YouTube just isn't for creators like me anymore.

[@EposVox]

To be clear: no amount of browser extensions or CSS mods fix the systemic problems and the direct impact they have on the sustainability for creators. Those hide some of the surface level problems from you, the viewer, but it doesn’t fix anything

[@WeserBlitzEU]

You are absolutely making a lot of great points, but I have only one advice for you (I'm born in '74, so I've been around a bit): Cry less and adapt more. If you want to save your career, unless you're an industry giant, all you can do is bend the knee and adapt. Sorry , but it's the truth, and you're smart enough to know it is. Good luck and best wishes from an old industry guy in Norway. Btw, you're awesome, and I want you to keep making awesome content!

[@EposVox]

Yep, one video complaining about the system out of the *thousands* I've made over the past 18 years shows I clearly cry too much. Yep.

[@MattEatsMochi]

@@WeserBlitzEU imagine watching a deeply analytical piece about how a shift on a platform is harming the creators that produce the content that keeps the platform alive and think "this person should cry less." what a WILD take, and I'm not sure shoehorning "it's the truth" into any sentence make it any more true.

[@solemnmagus]

The point is that these two things are starting to become incompatible: “adapt more”, “keep making awesome content”.

[@phantomtec]

I tested this theory (many people do agree), also, I found that just being a touch more specific in search through KZbin did still weild decent results considering... SEARCH: "halo original xbox gameplay", was pretty much an old skool result into what would be expected, except perhaps the for you section that still yeilded unralated results, atleast, inconjuction to the search in the top box of KZbin, that was still I assume active if not there. 7/10 on my search attempt. Peace

[@CraftComputing]

Thank you for this. It's beyond frustrating to see long-form content bring pushed aside for the dopamine drip of shorts. And when, according to the analytics, only 3% of my subscribers are being recommended my content... content they subscribed to and want to see more of... We either play the game to get clicks, or the channel dies. But where do we go where we're discoverable?

[@Podcastage]

I’ve been uploading to KZbin since 2005 for fun, but have dedicated every free moment of my life over the last 10 years in trying to provide valuable, educational, and helpful videos on KZbin . I too have noticed this shift. I used to be much stricter with ensuring consistent uploads and meeting deadlines but due to down turns over the last few years (partially I’m sure due to shorts experimentation), amongst many other reasons, it confirmed my decision that this will only ever be a side gig. If I miss a week, okay. I’ll take the extra time to make the video better, it will perform worse, but it will be more valuable to someone. Then I just hope that in the future people will find that video helpful. I feel for every single creator who relies on KZbin for income because there has been a serious shift and it is impacting peoples livelihoods. Thanks for the great video Adam.

[@PawFromTheBroons]

Hey! Just came in straight from your TF5 video.

[@otter-pro]

I'm a big fan of your channel as it helped me to learn a lot about microphones. I hope you don't ever leave KZbin.

[@Mumus1987]

I know you, my mic amazing becose of you ! Tank you !

[@DTechNation]

At least KZbin isn’t as bad as your true nemesis… STICKERS! Appreciate your quality content ❤

[@LaurentBertin]

Still watching almost all your videos, even if it's a side gig :) keep it up :)

[@HipyoTech]

I think the worst part is that creators that try to embrace the new features are also blindsided by change - last year I built a lot of my channel on shorts and converting thru clicks in shorts and KZbin removed links in shorts with no question to push KZbin shopping... Shorts were initially a way to grow a similar audience to your own and integrate them into longform and then they separated the algorithms creating a rift for hybrid creators. Edit: just got to the end and I think its hard to overstate how much money shopping is bringing in KZbin as a platform, massive brand deals with retailers, huge commission cuts from makeup influencers etc. This is the new direction they want to take.

[@TheGeekFreaks]

As a longtime viewer of both of you channels it really hurts to see that everybody has the same problems and emotions towards the problems of the platform. When effort doesn't translate in somekind of reward, longtime motivation suffers and the system destroys itself. From my side: keep it up, many simpleminded are still there lurking amd listening, rven if it doesn't feel like that sometimes.

[@TitusTechTalk]

You are absolutely right. My highest performing video of ALL-TIME happened a couple months ago for me. "How to block KZbin Shorts" - Almost up to 2 million views. You are not alone the platform has become substantially worse.

[@JeffGeerling]

I'm still just trying to get KZbin to acknowledge we want the dislike count back 😢

[@RealHomeRecording]

I need to watch that video.

