YouTube is a vital tool for news and information

YouTube is a "vital" tool for uneducated opinions and mis-information FTFY

I agree with everything you said, to some degree. I'm just saying that shorts on my account are great, because I've honed my algorithm over many years so that it only gives me relevant stuff. I never see anything I don't want to see, basically. My Watch Later list overfloweth. 😅

idk with the old shorts this was more true, but now if it's like a quick tips thing or just a preview of a longer video, so long as you're not scrolling shorts and only scarcely engage with the more informative ones, they seem to have a place. Youtube pushes them to be infinitely scrolled clickbait garbage though so that's probably the experience for 95% of people.

the fact that no useful information can fit in that short a video.

Have to disagree with the notion that this is a fact. I watch informative and interesting shorts all the time. Plenty out there if you have the right subscriptions and are careful with how you use the service.

E.g. you must never scroll shorts. Watch the ones you want to see, then back out, so you never see anything that pollutes your account history.

If you see something you don't like, put a negative vote on it, maybe even click "don't see this account again" or whatever it's called. And vice versa, upvote and subscribe to stuff you like.

It requires some effort but for me it's worth the interesting content.