I also use an extension to stop automatically playing a video when I open it and another to stop automatically opening the next recommended video when the current one ends.
we need a yt deshitter for (maybe one exists?): when mousing over the seek-bar, the time displayed goes from the time where im hovering over, to a huge-chunk of the bar displaying 'most replayed' in several areas (not just one, which "most" implies)
Network effects are incredibly difficult to overcome. Bluesky is the only example that I can think of that came close in recent memory, but fell victim to an extreme userbase and now is experiencing degrowth. Similar things happened to all the (many) times someone tried to create reddit without the reddit.
I guess Kick is an example, but that's not exactly a model to follow unless you're also a questionably ethical casino with deep pockets who wants to be able to advertise to young men.
YouTube has to become truly awful for a new long-form video content platform to gain a lot of traction. Think of how long Windows has been enshittifying for and how slow the move from it has been.
I heard that from a small Italian YouTuber who does cooking videos (Tortellino) who apologized yesterday for his video that was transformed without his knowledge and consent.
Apparently his (average) Italian accent, plus simple Italian words (spaghetti and similar ones) triggered a robotic voice that "improved" his accent and translated the Italian words.
I noticed the same with German. And often generators have to wait because some important piece of the sentence has to be at the end in German. It's happening less in Dutch videos
I can understand why it automatically being on and coming back on would be annoying.
But the auto-dub feature itself is amazing. As an english only speaker (with a bit of german) I'm loving that now I can directly listen to Brazillian hot air balloon underground art scene videos in Portuguese, among others. Having the auto-generated subtitles was good, but now with auto-dubs it's even better. These auto-translations features really are bringing the world together in the ways the internet always promised. That's a good thing. I never would've interacted with many of these people if not for the auto translation (both ways).
Dubbing in general is a horrid practice. People's voices and speech mannerisms are a big part of their personality and presence. Hiding it behind someone else's voice (or an auto-generated translation) just erases a huge part of who the other person is, for no good reason in a world where virtually everyone can read subtitles.
Imagine listening to "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse", but instead of Marlon Brandon's iconic performance, you get someone speaking another language, or an AI generated voice: you'd lose half the point of the scene.
The dubs are not replacing the actual audio track. Both tracks are available if you want the original because you understand that language. You can just pick using the options menu (the gear).
The problem is that people are picking and then youtube is ignoring that on future videos and reloads instead of storing the preference.
The problem is not the availability of the auto-dubs as an option, which are undeniably great and helpful when you don't understand the language. I agree re: entertainment movies, dubs are bad. But sometimes in video media, often in fact, the speech is not about the person emoting but instead about what they are saying (ie, documentaries, reviews, etc).
If you want to block YouTube shorts just pause your watch history and clear entire history. It turns off all recommendations including shorts. You can subscription tab without any issue
Want to know what annoys users more than robotic translation? A screen-sized cookie dialogue without the option to reject all, that requires you to go through numerous forms before you can see the website content.
Readit News
Moments like these really make me appreciate the customizability of the web experience for advanced users.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-no-tr...
- Ublock origin. - Sponsorblock. - DeArrow. - Youtube no translation
At what point do we collectively decide to no longer patch over enshittified bullshit?
I guess Kick is an example, but that's not exactly a model to follow unless you're also a questionably ethical casino with deep pockets who wants to be able to advertise to young men.
YouTube has to become truly awful for a new long-form video content platform to gain a lot of traction. Think of how long Windows has been enshittifying for and how slow the move from it has been.
Apparently his (average) Italian accent, plus simple Italian words (spaghetti and similar ones) triggered a robotic voice that "improved" his accent and translated the Italian words.
This is insane.
This might only apply to German, notorious for requiring more syllables to convey a given idea than, say, French or English.
Nevertheless, it's absurd that YouTube doesn't provide an easier way to disable this "feature".
But the auto-dub feature itself is amazing. As an english only speaker (with a bit of german) I'm loving that now I can directly listen to Brazillian hot air balloon underground art scene videos in Portuguese, among others. Having the auto-generated subtitles was good, but now with auto-dubs it's even better. These auto-translations features really are bringing the world together in the ways the internet always promised. That's a good thing. I never would've interacted with many of these people if not for the auto translation (both ways).
Imagine listening to "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse", but instead of Marlon Brandon's iconic performance, you get someone speaking another language, or an AI generated voice: you'd lose half the point of the scene.
The problem is that people are picking and then youtube is ignoring that on future videos and reloads instead of storing the preference.
The problem is not the availability of the auto-dubs as an option, which are undeniably great and helpful when you don't understand the language. I agree re: entertainment movies, dubs are bad. But sometimes in video media, often in fact, the speech is not about the person emoting but instead about what they are saying (ie, documentaries, reviews, etc).
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P.S. I uninstalled the YouTube app because of YouTube Shorts and had to reinstall the app to listen to videos in the original audio.
it is something that allows you to make your youtube experience much, much nicer (such as removing shorts off the app).
No way am I reading that slop.