[@marti_abernathey]

And it’s not just shorts, but the content they serve. I’m a queer trans person in a committed relationship, yet they think I want to see het thirst content? I like watching Rick Beato (music educator) so the shorts served up are young women in revealing clothing playing music. It’s like the short algo is My interest+young woman dressed provocatively. It’s not remotely something I’m interested in watching. And that’s on my sub page! It’s making me not want to come on here. It feels…grimey. Like a bus station at 3am grimey

[@RealHomeRecording]

@@marti_abernathey same thing happens to me on Facebook. They keep showing me videos of very young women with barely any clothes on. I scroll past but that does not help...

[@timbury1336]

I've noticed this myself, searches seem to find nothing I'm looking for, and it seems to have started about four or five years ago. As far as shorts, I don't like watching them, and they are shoved down our throats. Thanks EposVox. I'm glad you still give content I like to view.

[@koentje8415]

I’m 3 minutes in and I already know exactly what you’re talking about. The search function doesn’t work anymore. It’s another home page with some vague results from your prompt. I often search very specific videos to fall asleep to. For the last year it’s been a miserable experience. I get results for videos that have no relevance that I don’t want to watch because I want to go to sleep, get weird ass sexualized shorts that is not good, and the “watch again” tab. Not to mention the search engine giving up and giving me results totally omitting one of my prompts as if it doesn’t matter. It’s broken by design.

[@EposVox]

Used to be the #2 search engine on the planet

[@noname-gp6hk]

Their #1 search engine, google itself, has also gone completely to shit.

[@TheDwarvenDefender]

*_Enshortification._*

[@EposVox]

Omg

[@DougHewsonYT]

I appreciate this video. As someone who educates and also has championed the platform, we need to realize when there are issues, particularly when creators are affected. The other big one right now for creators is invalid traffic. KZbin, please do better.

[@MAVOmusicYT]

The last sentence just hit unexpectedly. I have learned a lot from you and you did an amazing job in the past years which i'm so thankful for. Hope YT realizes this is just going downhill and make steps to fix their things. Keep it up fam! 🤘

[@EposVox]

Thank you.

[@StevePhoenix]

If KZbin wasn't the de facto video hosting site, I would have left years ago. Shorts, KZbin Kids which wasn't mentioned and is in my opinion also a huge problem, the fact I HAVE to use a bunch of filters on UBlock to make using this site tolerable (basically, no shorts, no "For You", no "Watch Again" and of course no 13 minute ads on 5 minute videos -- I kid you not), the fact I have to use an extension to see dislikes and the lack of transparency in the decisions made should have sunk KZbin, but it has a monopoly. It's more important than ever that KZbin gets some proper competition. Nebula isn't making a dent at the moment, unfortunately.

[@KaysKreationsMC]

FINALLY someone says the quiet parts out loud and clear. Been a Minecraft creator for seven years. We aren't the best...we try to improve all the time but for 7 years YT doesn't know who our "Audience" might be? Really? Not ONE video that ever took off OTHER than some shorts we produced that got lucky thousands of views (huge for us btw). And now that we did THAT...our long forms? Lucky to get a hundred views before the impressions tank and the videos are just lost in the void. This idea that the algorithm is the "viewer" that they and all the KZbin gurus are selling is crap.

[@morphes]

Dude I feel you so much on this, its so hard to find good content on youtube nowadays. The people also watched feature is soooo annoying.

[@The_Ahab]

similar to boeing, Google's C suite shifted from engineers and similarly minded people, providing service via software to utilizing what is in place to generate revenue, and its a lot of changes for the worse. KZbin has been, for some time now, focused on keeping someone watching videos rather than show them things they're searching for / subscribed to.

[@GameplayandTalk]

I'm a small channel. Growth is generally slow, but it's at least consistent from month to month. I experimented with Shorts when they first hit. Honestly, I was pretty proud of the content I made, cramming a lot of info into a short amount of time, along with what I thought was solid editing. The views were nice too, gaining 10 to 40X more than I would typically get on the average stream or video. It was honestly a breath of fresh air from a creativity standpoint, being forced to try something new. However, after a while I noticed what little growth I would typically expect, from views, to subs and overall watch time, had completely tanked. I had done nothing different from what I typically do except trickle in a few shorts in between regular content. After looking into it further, I came to the conclusion the "success" of my Shorts was killing the rest of my channel. As much as I liked the views on them, I removed the Shorts from this channel and moved them to a side channel. The typical stats on my main channel here have since bounced back as my average watch time has risen back to what it was pre-Shorts. Ironically, the Shorts on my new channel have less than 100 views each after about six months of being uploaded. GG, KZbin.

[@PushingPixels]

Went through exactly the same thing on my other channel. Realized shorts are a vanity format - you earn pennies per thousands of views, and you can't even use them as lead generation since them removed clickable links. Developing a viable content strategy for a KZbin educational/informational channel is getting tricky.

