YouTube will change forever thanks to a feature you’ll hate

YouTube could implement a feature that would forever change the way we interact with video playback. The company is experimenting with a feature that turns an Android app into a copy of TikTok with stacked videos. The worst thing about this feature is that the player gestures do not work, which keeps users inside the app.

According to a report from Android authorityYouTube is testing a new option with a select group of users. While the platform often experiments with some features before releasing them to the public, most of them are aimed at improving the user experience. The latest one is far from this philosophy, as it borrows one of TikTok’s most common (and at the same time hated) features.

trial version YouTube for Android has integrated a vertical carousel for long videos. Users can navigate between them by swiping up or down, similar to how we do it in Shorts, Instagram Reels or TikTok videos. This implementation completely changes the way full-screen gestures work, allowing the user to remain captive for longer.

“The YouTube development team is messing up gestures in the Android app one by one,” said Tushar Mehta, who shared a video of the feature working on his X account.

In the face of criticism YouTube replied that this is a small test. “We’re running an experiment with a small group of Android users that allows them to swipe up to discover more videos when viewing in portrait or landscape mode in full screen,” a company spokesperson said. Edge.

YouTube remains at the center of controversy over its decisions

YouTube’s new feature adds to the list of problems facing the video platform. A few days ago, some users reported that Premium service showed advertisements in the applicationweb application and TV application. The worst part is that the engineers had no idea about the cause of this failure, so subscribers had to contact technical support and be patient.

Unlike advertising, Long video carousel is a feature that can be left in development.. Experimentation is common on YouTube, and if a feature causes more problems than it’s worth, it will likely never make it to the final version of the app.

The interesting point about this report is that although evidence of the carousel appeared a couple of days ago, The tests were supposed to begin several months ago.. A post about this experiment was published on the YouTube support site in August.

“To help viewers better discover content across all YouTube channels, formats and lengths, we’re running some small experiments on the watch page and with short videos. […] These new discovery opportunities may include a mix of video formats, including full-length videos where you typically see short videos (such as the Shorts channel), or new long-form video channels.”

The news comes at a worse time for YouTube, which a few days ago increased its Premium plan prices in Spain by up to 44%.