Getting rid of YouTube shorts

YouTube shorts has been having a significant negative effect on my life. It started benign enough when it was fresh and new but it quickly turned for the worse. I kept on scrolling and all I found was more and more garbage content and slop. You'd think that this would make me stop scrolling but I couldn't. It had me trapped in a spiral of frustration, disappointment and anger. Eventually, I had enough and removed YouTube shorts from my life. That was easier than expected and it made my life better. This is the story of that journey.

I could go on a long rant on why YouTube short is bad but I won’t. If you’re reading this, then you already know why. It sucks. You have your reasons and I have time. They may be similar, or not. That doesn’t matter much.

All that I’ll say on the subject is that for me, it felt like YouTube shorts had won. I tried fighting it but I kept coming back to it and kept on scrolling. It had somehow hacked its way into my brain and I was no longer in charge. It was calling the shots and I didn’t like that. I got fed up and started looking for ways to put up some barriers and gain back some control.

If you’ve already search for something like “how to disable youtube shorts” (I’m guessing you have), you would have found out that you can’t really do that, at least not in the app. Google really wants you to use YouTube shorts and they’re not going to give you a way out.

Turns out that you can get rid of YouTube shorts but it comes with a few compromises. For me it was simple enough, I got rid of the YouTube app on my phone and installed an extension in my browser which lets me turn off YouTube shorts amongst other annoying Youtube features.

How I watch YouTube

It’s worth understanding how I watch videos on YouTube to understand the extent of the compromises that I made. I used to watch YouTube videos mainly on 3 devices: on my phone through the app, on my tablet through the app and on my desktop through a browser.

You’ll notice that there’s no TV in the mix. A long time ago, my TV died and instead of replacing it, I chose to buy a tablet to watch my media. To make a long story short: these days, you can only buy “smart TVs”. These little nightmare devices spy on you and serve you ads. I didn’t want to accept that reality so I gave up on TVs and switched to a tablet.

This was before I got rid of YouTube shorts. Now, things are mostly the same except that I use YouTube on my phone through a browser.

How to remove YouTube shorts

Let’s get into the juicy details. In short, you can get rid of YouTube shorts in a few high level steps:

1. Stop using the app
2. Start using YouTube in a browser
3. Install an extension to remove unwanted features

So what’s the extension? There’s a few options available, but I chose Unhook. It officially supports Chrome, Firefox and Edge. Also, since nearly all browsers under the sun are based on Chrome, it probably works with other browsers as well. For mobile, you want to use a browser that allows you to install extensions. In my case I use Firefox mobile which supports extensions.

It’s worth mentioning that Unhook is a little odd in its default settings, I recommend that you look through its settings and configure it to your liking. In my case, I had to disable short myself and re-enabled the recommended page.

What I find really cool with Unhook is that it makes watching videos a much simpler and nicer experience. For example, I have a lot of the features on individual video pages disabled. When a video ends, there are no comments, recommended videos or end cards to try to push me along to watch other videos. The video turns black and all I can really do is close the tab. It’s nice.

Compromises

You might have noticed that I stopped using the YouTube app on my phone but not on my tablet. I chose to stay with the YouTube app in hopes of getting better battery performance. I don’t have the numbers to prove this, but I get the feeling that the YouTube app is more battery efficient than a browser while on a tablet. Sure, but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of this whole exercise? For some people it might but I find that it’s not really an issue for me. I never watch shorts on my table because the experience is pretty bad. If I want to continuously scroll, I need to keep my arm up which ends up getting tired. It’s a built-in repellant.

That was a compromise that I explicitly made from the start. I ended up discovering other compromises that I made as time went on. I call these “Hmm 🤔” moments. Those were moments when I reached for YouTube shorts out of habit but wasn’t able to. They made me stop and think. Here’s are some noteworthy ones:

I was in-between meetings at work and had 10 minutes or so to kill. I already started the kettle for a cup of tea so all that was left to do was wait. I work from home so water cooler chat is not an option. Before, I would scroll through YouTube shorts but now I couldn’t. In the moment, I put on some music. I realized that I never really took the time to actively listen to music. It was always a background thing. This was a nice experience. Later on, I revived and hacked my old kindle. These days, when I have a few minutes to kill I do some light reading.

I’m not the only one that reaches for their phone while on the toilet. At least I hope. In the past, I would often scroll through YouTube shorts in such situations. This is not an option anymore. Now, I either watch long form YouTube videos on my phone through the browser, read some articles from my feed aggregator or do some research on subjects that happen to interest me.

While I don’t have a TV, most other people do. When I visit a buddy of mine, we often sit on the couch and use his Chromecast to put YouTube videos on the TV. That doesn’t work anymore. Without the YouTube app, you can’t cast YouTube videos to a Chromecast. We tried a few things to work around this but nothing worked. I ended up giving up on casting YouTube videos from my phone. He’s now in charge of media / entertainment when we’re hanging out on the couch. I also, started bringing my e-reader along. That way, when things slow down, or he has to run to handle a work thing, I can do some reading.

From time to time, my friends share videos from YouTube shorts with me. The first time that happened, I opened the link in my browser to realize that Unhook prevented it from playing. That was an interesting unintended consequence that I ended up embracing. I made my peace. These days, I don’t really click on YouTube shorts that people share with me. In cases when I really want to watch one, I can open the link in a private tab where Unhook is not enabled.

How are things now?

My life post YouTube shorts is pretty good. It’s been a few months now and I’m not looking back. I’m glad to have that slop out of my life. There are no more spirals of negative emotions and hours lost to pointless scrolling.

While I can’t attribute everything to getting rid of YouTube shorts, I feel that it’s been the catalyst that has brought some more improvements to my life. I’ve gotten back into reading and I’ve been making more use of my feed aggregator. Sometimes, I just take in the slow and boring moments. It’s nice to be in the moment and take it all in. The things I that I do to fill the void left by YouTube shorts feel more deliberate. I do these things because I want to and they make me happy. I feel like I’m in control.

This experience has taught me a few important lessons. Being able to hack, modify and customize the software that you use is an amazing thing. This is where using a website in a browser is miles better than an app. This has taught me that I should default to using my browser and avoid using apps as much as possible.

Browser extensions are a key part of that customization. They, like other customization tools, are under attack. For example, Google Chrome on mobile doesn’t support extensions. You have to use other browsers for that. Another example is Google’s Manifest v3 initiative. While it aims to bring important improvements to extensions, it also neuters the ability of ad blockers to do their job. Since all browsers except Firefox are based on Chrome, Google can and has pushed that change on everyone.

If there’s one lesson I can leave you with, it’s this: Hack, modify and customize the software you use. Reject the convenience of apps and take back control. It’s your life, you should be in the driver’s seat.