[@SomeRandomG33k]

I remember years ago on the Podquistion, Conrad Zimmerman said that once Twitch partner with a music label, they were promoting a lot of more big sponsored streams on the home page. Conrad commented that he doesn't know where is the place to be for independent creators can get discovered or grow their brand on the internet anymore. I think the dream of "I will be a big KZbinr," or "I will be a big Twitch streamer someday," are gone. Those days are no more.

[@TechnicalGamingChannel]

KZbin trying to be less like KZbin and more like other platforms is going to kill it. I'm right there with you as someone that has been using KZbin since well before Google owned it and they really have spent the last 2 years destroying the platform to pump shorts content.

[@makingtechsense126]

All internet search sucks now. The search engine companies have decided that they know what you want to see more than you do.

[@ArpeggioPegasus]

DuckDuckGo works well for me. I recommend it over all the other garbage.

[@JeffGeerling]

And it'll get even worse once they cram AI results above the few results that aren't to pages generated by LLMs. 😢

[@RabbiSteve1]

Sad, but likely to be true.

[@STUDIOBO]

"Nah bro forget whatever the fuck you were searching for have some shorts" is sadly so accurate. Crazy hearing the stream professor curse, thats how you know things have gone sideways.

[@fluffeh8814]

I really appreciate the 3:4 aspect ratio. Looks so good on the galaxy fold xD

[@EmeraldAudiovisual]

I want a setting, that lets me opt out of shorts. Thank you.

[@stevewoodyt]

There’s an extension that I believe will do just that. Improve KZbin Don’t hold me liable but I think. It’s got all kinds of other neat features too.

[@DarkenedCyrus]

First off, remember that you’ve inspired so many creators like myself to be on this journey as well. Your impact hasn’t gone unnoticed. Thank you for what you do. As someone in a similar space as a creator, I’ve felt this also. My views are not where they used to be and that’s directly attributed to a drop in search. I’ll get “algorithmic” boosts occasionally, but this is browse based 90% of the time. Vertical content has been a struggle for me. I also don’t see the full value it provides and it most certainly doesn’t have the return on investment like you mentioned. The only success I’ve had with vertical content is streaming here on KZbin in the shorts feed. Addie, thank you for everything that you have done not only for creators, but for being transparent with where you are.

[@OzzyInSpace]

I've felt the same way about Twitch the last handful of years now. It's so different from what I became part of, over 10yrs ago now. I feel out of place, and like I don't belong anymore.

[@iamLucid]

Took the words right out of my mouth. Its a horrible feeling

[@Lankofski]

You are 1000% on the money as someone who streams on KZbin I hate the fact that there isn't a proper live section when it would be so easy for them to copy and paste as they have with shorts and regarding the shorts seeing them help my channel grow was amazing but not digging into it and the vast majority of my views coming from shorts it's really made me question weather they are worth it in regards to sustainably growing a more live streaming base channel

[@jkgcproductions7589]

every fucking day i spend the day 'not interested'ing every fucking video on my front page and once i refresh THEY NEVER CHANGE THE FUCKIN TYPE OF CONTENT THEY JUST SHOWED ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[@AustinHeinz]

I’ve noticed that it can take some time, sometimes until the next day. It definitely doesn’t update immediately or on a refresh, I had the same experience as you. But it does work eventually. Like, I started a strict diet and normally most of my KZbin content is food, eating and cooking. I marked Not Interested on dozens of them one day, and the next day I had almost none anymore and still don’t.

[@jkgcproductions7589]

@@AustinHeinz yeah ive been doing it for a year.

[@PushingPixels]

It's like fighting an out-of-control auto-correct.

[@elcapitan008]

Fully agree with every point made in this video. It feels like the platform is being ran by TikTok addicts that don't even like YT who are so busy trying to copy TikTok (badly, I might add) that they are letting the things that YT is actually good at decay.

[@KeritechElectronics]

Platform enshittification (as Cory Doctorow named it), or - shall I say - enshortification. I hate how YT has been on a downward spiral for years, caring about shareholder profit and throwing creators under the bus. They can't even take care of spambots (and pr0nbots) flooding the comment sections despite clear patterns these stick to. On the other hand, I see some small channels being shown nowadays, and to me, running a 1.25K subscribers worth of a channel about old electronics, it's a hope. Going through some setbacks, mental and physical health related as well as economic, that stand in the way of me making videos and streaming - but I'll be back... real soon.

[@Bottlecap]

Not only do I not like Shorts, I hate that I know a fair amount of people who had some initial success with high viewed shorts, and then they were essentially misled into thinking they had “made it”. Then with heavily inflated subscriber counts from shorts, they were baffled why with hundreds of thousands of subscribers they were barely getting 5-15k views on attempts at long form (real) videos. Shorts more often than not, some seem to be useful in building a lasting dedicated following. At least in terms of creating an audience that will watch a channel’s long form videos. I wish shorts were on their own separate app and platform, even if still under the KZbin umbrella. They’ve turned KZbin into a chaotic trash heap, rather than something that used to be easy to navigate and even explore to find new things.

