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Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

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Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#121

Post by Smithalicious »

Is this a question you can expect a good anecdotal answer for? In my experience YouTube still has more high quality content than I can consume, but there's so much content on YouTube that I can only be aware of a small fraction of it, so I can't say anything about the whole.

The feel is definitely different, though. You can clearly see the effects of monetization, both in the amount of YouTubers who are "just working a job" and in the production values. Everything has gotten more consistent, more streamlined. Videos are longer and have more of a coherent throughline. But about the content itself I cannot say much, other than that me and my peer group are still managing to find enough interesting stuff to satisfy our appetite.

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#123

Post by incomingpain »

omega3 wrote: post #11

Especially since the removal of downvoting it's hard to get to good quality material. Majority of tech videos are a case of blind leading the blind and unless you know the subject already it's hard to spot. Nowadays I start with a forum/reddit/discord/hn search for a list of hive approved creators and only then go to youtube with that list in hand. Starting the search in youtube (unless for a very niche/non-marketabl…

>Especially since the removal of downvoting it's hard to get to good quality material.

This is it isnt it. When they removed downvoting I figured it didnt matter, but really youtube really got past its peak because of this.

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#124

Post by ephaeton »

Firstly, I don't know about "peaked". But I do know about "useful" (for me, as creator).

As someone who uploads music (videos) of my own creation, youtube (still) works fine to connect with an audience that I would have no chance of reaching otherwise.

I'm far from being flagged to monetize, so I don't have any incentive to put out something that I do for the money and not because I want to put it up.

As a niche musician (didgeridoo), I'm glad that I have access to a global community and a non-zero chance of someone searching for e.g. 'didgeridoo music' finding me.

Shorts may annoy people but I see it as an interesting challenge to make great 60s didgeridoo solos. Maybe my view will change if I'm ever sniffing the chance of being monetarily successful on this platform but until then, I'm doing whatever the hell I want and it's great.

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#125

Post by sofixa »

wccrawford wrote: post #78
Youden wrote: post #68

I think YouTube is like Reddit: it is what you make of it. If you only ever look at the front page of Reddit, you're going to be fed memes and outrage. If you go and subscribe to a few small, focused subreddits, you're going to see things that are relevant to you. Same with YouTube. If you watch a lot of junk content, that's what it's going to feed you in recommendations. If you focus on some specific segment of cont…

I think the OP's point is that people like Colin Furze used to film themselves and just put out content, but now they court sponsors and have a production team. All of the people you mentioned have a production team, I think. I've got some channels I watch that don't have production crews (I think) like "Under Dunn" and I enjoy them every bit as much as the big ones you named, if not more... But there's no doubt that…

> I think the OP's point is that people like Colin Furze used to film themselves and just put out content, but now they court sponsors and have a production team. All of the people you mentioned have a production team, I think.

Why is that a problem? People don't like it when the audio and video quality are good ? Or they don't like it when content producers focus entirely on content creating instead of moonlighting (with the necessary associations with sponsors and what not). I don't mind either, and having seen a few channels "grow" into a more professional outfit, i vastly prefer the new, more qualitative version, even if it wastes me a few seconds for monetisation.

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#126

Post by fdsafdsfdsa »

I have worked very hard to stop my addiction to Youtube. I watched a lot of "lifestyle instructional" videos (ToT, Ave, Fireball Tools, LPL, Tom Lipton, Matt's Recovery, etc), but after you've had your "inspiration moment" with these, you're not learning much and are essentially spending your life watching someone else's.

That brings me on to my second point - video is a HORRIBLE format for most forms of instruction (for me). Practically every time I decide to try watching one to learn something, it could easily have been communicated in text form. Coding is a great example - I really hate having to skip through a 10-minute video that boils down to a single screen's worth of basic code.

Saying that, I've saved myself a bunch of money watching youtubers who very generously give away their time and experience for free to show me how to disassemble and re-assemble electronics and cars.

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#127

Post by whinvik »

omega3 wrote: post #11

Especially since the removal of downvoting it's hard to get to good quality material. Majority of tech videos are a case of blind leading the blind and unless you know the subject already it's hard to spot. Nowadays I start with a forum/reddit/discord/hn search for a list of hive approved creators and only then go to youtube with that list in hand. Starting the search in youtube (unless for a very niche/non-marketabl…

Examples of forums that you search at?

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#128

Post by 411111111111111 »

davidthewatson wrote: post #110
grumbel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did that dislike button ever do anything? It made a number go up, but other than that I have never seen any effect of it. If you want to make bad channels go away, hit the three-dots next to the video on the recommendation side and click "Not Interested".

That sounds wonderful except that it works about as well as the voice on my Google assistant understanding anything beyond simplistic questions and answers. I’ve attempted to train YouTube repeatedly since the appearance of “not interested” that I’m not interested in violence. If I wanted this much violence, I could have gotten it for free. At least with Google assistant I can scream expletives and insults at the ai…

The list of "not interested" is also limited to 100 entries. Once you've reached that limit the oldest entries get removed.

It's a pointless feature at this point if you ask me.

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#129

Post by Youden »

wccrawford wrote: post #78
Youden wrote: post #68

I think YouTube is like Reddit: it is what you make of it. If you only ever look at the front page of Reddit, you're going to be fed memes and outrage. If you go and subscribe to a few small, focused subreddits, you're going to see things that are relevant to you. Same with YouTube. If you watch a lot of junk content, that's what it's going to feed you in recommendations. If you focus on some specific segment of cont…

I think the OP's point is that people like Colin Furze used to film themselves and just put out content, but now they court sponsors and have a production team. All of the people you mentioned have a production team, I think. I've got some channels I watch that don't have production crews (I think) like "Under Dunn" and I enjoy them every bit as much as the big ones you named, if not more... But there's no doubt that…

It's true that monetization has changed things and I can understand that for some folks it's bad but for some I think it's been really good.

In the old days the content was only driven by passion, because it wasn't really possible to make a living or fund a production team.

These days, you get guys like Colin Furze who are able to do what they're passionate about full-time, with nice equipment and staff to support them.

Tom Scott is another good example. He has a production team behind him but his content is still "here's a genuinely interesting thing I wanted to show you", maybe with a short, very obviously marked sponsored segment.

Re: Ask HN: Has YouTube peaked?

#130

Post by zthrowaway »

paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #117
omega3 wrote: post #11

Especially since the removal of downvoting it's hard to get to good quality material. Majority of tech videos are a case of blind leading the blind and unless you know the subject already it's hard to spot. Nowadays I start with a forum/reddit/discord/hn search for a list of hive approved creators and only then go to youtube with that list in hand. Starting the search in youtube (unless for a very niche/non-marketabl…

Opportunity for a browser plugin counting upvotes / downvotes / other useful flags

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/return-youtube-dis...
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