Dear Youtube:
I can forgive all the little "personalization" tweaks
that happened over the last few years, but this is just the straw that
breaks the camel's back. It looks nothing like it should. At
least the updated format before this kept popular videos and
recommendations simple and prominent in a plain white front page.
Now
it's turned into some kind of hellish Facebook-like social networking
monstrosity, when the focus ought to be recently-uploaded and popular
videos. The bar on the left is intrusive and monolithic, like walking
into a 1970's era Brutalist monument to grey and forbidding rammed
concrete. The intense personalization gives far too many options and
crowds the eye with a plethora of useless errata and text, when the goal
should be to focus on the videos themselves. I must voice my vocal
disapproval and loathing of all of the changes you've made.
Not all change is good.
Take, for example, the Google main page. In all its years, it has
remained steadfast a simple white search bar. Easy, streamlined,
intuitive, and simple to use. This is chiefly the reason for its success
against other competing websites, such as Yahoo. Yet Youtube seems to
be under the onus to constantly twiddle, tweak, and overburden with
useless gadetry and whiz-bang "customization", driving lemming-like into
uncertain and chaotic territory, oblivious to the userbase's cry of
"Wait for us! We liked it when it was simpler!" Whatever happened to
"KISS" - "Keep it simple, stupid!"? Why fix what's not broken? People
loved the old star rating system, the simple design of the front page,
the lack of intrusive text and gizmos screaming for your attention. Yet
over the years, Youtube has seemed oblivious to the effectiveness of
this design and instead launched into one poorly-thought out adventure
after another.
Absolutely hideous.
I've since closed my Youtube account and set Google to block returns
from this atrocious and defective website. You have lost this customer
because of your shenanigans. I hope you're happy!
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