Google did not just switch emphasis to shorts to compete with tiktok but also for reasons of space. Prior to the switch access to modern camera technology was beginning to allow very large numbers of users to upload ten minutes of 2160p content that was around 5GB a time. This was clearly a storage problem and Google had to shift those people toward choosing to make much smaller uploads.
Google did not just switch emphasis to shorts to compete with tiktok but also for reasons of space. Prior to the switch access to modern camera technology was beginning to allow very large numbers of users to upload ten minutes of 2160p content that was around 5GB a time. This was clearly a storage problem and Google had to shift those people toward choosing to make much smaller uploads.
Honestly I doubt this. Google wants the mountains of data for AI training