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YouTube, the jewel of the internet

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Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#231

Post by mammalianz »

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…

You know I was about to do that but I noticed a few quality of service issues with the music I wanted to listen to. You of course were talking about YouTube Premium and I am referring to YouTube Music which also charges a monthly premium. I wanted to point out that previously there was an abundance of ripped albums at high quality that were obscure (it seems to depend on genre). I noticed some records from larger acts sounded pretty bad for some reason if you are speaking about quality. My sample size is still small and I am referencing a popular RHCP record but than I tried another funk track that should bump in my car as they have previously and I was disappointed. I think we take for granted something about signal chain and someone is trying to capitalize on that or the algorithm. I guess with good enough equipment anything should sound good I mean you can really mess stuff up with gain or normalization. Now I have been tremendously pleased with other larger obscure records I have learned about from wwww.rateyourmusic.com as there music has consistently been available on YT Music which is awesome. Some of those artists are not represented anymore and not available on Spotify or were not initially. If you are talking about quality what I am saying is that you can't just pick any upload from algorithm.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#232

Post by com2kid »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #226
brewtide wrote: post #26

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…

But those channels you listed are not educational, theyre "educational" e.g. you may learn some factoids about physics are learn about some cool experience but in no way will they impart to you a deep understanding of any subject. Those sorts of edutainment style videos are not ever going to compete against say, a college degree. Now there is excellent serious educational material on youtube, stuff like khan academy,…

> but in no way will they impart to you a deep understanding of any subject.

Technology Connections will provide deep understanding of the refrigeration cycle, how different types of gas lamps work, how heat pumps work, and how developing film works.

And those are just the video series I can remember.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#233

Post by wnevets »

mastax wrote: 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 agree, there are several channels that I watch regular because of the algorithm show them to me.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#234

Post by tomcam »

tomrod wrote: post #204
tomcam wrote: post #193

I pay happily for YouTube, but just so you know... if your politics are considered wrongthink they will happily delete accounts or apply repressive algorithm changes to search results. For example, they kicked well-intentioned people off for suggesting that Covid might have been caused by the Wuhan lab until the New York Times finally published an article suggesting exactly that. This comment will be downvoted and fl…

I wonder if your concern that your opinions will be downvoted and flagged are misplaced. The rest of the commentariat may prove me wrong. But Hacker News tends to be more open to real discussion than most pubs on the internet. During the COVID period (which I consider functionally complete Fall 2022 with Omnicron's cycle completed), there was a need for keeping the channel from being flooded. The academic discussion…

> The academic discussion of potential counterfactuals, usually to be found in conferences and certain blog webs, were often misconstrued by content producers, conspiracy mongers, and others driven by less-then-truthful motives

Don’t care. Price of a free press.

> As this causes very real harm

History shows that the people who suppress free speech are never the good guys, especially when it’s the US government or their complicit media.

Also, thanks for engaging in good faith. If I’m wrong, I want to hear it from you, not a censor.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#236

Post by dinkleberg »

pentagrama wrote: post #191
mastax wrote: 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 rarely check the Home (algorithmic) feed or Trending feed, I just check my Subscriptions feed and I get amazing and lots of content. It take me time to build my subscriptions list, usually via recommendations by channels that I'm subscribed. YouTube is my preferred app to watch videos by a mile, I never ever will change it for Netflix, HBO, TikTok, etc.

This is what I do too and am quite satisfied with it. It seems like a lot of people don't use the subscription page, as it seems like there are frequent complaints about missing new videos unless they have hit the notification bell. I've never had that problem as the subscriber page does exactly what it is supposed to do (though I suppose if you were subscribed to hundreds or thousands of channels you'd probably run into issues)

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#237

Post by rcarr »

wolverine876 wrote: post #36
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. Do you have evidence for that? No training makes someone professionally competent, only being a professional does. Even people who go through intense years of law school or medical school, studying directly and interactively with world-class scholars and peers, in actual labs and courtrooms, are not professionally competent lawyers or doctors.…

Not everyone is doing a job that requires lab work. There are a lot of jobs out there which you can learn to do entirely through Youtube and your own personal projects.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#238

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

The author states: "All praise to the moderation algorithm."

"Algorithm" is becoming some sort of online pop culture buzzword.

According to the dictionary, algorithm means a rule or a set of rules for solving a problem.

Restated without buzzword: "All praise to the moderation rules".

Maybe we should praise the people who actually do the moderation.

"Google and YouTube approach content moderation the same way all of the other tech giants do: paying a handful of other companies to do most of the work."

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/16/21021005/google-youtube-...

""I understand the content I will be reviewing may be disturbing," reads the document, which is titled "Acknowledgement" and was distributed to employees using DocuSign. "It is possible that reviewing such content may impact my mental health, and it could even lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).""

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/24/21075830/youtube-moderato...

"Facebook, Google-owned YouTube, and Twitter uphold content moderation as a key component in the fight against abuse of their services by actors such as Russian operatives and violent extremists. In the past couple years, the companies have hired through outsourcing firms thousands of moderators, who watch or read traumatic posts about suicides, mass murders and child pornography, and must quickly make a decision about whether to leave them up or take them down based on whether they violate the companies' policies."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/08/inside-...

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/facebook-content-moderation...

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#239

Post by alephaleph »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #222
tambourine_man wrote: post #70

Another great thing about YouTube not mentioned is the quality of comments. Something happened in the last 5 years or so that changed them profoundly. Once the laugh of the internet they are now one of the most wholesome in it. Almost unbelievable for a public site.

They shadow ban ~100% of comments, unless they detect positive sentiment. If you express any nuance or criticism, poof, your comment is disappeared. What remains is a sea of positive, fully vapid, fully useless comments: an authoritarian dream of milquetoast public discourse.

still one million times better than what came before.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#240

Post by indeedmug »

MonaroVXR wrote: post #62
irrational wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I’ve tried to introduce them to science, space, programming, history, math, finance, nature, etc. content and they don’t want to have anything to do with it. Anyone good suggestions?

https://www.youtube.com/@PBoyle For good deep dives into finance. A lot of information but it's a great professional look.

https://www.youtube.com/@JamesKerLindsay For good deep dives into international politics.

https://www.youtube.com/@PracticalEngineeringChannel For good videos on civil engineering.

I would recommend these channel for older children who can digest the information. They are all understandable for to the layman.

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