Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 106 posts

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#71

Post by rconti »

freetime2 wrote: post #45
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> show people what they like to see? The thing is, "what people enjoy while watching", "what they derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from", and "what they click on in a thumbnail" are three different things, and youtube optimizes for the latter. Which is why youtube face is a thing.

Click-through rates are indeed very important, but that's not all they optimize for. They are also looking at watch time, what you do after watching the video (do you watch more videos from the same creator, or on the same subject, something totally different, or do you leave the site), whether you interact with the video by liking or commenting, channels you have subscribed to, things you have searched for, etc. And…

> but that's not all they optimize for.

They must do this as a global level, not an individual level.

I've never noticed a single one of those awful algo-driven apps notice that I never watch short videos and in fact I often force quit the app the second they feed me trash I don't want to see.

And they keep doing it.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#72

Post by Scoundreller »

freetime2 wrote: post #45
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> show people what they like to see? The thing is, "what people enjoy while watching", "what they derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from", and "what they click on in a thumbnail" are three different things, and youtube optimizes for the latter. Which is why youtube face is a thing.

Click-through rates are indeed very important, but that's not all they optimize for. They are also looking at watch time, what you do after watching the video (do you watch more videos from the same creator, or on the same subject, something totally different, or do you leave the site), whether you interact with the video by liking or commenting, channels you have subscribed to, things you have searched for, etc. And…

On the creator side, YouTube won’t monetize you until you have 1000 subs.

Which means the person that put up 1 video with a massive amount of views will get squat (but Google will gladly put in ads and take a 100% cut).

Protip: subscribe to creators that post useful but not very subscribeable videos. Sucks for creators that put up videos that don’t really relate to eachother.

Dunno why everything has to be a “channel”. That’s what search is supposed to be for.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#73

Post by Scoundreller »

rconti wrote: post #71
freetime2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Click-through rates are indeed very important, but that's not all they optimize for. They are also looking at watch time, what you do after watching the video (do you watch more videos from the same creator, or on the same subject, something totally different, or do you leave the site), whether you interact with the video by liking or commenting, channels you have subscribed to, things you have searched for, etc. And…

> but that's not all they optimize for. They must do this as a global level, not an individual level. I've never noticed a single one of those awful algo-driven apps notice that I never watch short videos and in fact I often force quit the app the second they feed me trash I don't want to see. And they keep doing it.

There’s a bunch of websites where I’ve declined to install their app about 74747627282 times in a row and… tomorrow they’re still going to think they can nudge me into it.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#74

Post by radiorental »

lokar wrote: post #67
4ndr3vv wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He put a video up about this a couple of weeks ago, and rather than YouTube's algorithm being to blame, it was more him struggling to keep up with his audiences constant demand for more progress with more super sketchy features that he was basicly building constantly. "the Algoirithm" often gets sited, but it's often a youtuber's interaction with thier audience, the pressure to keep up with demand, rising success and…

Do they give you the data to know? I assumed he meant that impressions had gone way down so people are not even seeing it (and why everyone begs you to subscribe and hit the bell). Of course impressions could be restricted because people stop watching after 20 seconds.

Another once great channel (the loam ranger) did a deep dive into the phenomenon of why mountain bike youtubers were struggling with the old format.

Its nuanced, part safety, partly that its a tonne of work to produce good content when you can simply switch to fluff pieces like Berm Peak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNiCtWoGonw

"The Algorithm" doesn't reward hard work, imho part of the math is our short attention spans... there's only so many time you can watch someone else vlog from a sprinter in Squamish.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#75

Post by ssl-3 »

jonplackett wrote: post #30
marysol5 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what context do you get Short Form videos? I've never once been pushed to them.

In the Home Screen it is always completely full of shorts. In my recommendations, full of shorts. There’s no way to just never be shown shorts. It’s very clear from the layout that they REALLY want you to watch shorts. I assume it’s because they are more addictive = more views = more ads. But I pay for YY premium! So why do they still insist on putting shorts everywhere? If I want shitty short videos I’ll use TikTok

Yeah, they're very pushy with shorts.

