What do you think about YouTube’s Reddit-inspired comments UI?

YouTube has been tinkering with the comment section on its mobile apps for quite some time to encourage users to participate in conversations and help them easily find interesting discussion topics. While some of its AI-powered features, like comment topics and live chat summaries, have been well received, its new threaded comments UI seems to be getting a mixed response.

In case you missed it, YouTube recently rolled out a new Reddit-like threaded comments UI for its Android and iOS apps. It features a new visual indicator connecting the profile image of the user who posted the main comment with corresponding replies.

However, unlike Reddit’s comments UI, this indicator does not branch out to subsequent replies. You still have to pay attention to user tags to know whether someone is responding to the top comment in a thread or to a reply on that comment, making the new UI seem half-baked and inferior to Reddit’s.

Conversely, replies on YouTube comments are still condensed by default, so you don’t have to scroll through all the replies like on Reddit and can skip going through replies to comments you don’t find interesting. User feedback on Reddit suggests that while some prefer this new YouTube comments UI, others think it’s an unnecessary change that doesn’t do anything to make it easier for users to follow replies within a thread. We’d love to know your thoughts on YouTube’s new threaded comments UI and whether or not you find it useful: