I mean... I'm against short-form videos. I'm not against YT shorts, because they (mostly) aren't short-form videos. They're just vertical videos that trick people used to short-form videos into thinking they'll be getting short-form videos, but (mostly) give them long-form videos. (Or... medium form? What do you call a two-to-three-minute-long video that thoroughly answers one very specific question?)

Especially the creators who've "previously made long form but have switched to shorts" — they're not making short-form videos. They're just making long/medium-form videos in portrait now.

IMHO, if something markets itself as a problematic thing, but doesn't actually deliver on the problematic part, then it isn't problematic. (E.g. convincing kids that frozen peas are "pea candy" isn't problematic. You're not making them like "candy." You're making them like peas!)

I hear what you're saying, but YT shorts are literally short-form videos. I guess if your scale of short/long all fits within 3 minutes, then a 2 min video could be considered "long", but we're talking about 3 mins or less vs much longer.

Kudos to your training of the algorithm if scrolling shorts gives you nothing but interesting informational bits, but you're still supporting the short-form format, which leads to more short-form videos. Like you said, YT is pushing and creators are incentivized, so our clicks make the graphs go up and accelerate our march into ADHD doom scrolling dystopia.