But there are ways to never be shown shorts. They just tend to require avoiding the YouTube app.

Remember the World Wide Web? Even here in 2026, YouTube is still just a website -- if you want it to be. Web browsers like Firefox can still be used to block whatever you don't want to see.

So an effective way to deal with this situation is to switch to a browser, block the shorts, and then cancel premium and block ads as well.

In this way: A person can still consume the content that they want, while also protesting with their wallet.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#76

Post by kjkjadksj »

uproarchat wrote: post #68
utopiah wrote: post #17

I don't have that model but I can very confidently say : - do NOT buy an e-bike with custom parts, no matter how "cool" it is! I bought a CowBoy years ago and honestly, it was great. Until it wasn't. Inexorably, it does not matter how good the parts are, how well designed it is, wear and tear WILL create problems. You WILL need to replace parts. If nobody but the company making the bike sell them you will get in trou…

>PS: I now ride a Fixie Fixies are the way to go. Less parts, less things to break. Very Unix-y.

All the fixie bros say this but my road bike takes basically no maintenance at all. Even when it does, adjusting the derailleurs is a 5 second task with a small Phillips head. Relubing the chain takes 2 minutes. Brakes only needed adjusting when the brake lines were brand new and still stretching and this was also maybe a 30 second task. Rest of maintenance you’d have to do like bb, repacking hub or steerer grease, etc, you’d have to do with a fixie too.

I’ll take my mechanical advantage with gearing.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#77

Post by kjkjadksj »

thenthenthen wrote: post #41
DANmode wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I now ride a Fixie With a conversion kit? ^_^

When building my bikes I quickly found out that are no standard parts.

There was a sweet spot where there was. My road bike frame is from the 80s or 90s. It was built for downtube shifting, but now it has brifters. It has mixed shimano group parts from a maybe 2 decade span of time. Quill adapter to use modern handlebars made over the last 2 decades. Pretty standardized 8 speed stuff.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#78

Post by frantathefranta »

freetime2 wrote: post #51
utopiah wrote: post #17

I don't have that model but I can very confidently say : - do NOT buy an e-bike with custom parts, no matter how "cool" it is! I bought a CowBoy years ago and honestly, it was great. Until it wasn't. Inexorably, it does not matter how good the parts are, how well designed it is, wear and tear WILL create problems. You WILL need to replace parts. If nobody but the company making the bike sell them you will get in trou…

I have been riding a Panasonic "Gyutto" [1] for about 10 years. I bought it when I had young kids, as it's designed to hold two child seats (one on the back, and one on the handle bars). Now that they've grown up I've replaced the child seats with baskets and use it for commuting every day and grocery shopping. The thing is an absolute tank - the only parts I've had replace are the tires and brake pads. And the desig…

Pretty sure at $1,400 it's cheaper than most worthwhile eBikes on the market.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#79

Post by nrabulinski »

atsuzaki wrote: post #57
nrabulinski wrote: post #16

I hate how he’s doing the kind of project a ton of people would like to help with, for free and on their own time, yet he’s making an LLM do all the interesting work. He can’t code so he vibecodes the whole frontend. He can’t reverse engineer so he leaves Claude with the uart connection. He doesn’t understand something so he makes an LLM explain it. With his platform he could easily find a person (or a couple) who co…

He used to be a web developer before doing youtube fulltime, so "he can’t code" is a false premise.

This is what he said though. I don’t doubt he could code if he put his mind to it, but in the video he shows the code that’s talking to the bike, displaying stuff, etc, and says it’s all AI generated because it’s outside his area of expertise.

Re: I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

#80

Post by uproarchat »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #76
uproarchat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>PS: I now ride a Fixie Fixies are the way to go. Less parts, less things to break. Very Unix-y.

All the fixie bros say this but my road bike takes basically no maintenance at all. Even when it does, adjusting the derailleurs is a 5 second task with a small Phillips head. Relubing the chain takes 2 minutes. Brakes only needed adjusting when the brake lines were brand new and still stretching and this was also maybe a 30 second task. Rest of maintenance you’d have to do like bb, repacking hub or steerer grease, e…

different spokes for different folks :)
Post reply on HN