Isit just me or are youtube videos getting longer?

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Right now on my recommendation page there are videos ranging from 40 minutes to 3+hours, a good majority of them are an hour long.

I feel like videos have been getting longer since 2020 but I'm not sure if it's just me.

I don't know. I wouldn't normally watch a Youtube video that long.

If I watch a video that long, it's usually on my television which doesn't have Youtube.

nope...its not like that for me

I've noticed that some YouTube videos are getting longer. There are some videos that are also a waste of time because all the creator does throughout the video is small talk and they never get to the topic.

alot of it is to make time for live reads which is very annoying, even 10 minute video ends being just 5 minutes because the content creator has shout our their sponsor

Maybe it's just that everyone's attention span is getting shorter.

There are video game longplays that are 13 hours long.

I saw a 16 hour Miitopia video

I've heard the Youtube algorithm favors longer form content. If you can get someone to watch ten minutes rather than two minutes, your videos get recommended more.

The length doesn't bother me, but the "Are you still watching?" prompt does get super annoying.

I preferred Youtube when it was less commercial/corporate and there was more unique and inspiring content by users on there.

Now content seems to be more about monetizing a video more than anything else.

I think it may be person dependent. The recommendations are based on your account, and topics and channels you've watched in the past, or what other people who have watched similar recordings have watched.
NOTE: That is a really crude guess on my part. I do not know the algorithm they use.

I was curious about mine. In a spreadsheet, I typed the run times for the recommended recordings. I did not document all of them, only the first 58 recordings. I also did not document the Live stream/marathons (I'm looking at you MST3K channel). So I have 58 run times running down the left side.

Across the top, I keyed in 00:01:00, 00:10:00, 00:20:00, 00:30:00, 00:40:00, 00:50:00, 01:00:00, 02:00:00, 04:00:00.

Then I created a formulas that counted the number of times that were less than 1 minute, between 1 minute and ten minutes, between ten minutes and 20 minutes, etc, and then those longer then 4 hours.

The results are -
less than 00:01:00: 1
00:01:00 - 00:10:00: 19
00:10:00 - 00:20:00: 17
00:20:00 - 00:30:00: 8
00:30:00 - 00:40:00: 4
00:40:00 - 00:50:00: 2
00:50:00 - 01:00:00: 3
01:00:00 - 02:00:00: 2
02:00:00 - 04:00:00: 1
greater than 04:00:00: 1

The longer ones are either documentaries, Formula One races, or "mini" marathons.
Having done all of that, as lazy as it was because I didn't list ALL times, YouTube videos have gotten longer.
Like blitzkrieg said, it's about making money from the videos. I don't see anything wrong with that. Some people are just really, really lazy.

Here is a tip, and it is possible someone else as posted this elsewhere on Wrong Planet.
If you see a video, or a channel you are not interested it, place your mouse cursor over the title.
To its right will appear three dots.
Left-Click the dots to bring up a menu.
The last three options on this menu are -

Not Interested
Don't recommend channel
Report

I've started using this to block channels I find annoying that have sensational title claims and sensational graphics. I generally give them a fair chance, but if they don't deliver the promised content, they are exiled from my recommendations.