[@kevinizatt]

As a non creator I can't agee more with this. I use KZbin for two things entertainment and education. The search changes make education much harder to find relevant items.

[@LokmanVideo]

I feel your pain...

[@CareyHolzman]

I couldn't have said it better!!! Thank you for speaking out!

[@CareyHolzman]

This is 'New Coke' for KZbin. Those of us old enough to live through that unnecessary and unjustified corporate self-destruction never want to experience it again. And yet, here we are doing the exact same thing for the exact same delusional reasoning from the people in charge, and they have too much pride and ego to take admit they were wrong so now we all get to suffer.

[@tranquil14738]

@@CareyHolzmanlove u Carey thanks for helping me make good popcorn and getting windows 7 working on my 7700k years ago

[@BBKDRAGOON]

Exceptional video, they are crushing so many of the features that made KZbin the market leader in pursuit of the shorts trend. I hope this video garners their eyes and attention. Truly their pursuit of the "for you" style push at every corner of the site, along with their devotion to pushing shorts at every opportunity is absolutely crushing long form creators and the entire ecosystem that made KZbin so special.

[@tomatdoras]

Long time viewer for many many years across a few accounts, thank you for this. I rarely comment, but let's hope engagement gets this pushed further. Appreciate everything you've ever made, and your openness

[@EposVox]

Thank you

[@andi242]

this is an eye opener. this yt matter slowly creeped into existence without me noticing it the way it was expressed here. ...and people complain about discoverability on twitch? not anymore, I guess.

[@Wisethug]

Thanks for this video Epos

[@charliemccharlieface]

I stopped watching your content a while back but I promise you if you create more videos discussing detailed feature changes like this I will watch every day. Thanks for such a detailed discussion.

[@Joshimuz]

I've been around almost as long as you and I can't agree with everything you said more. I absolutely hate shorts, and all these changes to the platform, and the """audience""" being the problem not the algorithm. But mostly shorts, for all the reasons you said and more. I'd rate this 5 stars if I could.

[@andytyrrell3232]

Based josh

[@Botanical4038]

Completely agree with your opinion of shorts. Maybe this is just me (other YT commenters love to tell me how stupid I am), but setting shorts aside, my home page is almost completely useless. Channels that I've watched previously, subscribed or not, seem to be less and less populated to me. There's a lot more "New to You", which is good for discovery but often not what I want. Discovery post watching a video? 100%. Discovery when I search? 100%. Discovery on my home page at the cost of hiding creators that I used to watch a lot? Who wants that?

[@d5rickOshay]

I think KZbin should really lean in on the KZbinTV stuff and build playlists for random niche's kind of how you can on Spotify with "song radio" or "artist radio" and it creates a playlist with similar style. They could have official youtube channels people could watch like old school dish, with the ability to skip around lol. And would give people a lot more discoverability and plays.

[@EposVox]

That would be amazing

[@PushingPixels]

That kind of feature would also prevent creators from having to pivot, or start a new channel when they want to create different, but adjacent content on their channel.

[@d5rickOshay]

@@PushingPixels I think there is no downsides, besides maybe getting more people "swiping off" like with shorts. but overall would benefit views/playtime.

[@MaSTARMedia]

Great video. I wholeheartedly agree and feeling the same issues

[@spikechamploo]

This year has really opened my eyes as someone who’s wanted to dip their toes in this type of hobby for the past few years now. Been watching content on YT since 2006, and seen all the changes of all these creators, as well as the platform itself. It makes me scared to even want to start. Almost disheartened. That being said, great video. You hit a lot of key points I think people on this platform struggle with. I still want to pursue this as a hobby, but I think it will be better to go at it with open eyes and honest expectations.

[@ToriksLV]

I feel you man. I dont watch shorts at all, only few exceptions. Longer videos are donig better than ever, people who do podcasts say their 3h content is doing better than 20 min or 1h ones.

[@MichaelFeyrerJr]

Amen.

[@DotSlashFrag]

Got an email while watching this video “remix music videos on Shorts and add your own spin” 😂

[@JeffGeerling]

heh, the core YT is trying to attract and promote are are pop culture / entertainment creators. Whereas IMO the great legacy of KZbin is the ability to find amazing educational content that was never as democratized as it has been this past decade.

[@PushingPixels]

@@JeffGeerling Well said.

[@mikami5799]

Totally agree with you. I hate when KZbin trying to be Meta, pushing unrelated contents and hindering your subscribed channels.

