[mindcrime]

Fortunately people still make short videos

Interesting. I don't see anything fortunate about that myself. I guess it's a "different strokes for different folks" thing. Personally, I rarely watch any video that's less than 20 minutes long. I think of short videos as being too small to contain enough useful info to be worth my time (although that's obviously not literally true for all short videos). And generally speaking, I prefer videos that are 30 minutes to an hour long, that really dive into the nitty gritty of some topic.

I don't know how representative of "the market" I am (probably not very) but I can at least attest that there are those of us out there with this particular preference.

[LPisGood]

The problem with everyone making long videos is that it leads to a situation where, intentional or not, it seems like everyone is trying to waste your time.

Some things just aren’t worth talking about for that long.

[nomius10]

Pretty much this. A short video is a fairly strong indication that the author did his work and respects your time, while a long one is a fair indication of the opposite. I've come to recognize some red flags in longer videos, such as including unnecessary bloopers, reading very slowly, reading long and frequent definitions, going on tangents, and generally not synthesizing the information enough such that all the bits presented tie into the main topic.

I would lie if I said that I don't consume long form documentaries on Youtube. I do and there are some channels that I deeply enjoy. But for a while, especially since they removed the dislike button, I've become wary of discovering new channels. It's often hit or miss, and the overall time investment doesn't look justifiable in retrospect. For this exact reason, I've removed all my subscriptions, and disabled all recommendations. I mostly poll for channels that I remember had good content that was meaningful to me.

[hluska]

There’s a third option that I’ve run into since I’ve started learning how to create video content.

I have a bit of a background in print journalism so telling stories that convey information isn’t new to me. By the end, I was pretty good at conveying enough information in a limited number of inches.

Video is a totally different beast and short videos are very hard. I have a couple of 10 minute videos that may as well be presented in a foreign language that I don’t speak…and I made them.

Reading this, I think I’m just going to quit. It’s really not worth the time investment.

[TheFreim]

The SponsorBlock extension has a useful feature where users can contribute a highlight point, which then adds a "skip to highlight" button. Many long form videos will pad the beginning with excessive background information to pad the length, skipping to highlight has saved me many hours. Because the data is crowdsourced the highlight qualities vary, but I've found them to be generally useful.

[bowsamic]

In my experience long videos on YouTube are extremely inefficient at conveying information, often repeating themselves in order to pad out the length. This is even the case for the better creators

[DaSHacka]

I've noticed this too, it's becoming somewhat infamous that modern YouTube videos are all these 1+ hour long 'video essays' on topics which could easily be replaced with 2-3 page articles to be read in half the time.

While back in the day a long video essay was usually borne out of necessity and thus information-dense and high-quality—not unlike a documentary, actually—it feels like length itself is an objective for a lot of newer videos.

I suspect many subconsciously think "if my video is 2+ hours long, then clearly it's high-quality and well-researched", regardless of the actual density of information.

And don't even get me started on content creators that use AI-generated sludge because they don't have enough relevant visuals for the runtime of the video. Like dude, just make the video shorter.

[satiric]

One way to tell that a video isn't worth my time is if after the intro they say "To tell this story, we need to go back to 1724" or whatever. If they're going way back in time to explain a modern concept, they're often just doing it to pad the runtime. Obviously doesn't work for all topics; like I expect a history video about the american revolution to go back to at least the mid 1700s.

[MourYother]

The people who have nothing interesting to say in a long form format were never worth following anyway.

[carlosjobim]

An independent creator can easily get paid by making a long YouTube video. It is almost impossible to get paid by making long or short web articles.

Inb4 "They shouldn't want to make money and just publish their articles for free"

Inb4 "People should only be creative online as a side hobby when they are comfortably employed"

[z3t4]

You can still make money writing blog or article if you have a sponsor. Just because you are on some platform it doesn't mean you will get free visitors. Its very competitive. You need to be among the top creators to be featured on YouTube et.al. Almost all creators have sponsors because you make so little money on the ads because the platform takes a crazy huge cut. The platforms are just middlemen rent seekers profitting on mindless zombies who are cunsuming content and just watch the next video in the recommendation flow.

[carlosjobim]

You can. But it's much easier to be a YouTuber – and it's not only the top creators who get paid.

Which is easier of these choices:

Talking or writing?

Uploading to YouTube or publishing to a blog?

Building an audience of millions or already having them on the platform?

Considering that online creativity should be for everybody and not just hacker and academic types.

> The platforms are just middlemen rent seekers profitting on mindless zombies who are cunsuming content and just watch the next video in the recommendation flow.

Oh never mind, you are stuck in illusions. YouTube as of 2025 has the highest quality and biggest quantity visual media library in history. If you actually press the like and subscribe button on good videos a bunch of times, YouTube will start recommending videos of the highest quality possible. Going in-depth into any subject imaginable. Made by some of the world's most professional film crews. You're really missing out if you're deciding to be an angry hacker about this.

[z3t4]

It's not just uploading a video... you are right about there's a loot of high quality videos, those take more work then writing a blog post though, several hours of video is cut down to minutes of content. But the platform takes most of the ad money, almost all professional Youtubers have sponsors. I still argue that you would be better off publishing content on your own website, but one problem is people now a day don't actually search for content, we are mindless zombies fed by algoritms, where most videos are just "clickbait".

[bowsamic]

Just because you can make money a certain way doesn’t make it right to do so

[carlosjobim]

Of course it's right of them to make money from YouTube videos. It doesn't hurt anyone.

[bowsamic]

I wouldn't say it's good for anyone for these videos to exist

[wavemode]

I don't find this to be the case. Bad creators make bad videos, regardless of their length. Truly good creators, though... well, let me put it this way - I've watched 7+ hour long videos which contained not one sentence of repetition or padding. They just had that much to say.

[lupusreal]

A lot of long videos have very little informational content but they become long because their creator rambles, repeats himself, tells shitty repetitive jokes and wastes time with sarcasm and then clarifying those sarcastic remarks because otherwise some people won't get it, etc.

Drachinifel is a prime example of this. The channel "WWII US Bombers" is an example of the opposite, somebody creating information dense short videos because he has laser tight focus and no time for joking around. (Examples chosen for the conceptual proximity of their content, historic military ships and historic military aircraft.)

[mindcrime]

I guess I've just been mostly lucky to avoid those videos. And to be fair, most of the longer videos I watch aren't "purpose made" for Youtube - they're recordings of lectures, conference presentations, etc., where the length of the video just happens to be a factor of the length of the original session.