5 unlucky methods YouTube simply is not the identical anymore

Of all of the web-based video streaming platforms out available on the market, none are fairly as iconic or expensive to my coronary heart as YouTube is. A pioneering power within the early days of the web content material creation and video sharing scene, I’ve witnessed the Google-owned service evolve alongside my very own private development and growth.

It is exhausting to consider that the very first YouTube video was revealed onto the location greater than twenty years in the past, however that is the truth of the scenario — time most actually flies by. Over the course of 20 years and counting, Google has launched, carried out, and subsequently deprecated quite a few YouTube features; some are remembered fondly, whereas others are regarded again upon with disdain.

Listed here are 5 basic YouTube options that I personally have nostalgia for, and that I hope to see make a comeback in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later.

Annotations

Killed by Google on January 15, 2019

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Canva

A few of my earliest recollections of utilizing the web contain watching and interacting with annotation-infused YouTube movies. Annotations had been an early staple of the platform, permitting uploaders to put small blocks of textual content on high of their revealed movies. These blocks of textual content had been typically used to right typos or inaccuracies, and different occasions they included hyperlinks to associated movies or to third-party web sites and sources.

In some instances, artful YouTubers even created ‘interactive’ movies utilizing the annotation function, as was the case with choose-your-own-adventure-style movies. Sadly, annotations had been additionally typically used to spam the viewers or for different extra disruptive functions, too.

Google first shut down its annotations editor system again in 2017, after which it fully phased out the feature in early 2019. Curiously, annotations by no means made it onto cellular, maybe indicating that the corporate wasn’t too keen on the function to start with (regardless of it being beloved by many customers). Immediately, YouTube end screens function the non secular successor to annotations, permitting creators to current fast hyperlink playing cards on the finish of their uploaded movies.

Customizable channel backgrounds

Killed by Google circa 2012

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Canva

YouTube has underdone a number of main design overhauls by the years, every bringing a singular look-and-feel to the platform with modernized UI parts and refreshed bells and whistles. Sadly, as YouTube turned extra mainstream within the 2010s, Google more and more ‘corporatized’ the platform with a extra uniform design language and fewer of the whimsy that was attribute of the sooner days of the web.

Previous to round 2012, particular person YouTubers loved extra flexibility in how they may current their channels to the general public, with customization choices that merely do not exist anymore. Maybe most notably of all, most YouTube channels of the time had been outfitted with customized background wallpapers, making for what was a much more expressive and customized expertise.

Video Responses

Killed by Google on September 12, 2013

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Canva

Video Responses were an early YouTube feature that allowed uploaders to correspond with each other within the type of video-based replies. Launched as a method to streamline communication inside the YouTube platform itself, a video response might be posted in-line whereas watching a video just by clicking the ‘submit a video response’ button. As soon as uploaded, responses confirmed up proper below the unique video, in the identical vein as written feedback.

Google sundown Video Responses in 2013, citing a lack of user engagement with the function. The corporate continued to show current uploaded response movies going ahead, whereas encouraging customers to easily publish response movies with descriptions and hashtags to point that they’re supposed as a response to a different customers’ add.

Google+ integration

Killed by Google on July 27, 2015

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Canva

Within the mid-2010s, Google was all-in on social media, making an attempt to ascertain itself in a market then-dominated by Meta (on the time generally known as Fb). Google’s premier Fb competitor, Google+, finally did not seize the eye of a mass viewers, regardless of it delivery with a genuinely progressive ‘Circles’ function for curating pal teams and for adjusting the visibility of posts.

Previous to throwing up the white flag with Google+, the corporate tried to shoehorn the social community into its numerous providers like Search, Gmail, and Pictures. Within the case of YouTube, Google + integration assumed the type of locking video feedback behind an lively Google+ account, surfacing YouTube feedback onto customers’ Google+ feed, and extra.

In July 2015, Google formally tore Google+ integration out of Google, citing the need to have “every thing in its proper place.” The pre-Google+ YouTube expertise was re-established, and the social community and video sharing platforms went their separate methods. Finally, Google discontinued Google+ for customers fully in 2019, after a protracted and drawn-out decline in usership.

Dislikes

Killed by Google on November 10, 2021

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Canva

The newest legacy YouTube function to be included on this listing, the removing of video dislikes was (controversially) made by Google back in late 2021. Technically talking, dislikes are nonetheless current on YouTube, however they’re obfuscated by default until you are the writer of the video in query. The thumbs down button itself nonetheless exists, however clicking on it now not contributes to any public-facing scale of add recognition.

The like-to-dislike ratio bar stays some of the iconic parts of the normal YouTube expertise, setting the platform aside from most different social websites that solely embody affirmative emotes similar to “likes,” “hearts,” and “loves.” I can recognize Google’s want to scale back cyberbullying and web dogpiling, however I do not suppose it is well worth the sacrifice of dropping out on a ranking system all collectively. Personally, I might be in favor of the corporate bringing again its 2006 – 2010 period five-star ranking system as a kind of center floor resolution.