[@chancethetechie]

Very well said. It is also destroying a whole generations ability to have any patience and appreciate anything that doesn't provide a dopamine hit in 60 seconds or less. When you look at every analytic and see that every video tanks in the first 5 seconds, you realize how bad it is. What magical high are you seeking that could be fulfilled by any video in 5 seconds?

[@gzfelix]

Meanwhile long form content is performing really well. It's really hard to say what is right or wrong and YT is not transparent at all.

[@KisseFluff]

As someone who watches youtube A lot and is interested about content creation side of things thanks for making this video. I've also noticed that shorts are popping everywhere and it's sometimes recommenced for creators/streamers toi make shorts for discoverability which I'm now anxious of that it too has made to be useless if peopple that watch shorts don't ever go see the longer content. As a viewer too - I usually wanna see or listen videos with more of a story/information explained properly and shorts don't really do it for me but you sometimes still end up seeing some because of curiosity. Still maybe not all is lost since I got recomended to this video on my front page.

[@FeastForThought]

I get the frustration, every change this stupid plattform makes seems worse than that before. It's just not fun anymore to use the website. It's almost laughable, that you have to somehow strong-arm the 2nd largest search engine to work like a freakin' search engine...

[@Nori_Plays]

even as a newer creator (doing it for almost 4 years now) and i am noticing this insane impact on the platform and really scratching my head with every long form upload i make, i keep thinking is it the tags, is it the title or description? in reality its none of those anymore and it’s just almost depressing to see as it is a dream that i really do not want to give up on… and being stomped on by factors i cannot really control. i have learned so many things from you as well and to see even the bigger creators struggle is absolutely bewildering to me and how youtube finds this acceptable for the long term is just insanity. even if it means i am unable to fulfill myself within this space as a full time creator i still hope to at least do this part time or whenever i can and simply hope for the best when it comes to everyones future on the platform.

[@fthrgasp]

i...i wasn't prepared for how hard that ending hit. not even from a video creator standpoint, but just from that of a consumer, i agree with literally everything you said. it does still matter though.

[@darklordambrosias]

Let's not forget how when you open the KZbin app these days, you will be greeted by a short that you didn't click on. And when you hit the back button, instead of just closing the short that you didn't want to watch in the first place, and closes the app instead. Then, when you reopen the app, it opens another fraking short! Then, it goes to your dashboard after force feeding you two shorts you didn't want to watch to begin with!!! What is going on at KZbin/Alphabet?!?!?!

[@EposVox]

Usually only does this when I close it with a short open - but I have noticed it doing it without that every once in a while But yeah views mean nothing when they do that lol

[@PaulTheFox1988]

KZbin is such a huge part of my life, it's scary when I think about how much I watch or listen to on youtube, and yet, I find myself enjoying the website less and less. The issues highlighted in this video are serious and structural that need urgently fixing, cause chasing trends is just youtube shooting itself in both feet with a double barrelled grenade launcher From my point of as a viewer rather than a creator, I'm seeing adverts that frequently fail to meet even US advertising standards, much less the UK's which are much stricter, with obvious scams, highly sexualised imagery, misogynist, racist or otherwise unsavoury depictions that appeal to the type of person I absolutely do not associate with, and yet there's no way to report them. The network performance of the site is getting worse, with even 720p being problematic, even though both my device and network connection are more than robust enough for 4k. The "communities" have always been a cesspit, but have descended into depths that even the mess that escapes Satan's arse wouldn't go near. It's filled with scams, bots, and unsavoury types like neo-nazis who are safely able to parade around without being moderated or detected by the pathetic automated tools, and yet half of my comments are auto deleted despite being relevant to the video topic and (I hope) inoffensive to most. I scroll through the home page and half the videos now are conspiracy videos, unrelated garbage, or videos I've already seen, and it makes discovering new to me creators all but impossible, and even people I'm subscribed to often don't have their videos shown to me in my subscription feed, such as the lovely AwkwardAnthems, whose videos are seemingly deliberately hidden from me. It's all so frustrating, and I cannot even begin to imagine how upsetting it is for those who's entire careers is built upon the site, and yet have absolutely no recourse if anything goes wrong or the algorithm decides to punish them for reasons not even known to the engineers at youtube themselves. 😢

[@IRISnGEN]

Well said Adam. Has been in progress for years. Problem is, not enough creators will stand up for this cause, and there aren't enough even if they do to have any noticeable effect to the $$. Only by showing a drop in the bottom line would this get attention.

[@ImmortanG]

Glad to see I'm not loosing my mind. I've definitely noticed when trying to lookup a DIY video or anything on a pretty specific topic, the quality of the search results haven't been nearly as good as they use to be.

