How I spend less time on YouTube • Hacker News Board

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#31

Post by scoutt » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations?

I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand.

One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talking for 40 minutes while showing the screen.

Also, the video, at least to me, makes the person doing the tutorial to be seen as "more authoritative" than through text, even if you can tell the person talking has little experience with microcontrollers (or whatever, if you have experience in the field).

The same applies for "making a gradient in Gimp". I don't want a 5 minutes videos. Give me a bullet-point list on text. 20 seconds read. I can "rewind" easily and repeat a step I missed.

I will always prefer text for some types of tutorials. I can "ctrl + f" and search for the parts I want, and see the code examples in peace, without rushing them while someone is talking.

I might watch a video tutorial for, I don't know, fixing a dishwater. But I guess I am just getting old.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#32

Post by Enginerrrd » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #20

The best way I’ve found to spend less time on YouTube is realizing that the vast majority of content is pure garbage and just stay the hell away from it. These days I only visit it when I need something specific (a tutorial on how to do a particular thing, a video the kid wants to watch, etc). And of course uBlock origin is enabled to spare me from the “unskippable ads that are longer than the video itself” experienc…

Yeah it's exceedingly rare that better, more parseable information isn't available in text somewhere. Unfortunately though, it is becoming more common for people to make a video instead of a well written tutorial or guide or better documentation.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#33

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #20

The best way I’ve found to spend less time on YouTube is realizing that the vast majority of content is pure garbage and just stay the hell away from it. These days I only visit it when I need something specific (a tutorial on how to do a particular thing, a video the kid wants to watch, etc). And of course uBlock origin is enabled to spare me from the “unskippable ads that are longer than the video itself” experienc…

My strategy is to have a curated list of subscriptions (in an RSS reader - I don't have a Google account) and just stick to those. I very rarely explore outside of that exactly for the reason you mention.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#34

Post by scrollaway » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

People learn in different ways.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#35

Post by toastal » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

I don't know who asked for it to be like a social network, but I did similar thing with GitHub removing the social sidebar and reactions on the home screen making it less distracting with github.com##aside[aria-label="Explore"], #dashboard.dashboard .reactions-with-gap

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#36

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

ballenf wrote: post #17

What I really want is all my subscriptions to get auto-downloaded into Plex. And for Plex to have better library management tools from the player, so I can delete after watching or move to a category. Then show me all the algorithmic stuff when I'm on the website so I can find better stuff to subscribe to.

The algorithmic stuff could actually be good if you could use it on demand and control its parameters, like a supercharged search page.

There are times I want to discover new content, it would be nice to be able to set the algorithm's parameters just right for a particular topic and see what it has to offer, then rinse and repeat for other topics.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#37

Post by bobmagoo » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

ballenf wrote: post #17

What I really want is all my subscriptions to get auto-downloaded into Plex. And for Plex to have better library management tools from the player, so I can delete after watching or move to a category. Then show me all the algorithmic stuff when I'm on the website so I can find better stuff to subscribe to.

I was actually looking at building a script like this. Have you found anything that does it already? If not, I was just going to make a small python script with readonly access to my Youtube account that pulls down my Watch Later video IDs and feeds them to youtube-dl on my NAS. Sounds like a fun Christmas vacation project.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#38

Post by amlib » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

moooo99 wrote: post #4

Personally I can really recommend the „Unhook YouTube“ extension. It’s really customizable and allows you to remove autoplay, recommendations and even the homepage. It’s really easy to configure and really did help me reducing my time spend on YouTube without breaking the entire website.

Same here, extensions such as unhook youtube have helped me reduce my youtube addiction. I also unsubbed from some channels that released videos a bit too often (like LTT)

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#39

Post by slig » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

Have you seen Ben Eater's videos?

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#40

Post by fer » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #34

scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

People learn in different ways.

Video is great for many things, but step by step instructions/tutorials ain't one of them.