YouTube’s new video resolution menu on mobile is an abomination

I don’t know how this monstrosity was birthed, but YouTube’s new video resolution selector on mobile has got to go.

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, YouTube now has a revamped menu that pops up when you tap the quality button that eschews the standard resolution options of 480p, 720p, 1080p, and so on, for ‘friendlier’ phrasing:

Was this user feedback? Newfangled UX thinking? All I know is it must’ve been unhinged. This isn’t a user experience crime in itself. Perhaps maybe we don’t really need to see what resolution we choose, and it’s best left to the app to decide.

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But here’s the thing: this menu is in the settings for a video that’s currently playing. If I’m popping in here, it’s likely to switch up the video resolution right away, and that point I can probably be trusted to select a resolution on my own.

Plus, if you select ‘Auto’ or ‘Higher,’ it can take a while for YouTube to switch to the best quality stream your connection will support. I frequently watched some 30 seconds of blocky video on a 100Mbps Wi-Fi connection at home like a chump before things cleared up. I imagine this could get sorted out over time, but it’s grating when you have to deal with this every time you fire up a video.

No, it’s not a huge deal. Yes, it might work well for some people. It’s just that this update introduces an annoyance where there was none, and it’s one of those things that a section of users won’t see the benefit of ever. You’re allowed to rant about that sorta thing.