Ask HN: Advice on starting a YouTube channel?

i'm not an audiophile either, but some videos really had audio that was terrible enough to make me quit that.

examples: some buzzing in the background, high-pitched noise in one of the channels, or audio in mono (you only hear the person talking from the right ear, for example).

As others have said, spoken audio is a big deal. Or more accurately, giving viewers the abilty to hear spoken audio well is a big deal. That can mean not having constant background noise or music, but it can also mean intentionally speaking more slowly and articulately (as one does when practicing for stage theater). The way you speak really matters. Oddly, I have observed that some of the most prolific and informative presenters are also people with some particularly weak articulation skills... one might think they were slightly inebriated, but it's just the way they talk. You'll hear words like "butns", instead of "buttons", for example.

There is no user-end fix for the above. If the audio isn't clear and understandable, and the speech is important, then the rest of the content is irrelevant.

The content in general should be enough but no more than necessary. So many videos have a title that suggest they will tell you X, but the video spends 80% of the time talking about why you might be wanting to know X before _maybe_ telling you X. Don't f with people's time. If you have a solid point to make, make it early and then indicate that you will expand on the idea or reasoning after. Of course, the monetization scheme of YT encourages viewer time, so one might be inclined to draw out a video length. But be assured, after one or two time waster videos, viewers will never return.

If showing code, use LIGHT MODE, not dark mode. Dark mode text/code is practically invisible to people in a bright environment, which includes some rooms and certainly outdoors. Many people, myself included, will watch informative YT content while eating outside as a break from work. If the content is invisible due to the high ambient light, then obviously we will move on. And for the cave dwellers (which I am also at times), they can turn their screen brightness down. The non-vampires have a maximum brightness limit which cannot compete with the sun.

Lastly, don't fuss too much about the rest. Just do what you like, and do it occasionally or regularly for a long time. It seems to take weeks to years to "suddenly" become popular. Most overnight sensations were working for years before their subscriber curve went hockey-stick.

Is YouTube the only medium you're considering?

For business, my understanding is that people now find success mainly though multi-channel and upgrade channels, so you would have some shorts/tic-toks, substack, instagram, twitter, ... (Which suggests some IDE support for the various artifacts being repurposed...) The goal seems to be to convert ~0.5% of the free folks to the $200 upsell: the batch of books, the online course (esp. if constantly updated). See e.g., Kat Norton, https://www.hackingwithswift.com, ...

While my personal preference runs to no-fluff-just-stuff, success seems to lie in motivating people with each step, with curiosity and enthusiasm, in part because that targets people who want to do X, but find themselves blocked (in part from frustration, loneliness, ...). It's probably a lot easier to unblock people who are just confused and frustrated, than to give focused people real insight. It may be more valuable as well, to lift all boats.