[@NickArcade]

Joined in 2006 and then started getting into learning KZbin videos and editing. WHAT PERFECT TIMING!

[@MysticMylesZ]

I feel like I missed my opportunity to group cause I didn't take it seriously 10 years ago... granted I was a teenager. My friend is trying, struggling to group as an artist on KZbin & twitch currently, and struggling to push out shorts and tiktok that show a higher number of views; but I feel as if it's not giving her much gain... she still gets commissions but the spark is a lil uh gone; burnout is high, it's been a while since they did gaming, until recently taking a break to just chill and play their favourite game while not live.

[@tranquil14738]

KZbin turned from a community platform that encouraged you to “broadcast yourself” to being more like a corporate cable TV service just with way more channels and on demand content access. The algorithm seems to get worse in my observation with every feature that left the platform. I know it’s trendy to hate on Mr beast right now but it really does feel like it’s turned from broadcast yourself to consume mr beast or whatever else is trending. I loved how KZbin encouraged people to engage and create, that’s what made it special to me. I’m 22 and got on KZbin in 2006 lol before I was even in kindergarten. I started using computers when I was 3 and learned about Google when I was 4 and KZbin quickly followed and it enabled so much learning and knowledge for me and really helped drive my curiosity and feed my autistic brain that loves logical technical stuff. I have a weird relationship with KZbin because of this because I’ve used it far longer than anyone else I know my age and I’ve seen more features be removed. I didn’t make videos when I was extremely young, I started when I was 10 tho so I was still very young and shouldn’t have been uploading content. Still, I felt compelled to because KZbin encouraged interaction and expression pre adpocalypse. That’s where I saw things really start down this path. They have less information to work off with that’s voluntary and yet know more about you than they ever did before which is scary because atleast for me what I get pushed to me can be a massive time sink and make me genuinely addicted and glued to my phone until my attention span gets worse. I avoided TikTok like the plague then they added yt shorts and pushed it down my throat, it sucks during the pandemic I doomscrolled like no tomorrow and my attention span is very clearly been altered. I hope one day it gets better I feel cognitively impaired. It’s a shame, but what’s more a shame for creators is that when I watch shorts I never subscribe to anyone I just zone out and swipe up or down I don’t interact with the content I just mindlessly consume and I have to assume that’s not just a me thing. Again, KZbin turning more into TV with extra steps with every year they push the community element that made it special out I want broadcast yourself back I want to feel like I’m part of something again instead of just feeling like the couch potato mindlessly consuming and staring at the screen until his eyes are bloodshot weird al rapped about lol

[@LacasseEric]

The problem with shorts is that watching them are like Lays chips; it's almost impossible to only watch one. Which is probably why KZbin is pushing them so much.

[@legend0r]

Loved hearing your perspective. So genuinely glad I stumbled upon your channel while searching for better ways to EQ and exactly what it did to my voice. Really appreciate you!!!

[@SuperDerek]

If you find a solution, please let the rest of us know. -_-

[@hatguyjoe]

yeah this is something Paul's Hardware has mentioned a lot recently. Older videos that has kept gaining consistent views, just suddenly stopped getting attention. It is concerning, and annoying how a few decisions can change the performance of our videos.

[@MichaelP1234]

Feels good that someone else understands the reality of whats going on here. This video was so accurate. Well done and thanks for making it.

[@ectoproductions]

And on top of all this, a high percentage of Shorts are just bot content ripping off other content.

[@flaresashes]

I have only found this video ten days after release and I couldn't agree more about what you say. I was admittedly VERY young when first watching KZbin back in 2008. It has changed drastically since then and I wish I could say mostly for the better.

[@ChrisIzattOfficial]

"Short-sighted feature cloning" is such a brilliant phrase. I think you've summed up how a lot of people feel and it's a shame, like you, I hope KZbin sees its strengths and changes course. I'd recommend watching "The KZbin Effect" directed by Alex Winter (Bill & Ted) as it discusses the rise of KZbin, in conjunction with some of the challenges it faced/reactionary policy changes. I have a good feeling that KZbin will realise sooner or later, even if viewers really are 'demanding' shorts, that it's not financially sustainable for either creators, advertisers or viewers in the long term. Thanks for a great video!

[@GamingWithURO]

This is all of what I've been saying. Its absolutely a garbage experience trying to find something with search. Your line about search results.. "f- you have some shorts instead" is spot on.

[@mks-mobile]

You should have also talked about the invalid traffic issue; how KZbin is declining creators' revenue without any justification. Creators have been complaining on Twitter, but KZbin doesn't care.

[@workshed556]

KZbin shorts should be a differnet app platform altogether. I hate short cluttering my screen when I only watch youtube on a large screen tv. KZbin search, and google search in general, are a train wreck. Google has the worst product management team of any company I know.

