💡

[RealKelpTheGreat]

⚬ PROBLEM:
As far back as a couple months ago, according to a post I saw on reddit complaining about the issue, YT has started gradually rolling out a slight change to the information presented on video thumbnail information. They've removed text, replacing it with an icon, put the icon in the wrong place, removed the stylish interpunct divider, and shortened the upload time information. This is how it should look. Ignore the arrows on the left side of the screen (this isn't my screenshot) and look at the thumbnail previews of videos on the right side. Below the channel name, it should say: "XY views · Z D ago", where:
X is the number of views,
Y is the letter abbreviation for amount (K, M, B, or no letter at all for views under one thousand),
Z is the number of D ago, and
D is either minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years ago.
So for example, a given video would say "181 views · 23 minutes ago", or "8.7k views · 5 hours ago" or "95m views · 6 years ago". And so on.
This little dot · is an interpunct and it's a nice little divider between the number of views and the upload date.

What does YT have currently?
"► 149k 7mo ago"
It looks HORRIBLE. IMO, it's less clear, less sleek, and harder to parse at a glance. They even unnecessarily removed the interpunct so the two numbers are basically right next to each other.

⚬ SOLUTION:
Write some code that reverts these dumb changes and add it to the extension.

⚬ ALTERNATIVES:
Put someone intelligent in charge at Google, I guess? Someone who won't change UI elements and make them (subjectively) worse?

⚬ RELEVANCE / SCOPE:
I honestly can't imagine anyone preferring the current format. It technically does convey the same amount of information in less space, but... well, I put a "but" there to be my own devil's advocate on this issue, but I hate this change so much I don't want to think of any good points it might have.

⚬ "SIDE EFFECTS":
It shouldn't conflict with anything else.

SHORT Table	(Summary)
Problem	YouTube has replaced and shortened some text info on video thumbnails with a triangular "play" icon and removed the dot divider
Solution	Write some code that reverts this change (so instead of "► 42k 7mo ago" it'll once again say "42k views · 7 months ago")
Scope	A completely made-up estimate is that 90% of extension users would use this
Side effects	None

[improvedtube-backup]

hi and thank you! @karthikeyansundaram2

don't want to think of [...]

1. Next to taste, the urge to keeping low-relevance brain-paths consistent,
   may be reasonable to reserve our daily neuroplastic capacity for something helpful.

Of course something small can be nice enough even for a single user, depending usage and ease of implementation, let alone for
millions of people and the world, only multiplying the relevance. Consequently this could even have many options, if only a user's investment of reading the list of options will pay off soon enough.

At the same time volunteering may be scarce and structurally wasted through enterprise APIs being withdrawn or limited,
and crowd-sourcing not being started:
Many uBlock origin rules stay private / personal unnecessarily - So that may be the initiative we start first. Who is in?

[...] any good points it might have

2. Of course the fewest characters increase efficiency. What would we provide to the next generation not yet used to anything?

[improvedtube-backup]

The Metrics

The Metrics could often either be summed up as

1. Novelty of characteristic duration

📈 (1M : 1mo (=Ø32900/d))
📉 (3M : 1y (=Ø8225/d))

or

2. Long-term / (near-)continuous

Ø 5000/d · 20y (=36.5M)

Often we could also quickly define what kind we look for in a search or activity, entertainment or study goals.

In a life, items from the first type may be more of a point in time 📌 rather than a span a duration
(and now addictive entertainment engines are sued https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K.G.M._v._Meta_et_al. )

3. I'm missing a tiny chart (information) on YouTube, especially when the pattern is not (near-)typical

[improvedtube-backup]

( 1. 2. may be semantically (and visually) condensed further, next to beautified and styled to taste.)
And Another Option we have had is hiding the metric to try a more "radical" change.