# What's The Motivation For YouTubers To Produce Shorts **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 14, 2023, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217 "2023-01-14T16:45:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/1 "2023-01-14T16:45:54Z")
I understand why YouTube is pushing for this kind of content – more ads with less minutes devoted to content. Profit! But what is the benefit to the YouTubers themselves? Of the hundred or so I subscribe to, about half steadfastly refuse to do it, about a quarter produce a short every few days, and about a quarter do multiple per day. Does doing these shorts increase your Adsenese revenue? Has YouTube sent out emails that say “You have a great channel; it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it”? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/2 "2023-01-14T18:04:46Z")
I think Youtube uses thr existance of ‘shorts’ to push your site up the rankings. I’ve seen more than one content creator complain that Youtube really pushes them hard to make shorts. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/3 "2023-01-14T18:14:52Z")
Yeah, views on shorts boost your channel rankings in various ways, resulting in more people seeing your videos recommended. That’s pretty much how YouTube incentivizes anything they want you to do: they recommend your videos to more people if you play along. Shorts are set up to be easily consumed. The shorts player doesn’t have you choose what to watch. You instead choose whether to skip to the next short or not. And their brief nature means you’re more likely to sit through the whole thing. Combine that with just how hard YouTube pushes shorts, and you get a lot more views on shorts than you do on regular videos. And more views means more recommendations, which means more viewers, which ultimately means more revenue. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/4 "2023-01-14T18:59:43Z")
Isn’t this a response to the growth of TikTok, which is all about short-form videos? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/5 "2023-01-14T22:04:57Z")
Tik Tok and Instagram. yeah. But chasing every competitor can weaken your brand. Forcing content creators to follow your marketing pushes risks chasing away content providers. Youtube is another service ripe for disruption Content providers complain about Youtube’s algorithms and practices constantly. Youtube burns out content providers because if you don’t produce constantly you get driven down the rankings because of the algorithm’s recency bias. This also hurts people trying to make fewer but higher quality videos. Youtube also demonetizes videos and even entire channels almost capriciously sometimes. People doing music reviews can get demonetized if they play music clips of certain bands, even if they are well within fair use guidelines. Some channels have been forced to change their format because Youtube decided rhey had too many videos of a type they didn’t like. And now you have to make tik-tok short videos just to keep your main channel going. Lots of content providers talk a lot about wishing for a better alternative, and most are trying to supplement or move away from youtube’s monetization by going to Patreon donations or something similar because they don’t trust Youtube’s monetization practices. That weakens Youtube’s lock-in and makes it easier for them to leave. Finally, you can’t get monetized at all until you have proven yourself by gaining enough views and followers from previous material, which you have to create for free. A one-off great video cannot be monetized as I understand it. Only consistent production of regular new content will get you to monetization. We need a video service that simply pays everyone for their share of revenue if their content helped generate it. No crazy rules and hoops to jump through, transparent rules for monetization, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/6 "2023-01-14T22:30:53Z")
How short are shorts? My grandson produces an occasional jazz band presentation of about 5 minutes in length in which he plays all five or six parts (recorded separately). I think he is trying to create exposure. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/7 "2023-01-14T22:39:05Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > How short are shorts? My grandson produces an occasional jazz band presentation of about 5 minutes in length I get the impression that “shorts” are typically less than a minute. 5 minutes could be a “regular” YouTube video. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/8 "2023-01-14T22:41:47Z")
Actually, I’d say short videos would be less than ten minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/9 "2023-01-14T22:44:13Z")
My previous answer was off the top of my head, but you inspired me to look it up, and all the cites I found agree that YouTube shorts have a maximum length of 60 seconds. Here are a couple of cites: > **[How Long Can YouTube Shorts Be? A To Z Beginner's Guide - Animaker](https://www.animaker.com/hub/how-long-can-youtube-shorts-be/)** > > People barely find time for lengthy videos now. That is when YouTube came up with the idea of Shorts. So here, know how long can YouTube Shorts be. > **[How long can YouTube shorts be?](https://www.debugbar.com/how-long-are-youtube-shorts/)** > > YouTube shorts can be 15 to 60 seconds long. This short form is exactly the same as tiktok or instagram videos and allows the users to switch from a video to another. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/10 "2023-01-14T22:56:51Z")
It’s a minute maximum, and must be in portrait mode (for easy swiping on a phone). Most musicians I know have to split up or take excerpts from their content and put them in their shorts, while saying you can go listen to the full video elsewhere. Also, they always post the shorts on TikTok as well. In fact, most shorts I see were made for TikTok first, sometimes utilizing some of that site’s features (e.g. their text-to-voice function). ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/11 "2023-01-15T12:51:15Z")
I really _really_ dislike how Youtube has gone out of its way to present these shorts in tiktok-like format, making it almost impossible to view these shorts as regular videos using the regular viewer tools. I found a workaround that mostly worked okay at first: Add all shorts I wanted to watch to a playlist, and then watch via that, but then Youtube took away most of the options for adding shorts to playlists. I’m about to just ditch watching them entirely, and unsubscribe from channels that have switched to almost exclusively shorts. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2023, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-motivation-for-youtubers-to-produce-shorts/978217/12 "2023-01-15T18:26:14Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > But what is the benefit to the YouTubers themselves? Money. Most Youtubers are on all social media platforms, so they’re producing short-form content for Tik-Tok already; they’re often just re-posting it to Youtube (often without even removing the Tiktok watermark) and getting paid again. From what I’ve seen, Youtube pays better than Tiktok for shorts, but Youtube Shorts don’t get as many views (yet).