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Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

focusstream.media

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Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#21

Post by realityloop »

pariharAshwin wrote: post #14
jj_the_bunny wrote: post #6

A few critiques. 1. Your base page doesn't describe what topics can or would be available. What are we trying to learn here? Languages? Science? How to be a better YouTuber? 2. You have a demo video. I haven't watched it. Why? Because I HATE having to watch videos if I could read a description instead. I read at least 10x faster than I can watch anything. That applies to learning as well, but some topics do work bett…

Thanks for your detailed feedback. 1. Yes, I'll be building a landing page to better place the problem we are trying to solve. 2. What do you suggest for this point? 3. I've received multiple feedbacks asking for a login-free access, so I am thinking around it. 4. Yes, for sure it's in my todo-list. Understood your point about explanation.

I’m going to make some assumptions… I expect the account is for history, could you store that in a cookie initially, or local storage, and then invite people to create an account to carry history across different machines after they have watched some content maybe?

Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#22

Post by bko »

weinzierl wrote: post #7

YouTube is a quasi-monopoly and one of the most important sources of educational content in our time. Kids use it, and teachers sometimes recommend it. I am usually against regulation, but in this case I think having YouTube Shorts next to educational content is like a school kiosk selling crack cocaine next to hot dogs.

It's ironic that you call for regulation to address a concern as a comment to a free product that addresses this exact concern.

What's the problem with people building tooling around it?

Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#23

Post by DanielHB »

I recommend people to try out the Youtube Enhancer browser extension. I always get baffled when I used youtube on mobile, search is near useless now because of all the crap they throw in the middle of the search results. But beyond that the experience is just very bad.

A few features I like about it:

- Allows you to hide most engagement features like shorts, comments, related videos, etc

- Allows you to set a default playback speed and custom buttons to change playback speed with one click.

- Setting the default video size to "theater mode" (takes all the browser window above the fold, but without going full screen), so you don't see all that crap around the video you just clicked on

Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#24

Post by thekuanysh »

freetonik wrote: post #3

A landing page or better a login-free demo mode would be great. Right now all I see is a sign up page, which does not convince me of anything. The idea sounds interesting and attractive though.

Rakhim, nice to see you. Check out wordspike.com (launched last week), it’s def up your alley.

Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#25

Post by incone123 »

bko wrote: post #22
weinzierl wrote: post #7

YouTube is a quasi-monopoly and one of the most important sources of educational content in our time. Kids use it, and teachers sometimes recommend it. I am usually against regulation, but in this case I think having YouTube Shorts next to educational content is like a school kiosk selling crack cocaine next to hot dogs.

It's ironic that you call for regulation to address a concern as a comment to a free product that addresses this exact concern. What's the problem with people building tooling around it?

The third party tooling is constantly at risk of being broken by YouTube. Not sure regulation is the answer either. Any alternative still needs to at least attract creators and cover it's own costs.

Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#27

Post by input_sh »

iumo wrote: post #5

Good to see something like this, but you can solve some of the problems within youtube like autoplay, you can disable it. As for the recommendations on homepage you can clear youtube history and pause it in yours accounts activity center¹, for hiding video suggestions, personally I use theatre mode(so that i need to scroll) and extension to disable it. Similarly I hide the YouTube shorts using the extension. Also, th…

Except half of it doesn't fucking work.

I click on "show fewer shorts" on the homepage, refresh the page, and still see shorts in the second row. Sometimes I do that 10x in a row to no effect.

I deleted my YouTube history just this week, but my homepage is full of music mixes that start with a song I definitely listened to that are supposedly "deleted" from my history. I would think if I start from a supposedly blank slate that I would at least have to "teach it" that I'm not interested in pop songs that are popular in my corner of the world once again, but no.

My homepage may as well not exist, as YouTube insists of filling it up with like 2-3 niches that I am interested in, but don't want to watch all the time. Nothing new resurfaces there except when one of the people I'm subscribed to happens to make an appearance on someone else's channel.

Scroll to the bottom of the homepage in desperation and instead of showing something new it shows like 3 rows of exactly one channel.

The video recommendations on the side often have nothing to do with the video I'm watching. Listening to music? Here's a political debate. Watching something educational? Here's nothing but two video games.

The "new to you" button isn't at all "new to me", it's "things I've watched but didn't care about it enough to subscribe to".

It's truly fascinating how much I have to fight the product to find something even remotely interesting to watch that's not in my subscription feed.

Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#29

Post by bko »

incone123 wrote: post #25
bko wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ironic that you call for regulation to address a concern as a comment to a free product that addresses this exact concern. What's the problem with people building tooling around it?

The third party tooling is constantly at risk of being broken by YouTube. Not sure regulation is the answer either. Any alternative still needs to at least attract creators and cover it's own costs.

Regulation is constantly at risk of having unintended consequences and preventing new entrants and innovation.

We shouldn't create regulations to deal with problems that are being solved by the market

Re: Show HN: FocusStream – Focused, distraction-free YouTube for learners

#30

Post by singpolyma3 »

bko wrote: post #22
weinzierl wrote: post #7

YouTube is a quasi-monopoly and one of the most important sources of educational content in our time. Kids use it, and teachers sometimes recommend it. I am usually against regulation, but in this case I think having YouTube Shorts next to educational content is like a school kiosk selling crack cocaine next to hot dogs.

It's ironic that you call for regulation to address a concern as a comment to a free product that addresses this exact concern. What's the problem with people building tooling around it?

The regulation needed is to keep the tooling working. Require interop
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