If you ever want hardware and software to get better, you’re going to have to sit through a lot of change. Most of the time, these changes are good, users like them, and they stick around for good. However, in some cases, these changes are bafflingly bad and they eventually get canned.
In some cases though, some people like them, some people hate them, and that might be the case with a change that YouTube might be set to implement soon. Just like with YouTube Shorts, you might soon be able to infinitely scroll through long-form videos with a swipe down.
When you’re on a short-form video website or app, such as YouTube Shorts or TikTok, you’ll notice that swiping down can take you to a new video, and you can do that over and over without any end to it. You can technically scroll forever, continually being fed new content as you do so. We’ve basically accepted it as the way things work for these shorter video platforms.
On something like YouTube, things work very differently. If you’re watching videos in full-screen mode, at the moment, swiping downwards will take you out of full-screen mode. It’s a handy gesture that a lot of us are used to. Swiping up will bring up a bar with a carousel of other videos that you can watch.
However, with a new change that some users have spotted, YouTube might be adding infinite scroll to the full-screen long-form video player. That means a downward swipe on that new MKBHD video could take you to another video, instead of leaving full-screen. I don’t like the idea of infinite scroll with long-form videos, but my editor does, so I think this change might be a polarizing one. Let me know what you think in the comments.
This Makes Navigating YouTube Shorts And Regular Videos More Similar, At Least
The only real perk I can personally see in this change is that it will synchronize the process for scrolling through both short and long-form content, which should make the experience a little easier regardless of the kind of videos you’re watching. Unfortunately, it’s going to mess around with your muscle memory until you’re able to get used to this—in the event YouTube sticks with it.
I Don’t Like This Change Because We Watch Long-Form Content Very Differently
When I tap on a 12-minute video on my YouTube homepage, it is because it contains something that I consider to be interesting enough to watch. Once I’m done with that video, I very rarely watch whatever YouTube’s Autoplay throws at me after that. Instead, I’ll look for something specific that appeals to me.
With short-form content, you want what you’re watching to align with your interests, but for the most part, you’re giving the platform the freedom to surprise you with whatever it wants to send your way. I think the brief nature of YouTube’s short-form content makes it a lot easier to tolerate whatever gets pulled from the hat. I don’t think that applies with longer videos.
