YouTube Staff Veterans Think Shorts Could Destroy the Platform: Here's Why Some of Them Think So

Urian B., Tech Times 04 September 2023, 12:09 am

The rise of TikTok had many companies struggling to create their own version of short videos like YouTube Shorts. However, some veteran employees of YouTube think that the addition of Shorts might actually destroy YouTube.

How Short Content Affects YouTube and Potentially Hurts Its Long-Form Content

According to the story by The Verge, instead of competing against one of the most popular content platforms, TikTok, the addition of the short video format could potentially hurt the existing ad business of YouTube.

Some of the senior YouTube employees are expressing their concerns that the platform's Shorts could be affecting its existing long-form content. For close to two decades, the long-form content has remained the main bread and butter of the company, according to the Financial Times.

Ad Revenue Swa a Downward Trend Year-Over-Year for Three Consecutive Quarters

As pointed out by the publication, the ad revenue of YouTube, although has recently been improved, has seen a downward trend year-over-year for the span of three consecutive quarters, as highlighted in an article by Tech Crunch.

So far, YouTube is still trying to find out the best way to get more ad money from Shorts. In contrast, the platform's long-form content allows for better ad money since multiple ads can be shown on a single video.

YouTube Shorts has Already Become Very Popular with Features Like AI Summaries or NFL Highlights

However, the article by The Verge notes that as short-form content starts to spread, there are certain content creators are starting to upload longer videos as they focus more on shorter content. This could be problematic if the platform fully turns to short video creation.

It was reportedly revealed that whether the senior staff of YouTube like it or not, the platform's support of Shorts has already become very popular. This involves the addition of features like NFL highlights or even AI summaries.

The Progress of Short-Form Content Results in Companies Needing to Adjust to the New Norm

The article by The Verge notes that Google needed to make compromises in other areas in order to keep other industries supportive and happy when it comes to the service. Aside from that, with the addition of Shorts, this also means investing in creators of this short-form content while incentivizing them to create exclusive content when it comes to YouTube's service.

With what the market wants, it's hard for the company to push back when it comes to short content as they could fall behind compared to other companies like Meta that are already investing heavily in this form of content through Stories or Reels.

So far, shorts creators also struggle to monetize their content due to the short time constraint making it harder to include ads. Also, companies are sometimes hesitant to invest in short videos since they're easier to skip and don't have much long-term retention because of the influx of short videos, older ones tend to get discarded faster compared to long-form content.