DelayTube

edit: this turned out to be useless for me.

I’ve made a quick, small open-source extension for Chromium browsers; It tries to solve one mildly overwhelming aspect of YouTube (web): search results and recommendations.

I often find myself clicking on videos one after another, watching a few minutes of one before getting distracted by something more appealing in the sidebar recommendations. This leaves me confused: Should I click on this more attractive video, or should I finish what I’m currently watching? This extension addresses that issue by intercepting my click on a video and adding it to my watch later playlist by default, rather than playing it immediately.

The extension is straightforward in its function: it changes the default click action by intercepting your click on a video and reduces friction when adding videos to your watch later playlist.

Installation

• Get the extension from the chrome web store
• Source code: GitHub

Note the careful design choices made by YouTube. They have deliberately made it harder to add a video to the “Watch Later” list. With their powerful algorithm and attention engineering, it is difficult to avoid acting impulsively. My extension flips the exposure and affordance ratios using simple JavaScript tweaks.

You can also add relaxation periods in the extension options. For example, you might want to allow yourself to deliberately fall into rabbit holes on Sunday evenings – because sometimes, the answer isn’t don’t get distracted—it’s get distracted on your own terms. ¹