The worse the UI is, the more often users will have to click/tap stuff, which boosts the “engagement” stats.
YouTube is free, accessible and innovative, though? That meme doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Genuinely curious what parts of the UI have gotten worse. Open video, video plays, move on.
It’s obvious that Google would rather try to make money than bleed it into one of the most expensive websites out there, so the ads are a moot point. Pay or become the product.
Two big things I’ve noticed:
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They removed the Chromecast queue feature. So if I’m casting to my TV, I can either play one video at a time, or I can enable autoplay and see what the algorithm decides to serve me - I can’t queue up a few videos and just watch those, like I used to be able to.
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Playlists are becoming harder and harder to use. Finding the button to add a video to a playlist, moving videos from one playlist to another, and managing playlists in general has all become more difficult recently.
Its crazy Ads are starting to show up on premium. Just Cable 2.0.
Why would they release a product for free that costs massive amounts to run