pretty simple. [the video site] sees how popular tiktok is and wants to get a slice of that “short format” pie. It incentivizes content creators to make content that fits the format by promoting it on the algorithm. If there is a shortage of content in that format (and for that type of audience), anything semi-decent will do, eg. highlights from longer videos. As the algorithm needs to fill that quota of videos somehow
People can’t be arsed to turn their phones sideways
When smartphones were still a new thing, I kept preaching to take videos sideways because all useful playback devices were sideways. Man, how that has changed…
Even disregarding the orientation, people hate auto-next on YouTube, but will tolerate/accept endless scroll for shorts, especially because they’re short.
Maybe it’s the low risk? If it’s just a shitty short, you haven’t lost four hours. There’s got to be a piece of gold in there, somewhere.
Unfortunately, it is genius.
Most people I see are hugely addicted on doom scrolling content and shorts are part of it.
If you haven’t hade use of selecting “not interested” on videos. You should now. I barely get brain rot recommended to me but sometimes the alg is very persistent.
But that requires me to watch shorts to judge them… I don’t know if that’s worth it, to be honest.
What site are you using that has these shorts, I’m curious?
Err… YouTube ? The short video format is called “shorts” on the YouTube platform afaik