the amount of slop saying "wait till the end" is too damn high

Nah, if you have to tell people to wait until the end, it's because there's nothing in that first 55 seconds worth seeing.

There's good short-form content out there, and none of it begs you not to swipe away

It's more so that the uploader gets the most watch time and engagement and therefore the biggest paycheck per video.

BTW, down voting is seen as engagement and prioritized just the same as up voting. Doesn't matter which button you're pushing as long as it's on the platform.

Every time I've seen people use this the thing that happens at the end should've been the entire video and/or wasn't even funny/worth watching.