Youtube's new UI is user abuse

Youtube pretty much has a monopoly on its kind of product. You can't really compete with them by having better functions, fewer ads or a nicer user interface, because the amount of videos and music they've have accumulated over 20 years, combined with Google's powerful datacenters that can stream video extremely fast and reliably (considering how many use the site every minute!) automatically makes the site superior for its purpose (= leveraging all the world's entertainment and information fast and reliably - my words, not Youtube's).

With this monopoly position, Youtube can now freely and easily be how bad they want at everything else besides the reliable video streaming and the large library of content without losing anything, because we need them and won't stop using the site regardless. For example the UI: Buttons and list items so big that they barely all fit in the video window on smaller screens, unnecessary circles and spacing around everything, and rounded corners that remove actual content from the video (last I checked, videos are naturally rectangular and not rectangular with CSS roundings at the corners...). With their position and status, making a UI like this is some kind of abuse of their users.

If you dislike a website or service I'd usually recommend using another alternative, or create your own alternative. Not only because it's a better path towards solving the problem than complaining about it is, but also because I think you shouldn't support things you don't like (for example, if you dislike ads you shouldn't use an adblocker to get around ads, you should go to other sites that don't support the ad business model and support them instead). But some sites and services are so big that they've reached a monopoly status where you can't easily compete with them, and Youtube is one of these, so here I see no better method than trying to make Youtube more usable, since abandoning the site isn't a realistic reaction.

That's why I've created a simple filter for the adblocker plugin "uBlock Origin" which hopefully makes the UI a bit more functional again. It's far from perfect and I have no idea how long it will work, but it's at least something: It makes the buttons a bit smaller, removes the unnecessary rounding around the videos, and also removes Youtube shorts at some places as a bonus to reduce your distractions. It only works if you have this specific adblocker, because it's the one I use. Here it is, you should hopefully be able to copy and paste this in "My filters" in the uBlock Origin dashboard:

youtube.com##body:style(border-radius: 0 !important)

youtube.com##[class^="ytp-heat-map-container"]:style(visibility: hidden !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-heat-map-container"]:style(height: 0px !important)

!buttons in video player
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-chrome-bottom"]:style(transform: scaleY(0.7) !important)

youtube.com##[class^="ytp-chrome-controls"]:style(transform: translateY(20%) !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-progress-bar-container"]:style(transform: translateY(250%) !important)

youtube.com##[class^="ytp-left-controls"]:style(transform: translateX(-1%) !important)

youtube.com##[class^="ytp-play-button"]:style(background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0) !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-play-button"]:style(transform: scaleX(0.85))
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-prev-button"]:style(visibility: hidden !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-prev-button"]:style(width: 0px !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-next-button"]:style(visibility: hidden !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-next-button"]:style(width: 0px !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-volume-area"]:style(background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0) !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-volume-area"]:style(transform: scaleX(0.85))
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-time-wrapper"]:style(background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0) !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-time-wrapper"]:style(transform: scaleX(0.85))

youtube.com##[class^="ytp-right-controls"]:style(transform: scaleX(0.7))
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-right-controls"]:style(background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0) !important)
youtube.com##[class^="ytp-right-controls"]:style(transform: translateX(2%) !important)

youtube.com##ytd-player:style(border-radius: 0 !important)

!hide shorts in search results
youtube.com##grid-shelf-view-model:style(visibility: hidden !important)
youtube.com##grid-shelf-view-model:style(height: 0px !important)

!hide shorts in related section
youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer:style(visibility: hidden !important)
youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer:style(height: 0px !important)

youtube.com##yt-thumbnail-view-model:style(border-radius: 0 !important)

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