YouTube is currently testing a new feature on mobile devices that will likely have few fans among users. The company is reusing the vertical scroll gestures in full screen mode to switch to the next or previous video, similar to Shorts, as noted by the user Tushar Mehta on X.
Currently, in the mobile app, you can swipe up on a video to view it full screen and then swipe down to exit full screen. If you scroll up in full screen mode, you’ll get a list of suggested videos.
The YouTube product team is fucking the gestures in the Android app one after another.
Who the fuck wants to scroll through a long video? It was more useful to minimize/maximize videos.
As if fucking the in-app PiP wasn’t satisfying enough for whoever gets rid of it. pic.twitter.com/1jY0XFbiMW
— Tushar Mehta (@thetymonbay) November 11, 2024
With this new change, swiping up in full screen will send you to a new suggested video, similar to how it works in YouTube Shorts or other services like TikTok or Instagram. If you swipe down, the player will take you back to the previous video instead of leaving full screen mode. You have to go all the way back to the first video to exit full screen with a swipe down or by clicking the button in the corner.
This change, which is apparently only in testing at the moment as we can’t replicate it on any of our devices, is another push to get users to spend even more time in the app, mindlessly switching from one video to to swipe the next and collect views. While this may be acceptable for Shorts, it seems out of place for standard full-form videos that you normally open with the intention of just watching them rather than just scrolling through randomly suggested videos.
The change will also break muscle memory for users who may have gotten used to simply swiping down to exit completely and will now be confused with simply switching back and forth between videos they never intended to watch .
Of course, the whole point of these kinds of limited test runs is to gauge user feedback, and if enough people react negatively to it, the feature could be scrapped. Or maybe it will be implemented anyway, because nowadays who cares what users want?