# YouTube has gone downhill? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 10, 2026, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167 "2026-04-10T13:33:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![YouTube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ec8ea/32.png) [@YouTube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YouTube)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2026, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/1 "2026-04-10T13:33:40Z")
I just joined this, and this username was available LOL. Guess I willl talk about this then. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/2 "2026-04-10T13:36:07Z")
You may have gone downhill, but you found us, so there’s nowhere to go but up. Welcome! 💐 🎇 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2026, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/3 "2026-04-10T13:38:07Z")
Presumably at some point YouTube _also_ went uphill. Or they are posting from the bottom of a mine shaft, either one. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2026, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/4 "2026-04-10T13:57:27Z")
So what has gone downhill: The video hosting service or you the poster? My magic 8-ball says “Situation unclear”. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2026, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/5 "2026-04-10T14:55:13Z")
Since you spelled your name the same as the “service” – initial caps, no space – I am tempted to treat you as if you are them, and start berating you in a thread called “All the things that are wrong with YouTube.” We sort of have one already, focused on ad blockers, but I’m sure there would be no lack of other kinds of complaints. ---
**Author:** ![YouTube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ec8ea/32.png) [@YouTube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YouTube)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/6 "2026-04-16T10:50:13Z")
I 100% support this, I can count at least a dozen ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/7 "2026-04-16T11:36:52Z")
I hope Amazon and Facebook are no longer available. And Twitter. And that X is too short. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/8 "2026-04-16T12:05:18Z")
Amazon was taken by a poster who played here for a couple weeks back in 2002: **[Summary - Amazon - Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amazon/summary)**. FaceBook is available although there are 4 posters named facebook[something]: facebookbusiness, facebookpokerchipss with two “s”, facebookRuccilboccalk, and facebook\_mobile. Three have never posted and one was a one-timer from 2015. Twitter (twitter actually) is taken by a poster who joined in 2003 and never posted. Poster twittermarketing did the same thing in 2011. The minimum length for usernames is 3. So X is illegal. But XXX is not and is available if anyone wants to let their inner pornstar flag fly. ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/9 "2026-04-16T12:14:55Z")
YT’s ad quantity and “forcefulness,” such as dropping a “curtain” over the comments while I’m reading them, but they think an irrelevant ad is more important than my user experience, represents a whole new level of irritation by YT. Prominent YouTubers often are seen apologizing for stepping off the treadmill that YT apparently insists upon, making YT not a pleasant place to “work” but rather a sweatshop. Many such YouTubers leave the platform or tone down the rate of their ad production after burning out. Examples: Kevin (“hello, my name is Kevin”) and Tom Scott (modern-day James Burke?!). Abusing both users and producers are the two major signposts of Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” Linky: [Enshittification - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) I’m so used to YT abusing the audience that I was honestly surprised when I did not see any ads interrupting the live coverage of Artemis II re-entry the other day. So…they do still have _some_ standards and are not yet 100% enshittified, but closer than ever before. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/10 "2026-04-16T12:33:33Z")
There was some good news recently: > **[YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts](https://www.theverge.com/streaming/912898/youtube-shorts-feed-limit-zero-minutes)** > > Limit your Shorts scrolling to zero minutes per day. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/11 "2026-04-16T14:48:40Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Twitter (twitter actually) is taken by a poster who joined in 2003 and never posted. I’m always fascinated by these people. What was so important to say that you signed up, and then said…what? “Naw, it’s not that important.”. And the forgot about it forever. I guess that’s why there are commercials to help you close out old subscription accounts you forgot about. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-has-gone-downhill/1029167/12 "2026-04-16T14:52:56Z")
I suspect it’s a kind of cybersquatting. Or they’re standby identities for spammers or socks. The record of which got lost by the creator awhile ago. They are almost certainly not an account created by an innocent citizen wanting to read or participate productively.