I continue to experiment with the new #YouTube user interface for TVs, which I'm informed is -- for now -- "a test". It's quite the inconsistent train wreck. Outside of now burying the ability to visit a creator's channels in an utterly non-intuitive location deep in the UI, direct seeking behavior -- that is, jumping directly to a point on a video timeline with suitable touchpad or the like -- is utterly inconsistent -- along with the other anti-user, anti-creator changes I've previously mentioned.

The direct seek situation is simply bizarre. The new white timeline will go partially back to traditional red in some situations (especially already viewed content), but whether or not you can actually point and click to seek is chaotic. Most -- but not quite all -- of the featured YouTube Movies and TV shows now appear to block direct seeking, which is extremely anti-user. Some (small?) subset of films will still direct seek for now.

But even worse, I now see this same behavior on completely random videos from ordinary channels -- not just "official" YouTube movie/TV channels. Some will direct seek. Some won't. It's difficult to find the patterns, suggesting that to some extent at least the UI is actually broken at this point and should never have been foisted on users -- many of whom PAY quite a sum these days for YouTube Premium to avoid ad breaks.

This is no way to treat your YouTube viewers #Google, particularly your paying ones.