YouTube Shorts
Shares rank 3 of 7 video platforms by recommenders
People recommend Shorts for quick explainers and short breaks, especially with recommendations off. Critics say it is addictive and cannot be fully turned off.
People recommend Shorts for quick explainers and short breaks, especially with recommendations off. Critics say it is addictive and cannot be fully turned off.
151 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 130
- approval share
- 14%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Quick, bite-sized explainers and breaks
“I don’t mind shorts. Especially when I have a few minutes to kill”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts” “Her youtube shorts are also good bite-sized explainers.”
Comment from 27 Jul 2026 in “Hannah Fry Wins the Leelavati Prize in 2026 for Mathematics Outreach” Only shorts from followed creators
“with recommendations disabled it is tolerable, because only shorts from people I subscribe to are in there”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Men are ditching TV for YouTube as AI usage and social media fatigue grow” “My shorts are mostly of the creators I follow or adjecent creators.”
Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “A new research shows that 21-33% of YouTube's feed may consist of AI slop” Quality comparable to long videos
“They're not lower quality, and while you could call a lot of them "impulsive", a lot of longer videos are also impulsive!”
Comment from 6 May 2026 in “YouTube, your RSS feeds are broken” “the shorts are at least as useful as long form videos to me”
Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “How we lost communication to entertainment”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Addictive endless-loop design
“corrosive to a developing mind...the mindless content, automatic looping, serving up one shallow video after another”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children” “continuing with all of the hooks and barbs, design and advertising built to addict as many people as possible”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts” “using TikTok/Reels/Shorts in the typical way, skipping videos any time the user wants has a short-term impact on prospective memory”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “Why Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for Social Media Accounts” Cannot reliably disable Shorts
“All vertical videos I've uploaded have automatically turned into shorts and there doesn't seem to be a way to toggle this.”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Someone at YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled” “It's IMPOSSIBLE to disable it with parental controls and it has the exact same slop as the other vertical video services.”
Comment from 27 Nov 2025 in “Someone at YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled” “If you were hoping it would mean you don't see shorts when you visit the Youtube home page, that's not what this is.”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts” - Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Landmark L.A. jury verdict finds Instagram, YouTube were designed to addict kids”
Slop and low-value content
“After, it's mostly AI voiceovers reading out Reddit or Twitter comments about life situations, placed over Minecraft gameplay.”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “Disney Raising Prices Days After Confirming Ads Will Now Show Up on Every Tier” “Google treats the worst ones as a watched video. I'll spend less than a second as my brain processes the slop and then skip.”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play while you're away."” “Approximately one in every hundred shorts consist of something good that isn't also in a video somewhere.”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts” Recommends unwanted disturbing content
“Youtube Shorts decided for a while that I really want to watch videos of semi-automatic pipe welding tools being used by Asian women.”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Because Algospeak” “platforms like YouTube will start flinging misogynistic content at you and it's incredibly hard to remove”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “Facebook is absolutely cooked”
Other video platforms people recommend
The four most recommended other video platforms, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 7 video platforms, rankedWhat people said
40 of the 167 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“After, it's mostly AI voiceovers reading out Reddit or Twitter comments about life situations, placed over Minecraft gameplay.”
“Short form video inherently has fundamental differences to what it will support and optimize towards.”
“Or just follow Alberta Tech's lead”
“Lovely. Reminds me of these shorts YouTube started offering up a while back.”
“corrosive to a developing mind...the mindless content, automatic looping, serving up one shallow video after another”
“Her youtube shorts are also good bite-sized explainers.”
“YT shorts figured me out faster”
“Kinda good, But my brain gets tired very soon”
“They're not lower quality, and while you could call a lot of them "impulsive", a lot of longer videos are also impulsive!”
“push shorts to their user base without the ability to turn it off”
“I don’t mind shorts. Especially when I have a few minutes to kill”
“The thing about Shorts that irks me is their completely separate classification, which suppresses useful info like the channel name, date of publication”
“an annoying carousel that hides all the information you need to decide whether you want to click or not”
“If they were actually serious, they would add an option in the Family Link app to set time limit for shorts for children.”
“Approximately one in every hundred shorts consist of something good that isn't also in a video somewhere.”
“If you were hoping it would mean you don't see shorts when you visit the Youtube home page, that's not what this is.”
“continuing with all of the hooks and barbs, design and advertising built to addict as many people as possible”
“with recommendations disabled it is tolerable, because only shorts from people I subscribe to are in there”
“not having a switch to turn off shirts is a great indicator that Google's "do no evil" is a relic of the past”
“That "show fewer shorts" button doesn't do a damn thing. I click it, refresh the page and whala, shorts.”
“Youtube Shorts decided for a while that I really want to watch videos of semi-automatic pipe welding tools being used by Asian women.”
“Google treats the worst ones as a watched video. I'll spend less than a second as my brain processes the slop and then skip.”
“is ultimately too consuming literally a drug that robs one of the ability to concentrate and patience”
“platforms like YouTube will start flinging misogynistic content at you and it's incredibly hard to remove”
“They break the feed into well defined”
“the shorts and similar video platform trends scare me as a parent”
“Shorts seem good to me, but only when watched at 3x”
“No ads, no rambling, no product placement.”
“the format has its merits”
“Parental controls allow you to block Shorts for your kids. That doesn't sound like a "growth at all costs" mindset.”
“YouTube Shorts exist, which they brag about hours watched, so I don't think they really care about those things at all.”
“using TikTok/Reels/Shorts in the typical way, skipping videos any time the user wants has a short-term impact on prospective memory”
“the shorts are at least as useful as long form videos to me”
“My shorts are mostly of the creators I follow or adjecent creators.”
“If Disney tries to pull out of Google, they will double down on Shorts.”
“I would have no qualms just shutting down X, Facebook, YouTube Shorts and TikTok live for starters for all.”
“idiotic TikToks, YouTube Shorts, and celebrity Instagrams”
“It's IMPOSSIBLE to disable it with parental controls and it has the exact same slop as the other vertical video services.”
“All vertical videos I've uploaded have automatically turned into shorts and there doesn't seem to be a way to toggle this.”
“a much more fun and educational video of bees + time”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.