Live data from Hacker News

YouTube, the jewel of the internet

ft.com

211–220 of 488 posts

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#211

> If the tone of Twitter is a twee leftism, parts of YouTube are conducted in the register of the aggrieved alt-right. There is lots of dating advice on there of the me-Tarzan-you-Jane kind. But these flaws — arbitrary power, weirdo politics — afflict lots of platforms. This quote says more about the author than about YouTube. It seems obvious that YouTube is much more centrist on average than Twitter, where politica…

I am currently watching a lot of videos on race relations (Douglas Murray vs Robin DiAngelo). What Youtube is doing well compared to other platforms is to give all sides a voice and let the (hopefully better) educated mass make the choice for themselves. That laissez-faire approach to content moderation is what makes YT great in my opinion. And as of now (April 2023) there is a lot of interesting content off the beaten path that can be found.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#212
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…

My thoughts about this are that youtube is great if you have a specific learning task/interest, but if you don’t then it will lead you astray.

There is no doubt however that it has pulled off the magic trick of incentivizing thoughtful and knowledgeable people to produce good videos. This seems as close as we’ll get to a mutually beneficial arrangement in the attention economy.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#213
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 9 and 7 year old and we are constantly enjoying such YouTube channels as "smarter every day", "veritasium" (spelling?), "Stuff made here", to some extent Colin furze, "technology connections", and other such edutainment. Not sure it speaks about differences in kids, in ages, in households, or likely a combination of sorts. Also, not a judgement on your kids, just a counterpoint about the resources available…

>"veritasium" (spelling?), Close, V E R I S T A B L I U M

Hosted by good ol' Dirk!

(For those not in the know, this is an in-joke originating at least from the Hello Internet podcast, with CGP Grey and Brady Haran. "Veritasium" is, indeed, the correct spelling.)

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#215
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

peaked my interest That's "piqued my interest". It's a homophone. Also used in "fit of pique" and, very rarely "piquant". It's a word on its way out, but I like it.

It's a homophone, not a homonym. If you're going to correct someone's grammar, you should probably proofread your correction.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#216
post #213
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"veritasium" (spelling?), Close, V E R I S T A B L I U M

Hosted by good ol' Dirk! (For those not in the know, this is an in-joke originating at least from the Hello Internet podcast, with CGP Grey and Brady Haran. "Veritasium" is, indeed, the correct spelling.)

RIP Hello Internet

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#217
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…

Not just GenZ. I spent most of my 51 years of life having zero idea how my car or engines in general worked. Then my son got into eBikes and then motorcycles and I helped him along, now I know how to wire up a 3 phase motor and rebuild a carb, among various other skills like bleeding brake lines and even welding. This wouldn't have happened without the loads of tutorial videos out there. I'd watch and think, "Oh, I see. We can totally do that." Not to mention all the other great stuff I watch like Baseball highlights, chess, science and technology, travel, history, etc.

YouTube has turned out to be the best thing on the internet since the web. A Premium subscription is well worth the benefit I get out of it.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#218
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…

> It’s an awesome resource and I think Gen Z are at a massive advantage because of it. They can literally leave school and already be professionally competent. I think we’ll see them leapfrogging millennials on the career ladder because they had a youth where they could spend their entire time learning literally everything there is to know about their passion for free I don't follow this. I'm a millennial, graduated…

A guy a few years older than me at school was massively into maths and took out every book he could find from all the local libraries. When he finally arrived at Cambridge University to study, he ended up going to third year lectures because he already knew all the material in the first and second year classes. He went on to do a Phd in maths there. Imagine if he had access to YouTube. He probably would have ended up being capable of jumping straight into the Phd on arrival.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know there's supposed to be a bunch of clickbait garbage on YouTube but I just wouldn't know, because I literally never see it. Just sort by view count for any common english word and filter out the music videos. Well, even including music videos there appear to be several dozen or hundred accounts dedicated to reposting the exact same Indian music videos, film trailers, clips, etc... Not even small variations of…

Why is anything with India content so... spammy? Endless cheap reposts with low res text and memes (or the India flag) pasted on top. Page after page of what I can only call video garbage. I have the feeling it is a cultural difference I am ignorant of.

probably lower quality recording and playback devices on average, plus a big incentive to make money off the videos.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#220
post #81

I'm going to go against the grain here and say my YouTube algorithm is great. Signing out of YouTube and viewing the default home page is a reminder of the horrors that lie beyond, but my little corner of it is a bit too good. There was a period of time semi-recently when the algorithm was better than my heuristics, too. I had associated too-good thumbnails with overproduced shallow clickbait videos churned out by co…

I am... OK with the Youtube algorithm. I find that it is pretty good at this point at not giving me stuff I find awful. However, I think it has lost a lot of ground in helping me find newer, more obscure topics that I'd also find interesting, compared to where it was 5-6 years ago. Overall I think Youtube IS a jewel of the Internet. The amount of astoundingly interesting, informative, entertaining, educational, insig…

They'll just get much shittier long before they ever actually shut down.
Post reply on HN