Youtube Keeps Getting Worse

With every new release, it seems like Youtube keeps getting worse. I liked it the best about 2 years ago. Why do companies that have a good product that is working fine insist on rearranging it and making it different? One of my favorite quotes that applies here is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". This is so true because when you try to "fix it" you end up breaking it.

So with Youtube's new format, the subscriptions are all stretched out on the home page. You used to be able to see all your new videos up at the top, but now you have to scroll down to see which ones are new and mixed in with the ones you have already watched.

Also, it seems you can't customize the home page like before. Where are the top videos of the day? You have to click on the "Browse" link to see these. You can't get them on your home page. Then for some reason, they don't even show you how many views the top videos have.

And what is with all the bugs? You know like how when new popular videos come out it says they only have like 301 views. And how some subscriptions mysteriously don't end up you your feed so you miss them.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like there is any competition for Youtube anytime soon. I hope Youtube can get better without making huge changes that people don't like. Youtube is big but so was Myspace and you saw what happened with a popular site that had a bad layout and features.

All the ads and commercials aren't helping either. Really they think people are going to click on a text add while they are watching a video? The only clicks those get are accidental clicks. Get your act together Youtube.

Update 2-9-11:
Just another big annoyance to add to the list. Youtube now requires you to link your account to a Google account. So if you don't have one you have to make one. Many people like myself have a Gmail account which you can use, but this just causes problems unless you want to use one account for everything. So basically now I can't stay logged into Youtube because then it logs me into a Google account which I don't use for email. Then I go to Gmail and I have to sign out of my Youtube account. Very annoying!

Update 10-19-12:
Youtube continues to make their site worse with more changes no one asked for. The new layout is harder to read with everything bright white.

Now they are trying to mix all this other stuff like video suggestions into our subscriptions feed. I already have enough to go through with just new videos, stop trying to get me to watch a bunch of other stuff Youtube.

The flag button doesn't even describe what it does so any new user will have to flag a video just to figure out what the button does.

It will take some time to get used to the changes. I wish Youtube would give users the option of whether or not to update the layout. I bet if they gave the option to switch to a new layout or stay with a familiar layout, most users would keep the old format every time.

Stop changing things Youtube.

Update 12-4-12
So now the comment box is only 1 line tall so of you write anything over 1 line you can't even see the previous line.  One of the biggest negatives about Youtube is all the stupid pointless comments.  It's almost like they are now encouraging these types of comments and discouraging people who are able to write more than 1 sentence.  We seriously need a better alternative because Youtube is just not going in the right direction.

Update 11-8-13
In the latest huge mistake Youtube is not pretty much requiring that everyone link their account to Google+.  If you decline, they just ask you again next time you are on.  If you even want to be able to post comments on videos, you have to sign up for the Google+ account.  There has been a big uproar about this because no one wants to do this.  It's just another one of the ongoing changes that no one asked for and no one wants.

Update 1-8-14
Recently the folks over at Youtube decided to would be a good idea to remove the channel name from the videos on the subscriptions feed.  So now when you are going through your subscription videos you can't even tell who they are by.  The only way to tell now is by a little icon on the left.  If you are lucky, you will be able to tell who the video is by from the picture, if not you will have to hover over it so it brings up the information that says who the video is actually by.  Another undesirable unwanted change from Youtube.  Are we starting to see a pattern here?

Update 6-17-14
Finally they got rid of the pop up that makes you choose which account you want to use when you log in.  Unfortunately there are more unwanted changes.  They recently made the default video size much larger than before.  It's ok to offer different options but there does not seem to be an way to change it back to the normal size.  Also the video recommendations do not work very well.  For one, they show videos for the channels you are already subscribed to. Two, there does not seem to be a way to get rid of them.  I keep clicking the option to not show them any more but the same recommendations keep coming back. 

Update 7-7-14
So now when I log in, I have 2 different accounts under the same name, one that is blank, and one that has all my subscriptions and everything. For some reason it is defaulting to the blank account and there does not seem to be any easy way to get it to default to the correct account.  I did not make any changes so this is something Youtube did to make it worse as usual. 

Youtube, Stop Changing!

Why is it that Youtube feels the need to keep changing everything up once we finally learn how to use it? I liked Youtube's format way back in the day and every update seems to make it worse.

Why is it that every feature you want to use seems to be hidden behind a button? It's like you have to jump though hoops to get to features that should be right there.

Information that used to be in the sidebar is now hidden underneath the video. So this means all the millions of video that were posted before this change which referenced content in the side bar are now obsolete.

And by the way, what happened to time stamps on comments? Now you can't tell if a comment was posted 2 minutes ago or 2 months ago.

Youtube, go back to basics. Stop changing everything to make it less user friendly.

UPDATE: 7-14-11

Youtube continues to mess things up and make the site less user friendly. Now they have decided to hide the most basic buttons that everyone needs including the play and stop button. What other necessary features can you hide from us Youtube? Why not hide the actual video so we have to click on something just to display the video?