When TikTok launched in 2016, it led the social media push toward short-form content. Studies have been conducted in recent years on the impact of TikTok’s specific and — at the time — new iteration of a social media algorithm. The impact of the app on the attention spans of its users has become so intense that it was given a special name: TikTok brain. 

The impact on other social media companies has been just as profound. YouTube launched YouTube Shorts just about three years ago in an effort to stake its flag in the short-form content arena. Instagram launched its own answer to TikTok — Instagram Reels — at around the same time. 

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And YouTube’s push into short-form content appears to be paying off; as of its most recent earnings report, Google said that two billion users watch short clips every month, just about double TikTok’s one billion monthly users. 

But some senior YouTube staffers, according to a recent report by the Financial Times, aren’t looking at those numbers as a win. These insiders are concerned that YouTube Shorts’ popularity is cannibalizing the platform’s core business: long-form content. 

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As Shorts grows more popular, the insiders said, the advertising question becomes more difficult; a short clip provides far fewer opportunities for advertising than longer videos, contributing to the ad-revenue slide YouTube reported for three consecutive quarters, ending with the second quarter of 2023.

And with audiences focusing in on the short side of YouTube, creators, the FT’s sources said, are making fewer long-form videos, the beginning of a vicious cycle that could gradually chip away at the business model that made YouTube … YouTube. 

Still, for the first time in several quarters, YouTube’s ad revenue increased 4% from the prior year to $7.7 billion in its most recent quarter, making up 13% of Google’s total ad revenues. 

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