22 ms·

This is a good an informative essay. However, there's another element of "user-hostile" that I didn't see addressed (maybe I missed it in my haste?) -- that is

• _jal 9y ago
  I'm with you on this. Honestly at this point, if the information is only contained within a video, I skip it and move on[1]. (I usually leave video in the browser crippled, only turning it on when I actually want to watch something.) [1] The trend of support docs for enterprise software going video is horrible, stupid, and a negative mark when I'm evaluating products. If someone has to spend hours of eyebleed rewinding some bullshit video over and over while writing actually usable documentation for incident response, of course that cost is part of the cost of the product in question.
  • shams93 9y ago
    Yeah personally I learn much faster and better by reading than via most videos. You can't keyword search a video, with text documentation I can keyword search within the page to find out exactly what I'm looking for.
    • mikegerwitz 9y ago
      Another problem I have with videos is that I can't go at my own pace---I'm stuck at the pace of the speaker. Some videos I'll watch at 2.5x speed, but the speaker may speed up and slow down at times. With text, I can speed-read, slowing down at key points as needed. And if it's a text I want to devote more study/attention to, then can print it (which facilitates speed reading as well.)
      • ThrustVectoring 9y ago
        It's not just pace, but order. If someone presents information out of the order you need it in a video, it gets really awkward to consume. If text is out of order, you can easily skip around and re-read portions.
      • hutzlibu 9y ago
        Exactly. There are obviously use cases for video - which you can't present in text. Visual tours of architecture, nature, machines, etc. - or other kinds of visual information. But for facts - reading is simply superior. What sometimes works, if it is wellmade, is a mixed presentation: text, pictures and video, where you can controll the pace of information. But I seldom see something like this wellmade.
      • b0rsuk 9y ago
        I have this problem with books vs movies too. I find all but the best made movies less immersive than books. With books, my brain and eyes are the engine pushing plot forward. I by definition need to catch all that is happening.
  • QAPereo 9y ago
    I'm with you on this. Honestly at this point, if the information is only contained within a video, I skip it and move on Same, and I've noticed this trend for quite a while now. Text can always be trivially copied, even by a granny, and inserted into an email or forum. A video? You can have a DRM arms race with video. Videos also prevent skimming, and demand consumption of all content.
    • joepie91_ 9y ago
      > Videos also prevent skimming, and demand consumption of all content. To an advertiser, that's a feature. This is half of the problem.
      • FridgeSeal 9y ago
        As someone who reluctantly works in advertising, I can tell you that advertiser's view themselves as God's gift to the internet and think they're doing great things for it. So many people in the industry have drunk the coolaid and honestly, earnestly think that exploiting anyone they can for information just started to to make an add ever so slightly more (creepily) personalised is a good thing. They need to be put back in their box and have a bunch of their toys taken away. GDPR is a good start.
      • TeMPOraL 9y ago
        And that's why I keep repeating that advertisers are enemies of users, and - from the POV of users - malicious actors. They literally benefit from making life difficult for you and wasting the finite amount of time you have on this planet. This needs to get into people's head - as long as the incentives are so misaligned, there's no chance for peace here.
    • JoshTriplett 9y ago
      > even by a granny Please don't use this as a substitute for "novice computer user" and similar. I've encountered people twice my age with grandchildren who are experts, and people younger than me who are novices.
  • baxtr 9y ago
    Same here. I simply hate sites with videos and no related text content/summary. I’ve noticed that especially news sites are increasingly employing this “feature”. I assume the main reason for this is that can force you to watch the 20-30s video ad. There is no way of avoiding it other than opening a new tab and doing something else for 30s... what a waste of life time
    • jdavis703 9y ago
      What would be a better solution for ensuring the video's producers continue to receive funding to make more videos?
      • marlokk 9y ago
        ethics
      • fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        Mining cryptocurrencies while the current tab is in the foreground. (supposing a suitable GPU/ASIC-proof cryptocurrency is available)
        • akoncius 9y ago
          sure and drain the whole battery on my smartphone/laptop while I watch that video? thanks but no thanks.
          • fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
            The browser could throttle the cc mining based on your battery level/power state. In theory, your device could even mine while charging and then distribute the mined tokens later.
            • Zelizz 9y ago
              Or you could distribute tokens mined from a computer that's plugged in somewhere, or even purchased with normal currency. But I'm not sure I'd want to navigate a web where I'm constantly making purchase decisions with every hyperlink.
  • eggpy 9y ago
    My office provides a license for Pluralsight. I have found some courses with high quality content and interesting information, and it's really useful to have it all in one place. BUT, especially with programming, I find video to be a really challenging medium. It's so much more useful to scan for things you don't know or context of examples and spend some time digesting, or just playing around with sample code. Not everyone can learn at the same rate and text is great for allowing people to learn at their own pace. I really wish they provided a full text log of video caption instead of requiring the content to be consumed solely in video. Udemy suffers from this as well. I might as well look up the info on youtube.
    • duncan-donuts 9y ago
      One thing I loved about RailsCasts was that I could watch the video and then go back to an ASCIICast to actually review the source if I needed to implement something like it. While I don't do rails development anymore I truly miss the days of cutting my teeth on the web with Ryan.
    • beobab 9y ago
      I love the transcripts that Pluralsight provides to go with the videos. I use them after I have watched the video to find the section I'm interested in. I only actually noticed them when another staff member pointed them out to me, but they're available from the course details page.
      • eggpy 9y ago
        Oh wow, you're right! I hadn't seen that before, that's exciting. Thanks for the info!