[@dna100]

I feel your pain. I'm not interested in Shorts at all but can't see anyway to turn off in the search page. That is beyond Annoying. I don't even watch the shorts from the tubers I'm subscribed to. It is not a format I'm interested in. Interested to hear Bing is good for searching youtube. I shall have to try it.

[@celo4life]

No lies told on this video! This is the most frustrating thing I've seen across multiple platforms, especially KZbin. Makes the site complete garbage.

[@kettnercreative]

Nice job on this. It'll take me some time to form an opinion on everything you said, but I've noticed a lot of the same trends. The next 1-5 years will be very interesting for the internet.

[@MikeySavage21]

Been a subscriber for years and will always keep coming back for your content!

[@jurmiey]

For those of us who never made it, it’s hard to care that they’re destroying themselves. Maybe there will be a renaissance. Maybe there will be a better platform.

[@VelcorHF]

You are dead right on all of this. KZbin is charging advertisers more and paying creators less, as a way to give themselves a bigger share and their shareholders more value. I’m tired of it. I have a script that disables all KZbin shorts content on my computer. It depresses the fuck out of me having to see it on my phone. I’d love to see a video showing most people way to disable it on whatever platforms you can figure it out on.

[@cosma.]

Excellent summary!

[@BeholdLIVE]

Fantastic video Epos. This is genuine feedback. Despite the potential poorly received perception to tender individuals, this is well said and the shorts direction is truly dumbfounding. If i was to guess... its a cost saving mechanism at its core decision to pivot into shorts. Less bandwidth needed to provide to consumers and less storage of data. Likely saves billions a year at the cost of their total brand. Well done Epos. Edit: fixed hilarious typos.

[@roary4092]

KZbin was and still might be the most used search engine after Google and someone at Google probably didn't like that.

[@sakurasuki]

I think you’ve done an excellent job of articulating what many of us have been feeling here. I wish KZbin would capitalize on the potential of KZbin Live. It’s crazy seeing them try to morph into TikTok when they could be feasting on Twitch’s market share.

[@Its_MnD]

The irony is I know exactly how your feel I used to make both long and short content grew to 1k subs in a month and now even my shorts I post get 5 views I give up on KZbin a while ago and honestly I though of making another channel for specific long form content but whats the point it's not shorts therefore KZbin doesn't care. Even if I posted tiktoks about the long form that wouldnt get pushed anymore because they target videos aiming to promote off site content and remove it from FYP. How can you grow an audience when the platform won't let you and off site platforms won't show the content.

[@TheWax70]

Looking for live streams of Sonic use to be easy. Now it's impossible thanks to the search favoring places like content farms.

[@simonwilkinson2294]

Their ad reporting / blocking system is busted too. Report a dodgy ad? They show you more of it. Same with blocking ads you don’t want to see. You can only turn them up, not off.

[@vezquex]

It's just like mixing singles and albums together. Why the hell would anyone release a music album if it will be lost in a sea of music singles? So KZbin is incentivizing to only make lower effort shorts over standard length videos.

[@FridayNightArcade]

I've been on this platform since 2014. Tried like heck to "make it work" for me. It is what it is and I've just come to accept it's not gonna be much more than a side gig at best. Feels like the sweet spot was maybe 4-5 years ago, but every time you get comfortable with something KZbin (unnecessarily) changes behind the scenes, they go ahead and make more changes nobody asked for. It's a big get bigger, small go sideways kinda operation.

[@TeaOS]

as someone who works for a company with multiple channels with Millions of subs, many that we've had to sunset over the last 2 years because they became financially unsustainable due to all of the things you've talk about it hurts. This doesn't just affect small creators. I've had to say good bye to many of the hardest working creative coworkers due to youtubes vapid nature about where they want to push their viewership. Ad deals and diversification only gets you so far, no matter the situation.

[@diesel10]

My favorite feature that was lost after the Google+ KZbin disintegration was the @ or + mention feature in comments. I think it was around 2015 or 2016 I last saw it.

[@EposVox]

Saaaaame

[@Sizzyl]

Hope KZbin themselves realize shorts aren't the best idea soon. They've been a cancer on the platform.

It was a rant, and I could not agree more. I hate shorts, it's almost always just cuts from longer content I have watched already. I am also a KZbin Premium user, and I cannot remove shorts without extensions. Extensions that makes my videos pause because KZbin don't want Ad Blockers... I have Premium FFS, I should be able to have as many Ad Blockers and other extensions to make a better experience as I want... And finally they have KZbin music as it's own page on the desktop, but not as an desktop app (for us who want to be able to adjust the volume on an app basis). But still better than Apple TV, that app is broken as broken can get. Keyboard not working from iPhone (keys presses on keyboard coming in wrong order), and no dedicated KZbin music app (I don't want to listen to a classical music playlist and then suddenly have Mr. Beast screaming out in my living room for no reason).

