Do you often use Shorts, YouTube‘s short video feature? While this feature has gained popularity over time with an audience increasingly accustomed to consuming TikTok-style videos, some high-ranking officials at YouTube believe it could be harmful to the platform and even potentially ruin it.
According to The Financial Times, several veteran figures at YouTube believe that the widespread popularity of Shorts, a feature created to directly compete with short TikTok videos, could potentially lead to a future decline in the creation of long-form content, which is YouTube’s primary source of revenue.
With the significant popularity of short videos on the platform, several high-ranking officials at YouTube told The Financial Times that they are seeing fewer long-form videos being uploaded, which is a matter of great concern to them. This is because long-form (or “non-short”) videos allow for more ad placements, thus generating more revenue for YouTube.
If user content becomes increasingly shorter, there will be fewer ad opportunities, resulting in less revenue for YouTube. This, in the long run, could be detrimental to the platform.
A paradigm shift
Until the arrival of TikTok, YouTube was the undisputed queen of video platforms. When you were bored and didn’t know what to do, you would go to YouTube and watch a video recommended by its (wonderful) algorithm or uploaded by someone you were subscribed to. And yes, that still happens, although things have changed in recent years.
With TikTok, the trend of short videos exploded, giving users a faster and more immediate way to pass the time without having to invest a lot of time. Don’t know what to do while waiting for the bus? You open TikTok. Are you in bed and still not sleepy? You open TikTok. And of course, in response to this situation, YouTube couldn’t just stand idly by.
In 2021, YouTube launched Shorts, a feature for short videos aimed at diversifying its content and giving creators the ability to make short vertical format videos. All of this, of course, was done to capture the TikTok audience and prevent the platform from losing users over time.
Now, what was YouTube’s solution could become its downfall if the company doesn’t seek new ways of monetization or new incentives for content creators to continue making long-form videos.
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