Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube, the jewel of the internet

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 488 posts

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#41

Post by liendolucas »

rcarr wrote: post #9

I agree with the author. I just cancelled Spotify and got YouTube Premium and it was an absolutely brilliant decision. Pretty soon I’m going to cancel Netflix and Prime too and just take out the odd month subscription to a streaming service if there’s something I really want to watch. I’m probably better off watching some informative documentary on YT than I am watching Netflix anyway and if I want entertainment, the…

I can't understand people paying for streaming services like Netflix & competition, where all their catalogs are region-locked and every single one of them producing mostly crappy shows/movies (at least that's the Netflix I experienced last time I was able to use someone else's account on someone else's computer many years ago, so I must assume as everything else, things get worse, not better).

What would I pay for? A good streaming service where I can choose movies that at least for me are worth watching: good stories, classics, italian, french, spanish movies, independent productions, low-budget productions and non-mainstream gargantuan productions. Definitely not a service that literally invites you to consume whatever crap they produce and put in front of your screen to keep people paying for subscriptions. What I would also pay for? A service that after watching a movie allows me to actually purchase a digital DRM-free copy of the movie for some extra few bucks. Any suggestions?

I've heavily switched my screen habit, now I find myself most of the time reading books, as my father used to say: "You produce your very own version of the film in your head". I used to read regularly as a kid, then there's a huge gap where I haven't touched books for years. The only regret I have is that I haven't kept this habit all this time.

Edit: Some corrections.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#42

Post by Jolter »

xrd wrote: post #27

I'm troubled by YouTube. There is absolutely incredible content there. And there is so much shit in between the good stuff. Does anyone run a frontend that offers control over the shit? I want my kids to have autonomy in viewing interesting things there, but I don't want to YouTube algorithm attacking their developing brains. Maybe a browser plugin?

There are alternative front-end apps. Not for iPhone, because of course not, but Android has Newpipe at least. For desktop, I haven’t looked but sure there are some.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#43

Post by waboremo »

andrewstuart wrote: post #16

YouTube is amazing but a couple of disappointments: 1: YouTube financially rewards 12 minute videos. I feel like this has resulted in a collapse in creativity as now most videos are 12 minutes. You get what you pay for. 2: being a walled garden, YouTube is devoid of technical innovation. This really hasn’t evolved far beyond broadcast TV and that’s because YouTube owns all the content and developers can’t innovate th…

YouTube has gotten much much better at rewarding videos based on context not just length. They weren't always great about it, but they've improved tremendously. I can see them further adjusting this, so that say if you've uploaded ~11 minute videos consecutively it'll prevent you from adding that "middle video" ad break (note: I don't know if they already do this).

I don't believe these changes have collapsed creativity, there isn't another platform on the planet that is creating as much long form content as on YouTube. People aren't posting their great absurdly high detailed yet entertaining content on Medium or Substack, no it's on YouTube. This has led to a walled garden of sorts, but it's also reaping benefits from their improvements from the days where you could easily game YouTube with shallow thumbnails.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#45

Post by somethoughts »

irrational wrote: post #17
rcarr wrote: post #9

I agree with the author. I just cancelled Spotify and got YouTube Premium and it was an absolutely brilliant decision. Pretty soon I’m going to cancel Netflix and Prime too and just take out the odd month subscription to a streaming service if there’s something I really want to watch. I’m probably better off watching some informative documentary on YT than I am watching Netflix anyway and if I want entertainment, the…

> they had a youth where they could spend their entire time learning literally everything there is to know about their passion for free I have children between the ages of 9 and 26. You know what they are passionate about? Minecraft, Mr Beast, Travel vlogs, mommy vlogs, “reality” videos, etc. I’ve tried to introduce them to science, space, programming, history, math, finance, nature, etc. content and they don’t want…

One trick I've used is to disable Youtube on all of the kids' devices [1] and only enable it on the family living room TV.

Then rotate video selection powers to each family member so that there's an equal mix of Mr Beast and Practical Engineering/Vertasium/Tom Scott/City Beautiful/Sebastian Lague etc.

[1] Chromebook with Family Link to only enable specific websites.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#46

Post by jjtheblunt »

rcarr wrote: post #9

I agree with the author. I just cancelled Spotify and got YouTube Premium and it was an absolutely brilliant decision. Pretty soon I’m going to cancel Netflix and Prime too and just take out the odd month subscription to a streaming service if there’s something I really want to watch. I’m probably better off watching some informative documentary on YT than I am watching Netflix anyway and if I want entertainment, the…

> They can literally leave school and already be professionally competent.

How? (I'm misunderstanding.)

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#47

Post by jjtheblunt »

wildrhythms wrote: post #35
yodsanklai wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can literally leave school and already be professionally competent. I really wonder about that. Learning anything requires active participation and motivation. YouTube provides great content, but I'd say it's the easy part. BTW, public libraries existed before youtube. My personal example, I graduated in maths 20 years ago and spent countless hours solving problems. Nowadays, I'm a youtube addict, I casually w…

School is less about learning a subject to any serious degree, and more about socialization and exposure to a breadth of subjects. I am suspect of people who view school purely as an educational experience.

Is "calculus" a hard core counterexample?

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#48

Post by zh3 »

There is indeed great content on Youtube. It's just more than unfortunate that the algorithmic pull is towards the - shall we say - less informative end of the spectrum?

Some people learn a lot from it. Most people just seem to gawp endlessly.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#49

Post by jimsimmons »

zh3 wrote: post #48

There is indeed great content on Youtube. It's just more than unfortunate that the algorithmic pull is towards the - shall we say - less informative end of the spectrum? Some people learn a lot from it. Most people just seem to gawp endlessly.

YouTube is an internet in itself. There are many sub-Youtubes and you can end up in any set of them depending on where the algorithm takes you.
Post reply on HN