[@TheLordSkippy]

This is not only KZbin. It's Google (Alphabet) as a whole. And if they don't change strategies for basically their entire product portfolio, they will become irrelevant quite soon.

[@rodrimora]

How does this video have 6.6K views? I've seen many creators share it on twitter, and your channel is really big. I don't understand it, seems like it's the problem you are describing affecting this same video.

[@ShoutButterfly]

With all it's flaws... KZbin is still my go-to place for video content. Despite the shorts. Despite the home page being gone because I disabled the video history. Despite the search. But man, over the years KZbin made it harder to get to the content I'm interested in! I basically now just either browse my subscriptions page or search for content directly. I also noticed the declining quality of searches. It still shows some good results but they get shit pretty quickly. If I check subs page, then I go from video to video by recommendations like I always did. Subs page always shows me relevant content and that's also the only page where I will click on shorts, because it's from creators I subscribed to.

[@danielk7111]

I’ve not been around that long but I don’t want to make short form content. It sounds like a mess.

[@AskJoe]

If KZbin wants to follow industry trends, I'd rather they focus on LONG FORM VIDEO PODCASTS instead of Shorts. Thankfully Podcast audiences have longer attention spans and they 're more likely to engage with creators for multiple episodes. A well made Podcast will look equally good on any screen, or even be played as just audio. The longer format also means potentially more places for ads. Speaking of ads, instead of pushing Creators to make shorter content, why not push advertisers to create SHORTER ADS, so people won't need to skip them. If typical ads were 15 seconds or less, they not only won't need to skip them, but are likely to wait for the ad rather than jump to another video. I've never liked the idea of tall formatted videos or Shorts, when all people had to do to see real immersive content was to rotate the screen. At least the content will look great on any screen. What's next, will we all start rotating our TVs so we can watch all this vertical content?

[@workingwiththelight3119]

I totally resonate with your message to KZbin!

[@pearliecue1711]

Well spoken indeed, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[@WrestlingWithGaming]

I don't disagree with anything you said at all, but i do have a tip/kind of solution regarding the shorts and for you results in search: I'm my experience, if you tap the "videos" bubble that appears under the search bar after you've hit enter on your search, your search results won't have shorts or for you in the results and it seems like relevance is prioritized. Again, this is my personal experience and i have KZbin premium so i don't know how or if that affects ads or the way the "videos" bubble filters results for non-premium users. But it's worth a try. It's simple to tap the videos bubble but it's ridiculous that we as users have to be the one to do an extra step to get the search results that KZbin knows we likely prefer. And most people aren't going to know or bother to tap the videos bubble to see what happens. It's crazy that KZbin is obsessed with becoming tiktok while tiktok has been expanding the length of the videos on that platform. It's frustrating all around that KZbin won't just be KZbin. Sigh. Anyway man, like i said, don't disagree with anything you said at all and can totally relate to the frustration.

[@EposVox]

Yeah I mean *I* know I can do that, but most people don’t know to use it that way and they’ve removed most normal search filters. If people used it that way normally, this wouldn’t be the default view.

[@WrestlingWithGaming]

@@EposVox oh I 100% agree with you. It's not something the user should have to do let alone figure out. I imagine the people that even know about it are mostly creators since we tend to watch and search for a ton of stuff on KZbin. The way filters have been gutted can't even be good for KZbin. I don't understand 90% of their decisions. Great video, I hope I didn't come off like I was trying to minimize the points you made about search because you are 100% correct. I imagine that video bubble won't even be an option much longer.

[@LaughingMan_]

Thank you so much for raising more awareness to this problems. It feels to me like KZbin is dying a slow death since quite some time now, and i really dont like this.

[@andygrundman]

The push to create Shorts has been slowly infecting all of the creators I watch. Most of them are just promo ads for their regular content, something I likely already watched. Sometimes I can't help it and will watch a short, after all they appear in exactly the same 16:9 thumbnail on the TV interface next to regular videos. But did you know that if you're controlling the TV KZbin app using the mobile app's "Chromecast" button, you are prevented from even watching Shorts? From the phone you're told "Playing this will stop KZbin playback on your TV." and if you try from your TV it tells you to disconnect your device: "To watch this Short, your mobile device can't be connected to this TV." It must have something to do with not knowing what to show on the phone during playback? It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[@gamerfridge]

Man, If Sites like Rumble added KZbin's old features. KZbin would be have some yeah competition.

[@EposVox]

And got rid of the alt-right stuff that funds them lol