?

Giving you a stone cold response?

This is why I am more critical of Google vs Facebook. If I go to instagram, I know I am wasting my time. YouTube has the only video on how to replace the fuse on my toaster and will try to get me addicted to shorts in the process. It like pushing drugs on you in the grocery store without a way to say no.

Post-consent computing. Welcome to the 2020s.

Agreed. Unfortunately control over the home page is a long fought battle over a decade long with youtube increasingly dis-incentivising subscriptions and long term viewership.