I made a post about this a while back. The change is crap and some of them don't even make sense. It seems like they are changing for the sake of changing, or they are trying to fix things that ain't broke. I like the option of change, but I don't like being forced to change.
Firstly, the homepage. Why did they replace the recommend videos with recommend channels? This makes no sense. People don't go to youtube to randomly subscribe to channels, they come to watch videos. With a side bar consisting of videos, people can more easily find videos that they will find interesting, and will also be introduced to even more channels. It accomplishes the job and offers more. By changing it to channels they are reducing the ability of viewers to discover new videos of interest whenever they access the homepage, but instead present to the viewers recycled channels that they've seen for a million times and have no interest in subscribing. I mean you have a "browse channels option" in the very same page, you don't need a "recommend channel option" as well. It is a stupid idea.
The other thing is the side bar on the left. The one with playlist, subscriptions and so forth. This seems to make things more cluttered then it needs to be. Appearance wise, it is horrible, but I do understand the functions. I want the option to minimize this bar. The function where you click on your username and down appears all these different options is perfectly fine. They should have just stuck to that function in the older design rather then to unnecessarily separate all these options.
And another comment on the appearance of the homepage. That activity stream thing is a mess. The text size is tiny and the they are placed everywhere. And what is with those tiny avatars? It makes it seem so disorganized. I think this is the result of the left side bar which just makes things more cluttered. I remember that with the old design the homepage was actually useful. Now it is just a clump of garbage that I immediately skip to head to my subscription box.
Secondly, the suggestions side bar when you are watching videos. This thing fucking annoys me. Rather then showing me new content, it suggests to me videos that I have already watched and it only suggests videos from the channel of the current video being watched. Anyone with a brain would know that if you want to find videos of that channel you can fucking click on that channel! Not only does this prevent viewers from finding new videos of interest, it prevents smaller channels from growing or being discovered. This means that large channels continue to prosper while smaller whens end up facing extinction. I've heard some youtube partners say that they are losing viewers due to the change.
Thirdly, the show more option in the comments section. FUCK!!! WHY?!?!? Why would you choose a show more option instead of a page selection option. They are trying so hard to copy facebook, and it doesn't translate well. The "show more option" only makes it more difficult and slow to navigate through the comments section (if you are interested in those kind of things). And instead of having the ability to transfer directly to the last page, you either have to rapid fire at the show more button or interrupt your video by going to the "show all comments" and scroll down. Another thing is the avatars in the comment section. I reiterate, this isn't facebook! I don't care what these randoms choose to symbolize them. It takes up space and reduces the number of comments in the comment section.
Fourthly, the favourite playlist. Instead of having a search function (like in the previous if memory serves correctly), they transformed favourited videos into a playlist. So instead of being able to find a long forgotten video in the past by entering a possible key word in a search bar, you would have to scroll the fuck down to find that long lost video.
In conclusion, Youtube has made unnecessary and illogical changes that makes navigation harder and the discovery of new videos even more difficult. The once simplistic appearance has now degraded into an overcrowded garbage dump. As punishment the designers should shove their eyes up their own arses or at the very least not force change on people.