[swatcoder]

By being a paying subscriber, you've indicated:

* that you grow attached to video content if they can get in front of you

* that you have disposable income

* that you're willing to spend disposable income on video content and probably other things

* that people associated with you, those you network with on their system and those you share content with via links, are more likely to share one or more of these traits with you, compared to people they know nothing about

By paying them, you've inherently invited them to try to squeeze more value from you and betrayed that your own social network probably includes many similarly ripe marks for subscription sales or effective ads.

So pushing the content they think best represents their future income streams, in hopes that you eventually grow attached to it, or at least occassionally share it with your network of ripe marks, is of course going to be their strategy.

In the modern marketplace, subscriptions don't buy you out of ads or capitalist annoyances, they just suggest that you're an even more valuable target for sales and marketing than those who haven't.

[groundzeros2015]

This is a great point. A disproportionate part of internet economy is from upper middle class people willing to spend money.

[valar_m]

Why would a user who hates shorts so much that they want to disable them in the app be sharing links to shorts with their friends?

If a paying user want to disable shorts, wouldn't allowing that ability make it more likely they will continue to pay?

The reason I started paying for Youtube premium was to turn off the ads. I hate YT shorts and I get annoyed when I accidentally open one. If YT continues to shove shorts down our throats, I'll probably cancel my subscription because I hate shorts that much.

[swatcoder]

> Why would a user who hates shorts so much that they want to disable them in the app be sharing links to shorts with their friends?

Because the user thinsk it's a funny penguin and that their friend will laugh. The reality is that for almost all users, the demonstrated and disturbing reality is that they will engage with what you put in front of them if you can tune it right. They may wish you didn't do so, and may idly lament to people about how much they resent you for not giving them more control, but they still engage, and in cases like yours, still subscribe. They're that attached (addicted) and therefore that valuable.

> If YT continues to shove shorts down our throats, I'll probably cancel my subscription because I hate shorts that much.

What modern online media companies learned is that they really don't have to care about that. Individually, you and your subsription don't matter to them at all, and most people just don't get indignant enough to storm off over stuff like that as long you you put the right funny penguins and half-naked women in front of them, so it all works at scale regardless.

And if you were to cancel your subscription, are you ready to go so far as to give up the platform entirely, or would you just fallback to being an ad target who's demonstrated all the appealing targeting characteristics you already have, while still being fed shorts?