Hey tom_, usually they say that explaining a joke makes it worse, but I think you crafted the rare exception!

I did in fact intend to share NewPipe as an antidote to the "en-short-ification" of YouTube after reading a couple of threads earlier today from other Hackers complaining exactly about that. And yes, calling it "vertical video" is a sloppy way of expressing that.

I too will try to do better in the future.