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Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

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Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#101

Post by kevingadd »

CooCooCaCha wrote: post #42
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #11

What struck me was “it’s either keep growing and become a manager or stop and do smaller projects” As someone who many years back looked at a team of 40 developers I was leading and went “nah, I want to be an IC again” that resonates

I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there. He said that he uploads a video every week which is a brisk pace. Why not a video every month? Every quarter? Perhaps he really just wants a break and this explanation sounded the most reasonable. But I hope he didn't get burned out because he was afraid of switching things up.

The algorithm on YouTube strongly favors a fast upload cadence, so that would lower the profit on his videos most likely

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#102

Post by KaiserPro »

CooCooCaCha wrote: post #42
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #11

What struck me was “it’s either keep growing and become a manager or stop and do smaller projects” As someone who many years back looked at a team of 40 developers I was leading and went “nah, I want to be an IC again” that resonates

I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there. He said that he uploads a video every week which is a brisk pace. Why not a video every month? Every quarter? Perhaps he really just wants a break and this explanation sounded the most reasonable. But I hope he didn't get burned out because he was afraid of switching things up.

> I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there.

Not everything is more than it seems. Its ten long years of uploading weekly. Thats hard graft.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#103

Post by jebarker »

phillryu wrote: post #39
Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

Yeah but the burden is now on you to sift through the garbage to find the good stuff, especially since it's mostly mixed together in recommendations or search results etc. It feels more limited to me the other way around, like yes we have added some more good stuff, but good luck finding it. If my favorite hobby store kept on expanding and expanding and the ratio of great stuff to garbage kept going down, I would def…

This has always been the case since the printing press practically. There's always been way too much quality 'content' to manage and you have to sift your way through it. What has changed is that everything is now at our fingertips and we expose ourselves to the recommendation feed. I guess I'm saying that the problem hasn't changed, just our awareness of it.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#104

Post by ben_w »

withinboredom wrote: post #67
danwaterfield wrote: post #32

On the latest cortex, CGP Grey made the point that what's happening in youtube education-adjacent videos is much the same as what's happening for entertainment in those spaces: the law of the excluded middle. You either do long infrequent videos e.g., like MrBeast, or frequent short videos. Both CGP Grey and Tom Scott did frequent mid-length content, which gets squeezed out.

I assume cortex is a channel or something you watch, not brain matter?

Cortex podcast: https://www.relay.fm/cortex

It… isn't my thing. But CGP Grey has a nice voice and is like an excited puppy, so I find myself listening anyway?

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#105

Post by fellerts »

JoBrad wrote: post #57
Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…

Can’t recommend Cody'sLab enough. A very curious and clever guy doing backyard experiments in most of the sciences.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#106

Post by moffkalast »

comice wrote: post #83
JoBrad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…

This thunderf00t video made me avoid "Undecided by Matt Ferrell": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQDXqOfC61U

Neither of them are really worth watching imo.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#107

Post by moffkalast »

pjerem wrote: post #60
JoBrad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…

I don’t see Steve Mould and Technology Connections, but thanks for your list :)

Through the magic of subscribing to both of them...

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#108

Post by ben_w »

jameshart wrote: post #76
supernova87a wrote: post #16

I remember asking at some point what seemed to make Tom Scott so successful compared to the thousands of others who have probably tried to make it big on Youtube/social media. Was it the format/length/style, the topics, the camera work, the commentary/research, etc? I think the consensus was that he came out with generally interesting content, but most of all, predictably and sustained , which generated viewership. I…

There’s something grounded in a very particular kind of 1980s/90s BBC Television content in the values Tom Scott’s videos embody. It’s sort of like he managed to give himself a job roleplaying as a Blue Peter / Tomorrow’s World presenter. He basically carried forward the kind of Reithian ‘mission to inform’ BBC values that largely disappeared in the John Birt era and somehow brought them onto YouTube.

IIRC in one of his videos, he explicitly said he was modelling himself on the Blue Peter style he grew up with. If I had to guess, somewhere in this video, but I'm not watching 17 minutes again even at double speed just to make a comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUF4afxMpQk

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#109

Post by charcircuit »

kevingadd wrote: post #101
CooCooCaCha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there. He said that he uploads a video every week which is a brisk pace. Why not a video every month? Every quarter? Perhaps he really just wants a break and this explanation sounded the most reasonable. But I hope he didn't get burned out because he was afraid of switching things up.

The algorithm on YouTube strongly favors a fast upload cadence, so that would lower the profit on his videos most likely

The algorithm does not care about upload cadence. At worst it breaks viewer's habits of watching someone's videos despite the viewer not actually enjoying it. Or with the extra time they have they find someone who can make better videos. There are plenty of examples of successful youtubers like Mr Beast who can go months between uploads and still perform well.

Re: Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

#110

Post by Dylan16807 »

Kwpolska wrote: post #90
danwaterfield wrote: post #32

On the latest cortex, CGP Grey made the point that what's happening in youtube education-adjacent videos is much the same as what's happening for entertainment in those spaces: the law of the excluded middle. You either do long infrequent videos e.g., like MrBeast, or frequent short videos. Both CGP Grey and Tom Scott did frequent mid-length content, which gets squeezed out.

CGP Grey did almost zero YouTube content in the past few years. Definitely not “frequent”.

We need to figure out what "frequent" is here. Tom Scott was doing >4 videos per month, Mr. Beast does about 2 per month, CGP Grey has done 1 per month for a decade.

Tom Scott, even on a very relaxing working schedule, could put out 1 video per month.

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