Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#11

Post by martin_e » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

tpetry wrote: post #6

oneearedrabbit wrote: post #3

This may be relevant: "Don’t mark it as private or disallow embedding on YouTube, or we won’t be able to see it. Please note that because of how our system is built, YouTube’s view count will not increase even though we do watch your video." [1] [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/video/

How can they watch a video without its view count increasing? I am really interested.

I don't think there's a way to watch a video on YT without the count being incremented. Actually, the only way is if you watch your own videos with some frequency (not defined anywhere I could find).

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#12

Post by Google234 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #7

martin_e wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked, they are both unlisted and embedding is enabled. Thanks for the suggestion.

Did you read the second sentence, though? It seems like it applies here.

Is that actually technically possible? I don’t think so

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#13

Post by m00dy » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

the-dude wrote: post #8

tpetry wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can they watch a video without its view count increasing? I am really interested.

Does anybody know if youtube-dl increases a video's view count?

why not ? :)

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#14

Post by duskwuff » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

tpetry wrote: post #6

oneearedrabbit wrote: post #3

This may be relevant: "Don’t mark it as private or disallow embedding on YouTube, or we won’t be able to see it. Please note that because of how our system is built, YouTube’s view count will not increase even though we do watch your video." [1] [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/video/

How can they watch a video without its view count increasing? I am really interested.

Given that they also mention needing embedding to be enabled, I suspect they're using an inline player on another site. IIRC, only plays on youtube.com are counted towards video view counts.

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#15

Post by martin_e » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #7

martin_e wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked, they are both unlisted and embedding is enabled. Thanks for the suggestion.

Did you read the second sentence, though? It seems like it applies here.

> Did you read the second sentence, though? It seems like it applies here

I guess I didn't! :)

That's interesting because I looked around to see if that was possible and did not find it to be so. I wonder if they have some back door access to YT videos due to, well, being YC?

Interesting.

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#16

Post by the-dude » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

m00dy wrote: post #13

the-dude wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody know if youtube-dl increases a video's view count?

why not ? :)

I guess the video count is updated by the player and youtube-dl does not use this player.

Also, YT view counts may not be as straightforward as you imagine, as they are a hot metric for advertisers.

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#17

Post by Asuchug4 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

Google234 wrote: post #12

cjbprime wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the second sentence, though? It seems like it applies here.

Is that actually technically possible? I don’t think so

Why not? YT view counter is famous for being stuck on some low value like "300" when thousands of people are watching. It just isn't something worth updating in real time.

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#18

Post by banachtarski » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

martin_e wrote: post #15

cjbprime wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the second sentence, though? It seems like it applies here.

> Did you read the second sentence, though? It seems like it applies here I guess I didn't! :) That's interesting because I looked around to see if that was possible and did not find it to be so. I wonder if they have some back door access to YT videos due to, well, being YC? Interesting.

.. more likely, the youtube view counting algorithm doesn't include embedded views.

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#19

Post by detaro » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

m00dy wrote: post #13

the-dude wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody know if youtube-dl increases a video's view count?

why not ? :)

Because Youtube uses some measure of actually played video time to count a view. Depending on how it is implemented, downloads likly do not trigger that (since data loaded doesn't mean it was watched)

Re: Ask YC: We applied to S2020 and nobody looked at our videos?

#20

Post by jaysh » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

tpetry wrote: post #6

oneearedrabbit wrote: post #3

This may be relevant: "Don’t mark it as private or disallow embedding on YouTube, or we won’t be able to see it. Please note that because of how our system is built, YouTube’s view count will not increase even though we do watch your video." [1] [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/video/

How can they watch a video without its view count increasing? I am really interested.

It's worth noting that YouTube is optimising for the opposite: they want to prevent artificial view count inflation. Therefore, this behaviour (the view count not increasing when the videos are automatically accessed) would make sense.

If you're interested, an interesting measure for difficulty is how much companies charge to "buy youtube views" (e.g, $16 per 1000 views is ~8x the cost you'd pay for typical CAPTCHA solving).