the format isn't inherently bad, it's the algorithm optimizing for engagement over everything else that's the problem. short video is actually great for tutorials, explanations, behind-the-scenes stuff. i make AI-generated video content and the short form works well for documentary-style clips where you're mixing stills with selective animation.
the real question is whether federation changes the incentive structure enough. if the recommendation algo is still optimized for watch time, you just get tiktok with extra steps. if instances can tune their own ranking, that's actually interesting.
Counterpoint: The format is bad. The constant stream of videos, skipping between videos at (relatively) your own pace, the anticipation about the next video; it's similar to electronic gambling machines.
>electronic gambling machines.
Gambling is bad because it wastes people's money. Short-form videos just waste people's time, the same as the hours of television that older generations spend watching every day but with more diversified propaganda.
At least you have to go a casino for gambling. Short form video wastes your entire life away.
"just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. people wasting time staring at screens is the prevalent problem of today. with TV it was not as bad because there was/is only one in a room so it becomes shared experience. phones are worse.
Go a little further. Think about "how." How do slot machines get people to waste their money for hours-on-end? How does TikTok use short-form video to get people to scroll for hours-on-end? What is the mechanism?
"just" waste people's time? their most valuable resource?
It's OK to waste time. All art and entertainment is a waste of time. Most of what people do on HN is waste time. Arguably anything besides eating and procreative sex is a waste of time.
To use the analogy of other vice industries like gambling or alcohol, would you rather buy those products from shady unregulated vendors or more transparent regulated entities?
That’s the type of analogy we might make in this case.
Obviously many people (literally billions) like this format and use it in relative moderation to unwind and kill time. Hell, I’ve even gotten productive helpful information out of the format on occasion.
It’s also taken a critical role in journalism and current events.
Unless you’re advocating prohibition, the cat is out of the bag.
Being able to find a short form video alternative that isn’t owned by commercial/government interests is a positive thing.
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Question: how many people do you think would watch your short form ai videos if they had to actually seek them out and choose to watch them? The reason why the format is problematic is because it feeds off the dopamine hit of scrolling to the next piece of unknown content.
It’s well known that if people need to be intentional about what they consume they consume far less. Something tells me 15 second AI videos aren’t at the top of most people’s lists.
The less ai generated video I see the better.
There’s a reason why we don’t want to show kids fast pace videos with cuts that are less than 4s: it’s not good for the brain. The format is just not good for us
It's not just bad, it's the worst format that could exist, if radio and TV have already ruined the attention span this one seems to have the aim of doing just that by showing short content with almost no effort to understand it, a lot of context switching every 10-15 seconds and videos designed to attract as much attention as possible.
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> if the recommendation algo is still optimized for watch time
"people don't want to watch my AI slop, it's the algorithm's fault!!"