The people in youtube shorts are too attractive for me to enjoy. I like my performers to have a little bit of grit - too hot and I get either envious or jealous.
I’m with you. I resisted YouTube Shorts at first, but I quite like them now. And as you said, the long form videos are still there right alongside the shorts.
One criticism I have of them, though, is on the web they’re mixed in like regular videos on your subscriptions page. On mobile they’re sort of grouped together in a separate UI element, which makes it much easier to scroll through your subscriptions. Maybe this is one of the reasons people hate shorts so much?
It sucks being spammed with things you'll never watch, and for me at least YouTube now three such boxes take up space: shorts, "mixes", and music videos.
They used to have an option to remove these items. Now the option is gone.