    • b0rsuk 9y ago
      With one exception: text editors. Videos on Vim are genuinely helpful, especially those recorded with software displaying keystrokes. You get to see an experienced programmer and his editor workflow, things that he now does from muscle memory and he may take for granted.
    • 9y ago
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• nxsynonym 9y ago
  Apart from the normal Facebook detractors, this is big part of why I deactivated my account. 95% of content on facebook is now in video format. Aside from the reasons you mentioned, it's also a huge drain on battery and slows the responsiveness of the site down considerably. If I want to see videos, I'll go to youtube or vimeo. Don't force them on me when I'm trying to find quick info.
  • delecti 9y ago
    I cannot remember the last time I saw a video in my facebook feed (in the feed, not directly linked). Maybe your facebook friends were just particularly annoying.
    • superb_herb 9y ago
      I've literally never seen a video in my feed. Granted, I have about 100 friends, who are my actual close(-ish) friends.
    • giobox 9y ago
      You are exceptionally lucky then. As of several years ago, they autoplay in my and everyone I've seen using facebook's feed all the time, many (perhaps even most for some) of them are ads rather than friend posted content. Fortunately they appear to stay muted until selected, but it's still annoying none the less. This is both via the website and in app (iOS, I'm sure other platforms suffer the same).
      • mattmanser 9y ago
        There's an option to disable autoplay in the settings. https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10202634558606616 https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1020263...
        • giobox 9y ago
          Thanks for this, I was unaware, I suspect I am not alone!
• itsboring 9y ago
  I’ve noticed this thing on social media lately where a single image is turned into like a 10-second video...of nothing but the still image (and sometimes stock background music). This is usually done by low-effort clickbait sites, but I don’t get why.
  • LocalH 9y ago
    I figure it's harder to download a video from Facebook (for the average person, anyway) than it is to download a still image, which makes it more likely that someone will just share the post instead of saving and posting the image.
  • iotku 9y ago
    Videos might have more weight for the suggestion algorithms or other timeline filtering probably. (or at least they think it's otherwise effective)
  • ComodoHacker 9y ago
    Better "retention" metrics?
  • vmateixeira 9y ago
    Exposure period
• chrisseaton 9y ago
  > It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). And what if some of us want the freedom to watch? Maybe I'm illiterate? Just like you, I could say that putting something in writing instead of a video is 'hostile' if it doesn't meet my preferences. Talking about 'hostile' is hysterical.
  • kuschku 9y ago
    You can always use a screen reader to automatically have it read the text to you, and it works well enough. I can’t have an OCR system automatically translate a video into text.
    • mikegerwitz 9y ago
      Even if you can have it transcribed (which is possible today), videos contain far more information than what is spoken: gestures, emphasis / how words are spoken, body language, objects, diagrams, etc. While skilled speakers may try to mitigate that so that the presentation degrades somewhat gracefully to a transcription, it's by no means a one-to-one translation, and it doesn't always make sense.
    • ntoe845noe 9y ago
      While you make a good point about screen readers, there actually are tools that automatically translate a video into text. In fact, doesn't YouTube's "CC" button do that? The translation isn't great, but it's usually good enough and will probably get better over time.
      • kuschku 9y ago
        YouTube’s CC button is bad. Seriously, Google Translate is far better, and even that is impossible to understand. Especially when the discussion includes technical terms. The only time YouTube’s CC button works even slightly okay is if the uploader manually transscribed everything.
      • 9y ago
• wvenable 9y ago
  Microsoft is the worst for providing content in video only form (Channel 9). There have been tons of potentially interesting content posted to HN from Microsoft but I'm not going to sit through an hour long video at work. And they almost never provide any alternative text content (an article) for what's in the video.
  • psyc 9y ago
    Unity is terrible too. The text documentation is terse and barely complete. All the details and workflow information is in video form.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • arca_vorago 9y ago
      UE4 has OK text documentation that tends to be a bit out date, but when you want to do something practical you pretty much have to watch one of Epics live streams.
  • tzahola 9y ago
    Same with Apple. There are some weird behaviors that don’t get mentioned in the docs, yet if you stumble upon the _right_ WWDC video from 2014, it’ll explain everything. But at least the content is covered by search engines via asciiwwdc.com
  • walterstucco 9y ago
    Am I wrong or usually channel 9 provides a transcript of the video content?
• s73ver_ 9y ago
  I'm sorry, but I cannot get behind the idea that a creator choosing to deliver their content that they made in a form they chose can be hostile to you.
  • tomc1985 9y ago
    Why not? Content creators are not inherently virtuous beings. Many, I would say, are quite the opposite.
    • s73ver_ 9y ago
      I wouldn't, because they could just as easily not make the content, and then you wouldn't have it in any form. And the greater point there, that you appear to have missed, is that content creators don't really owe you anything, unless you've paid them. Thus, their actions are not hostile to you.
      • joepie91_ 9y ago
        What? That's stringing together a bunch of things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The primary motivation of many "creators" is to gain more income; to that end, they do not need to produce user-friendly content, they just need to produce content that earns money. That doesn't even require maximizing readership. Aside from that, whether one person is being hostile to another person has absolutely nothing to do with anybody "owing" anybody else anything. These are two totally unrelated concepts.
        • s73ver_ 9y ago
          No, the idea that something can be "hostile" hinges on the idea that you were entitled to it in the other form to begin with. Someone not providing content in the form you wish is an inconvenience at best.
          • lovich 9y ago
            I could be hostile to you right now, and you wouldn't have even requested anything from me. Hostility has nothing to do with what someone owes someone else. Have you ever seen the soup Nazi from Seinfeld? Would you say he's not hostile because no body is owed his soup?
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• duxup 9y ago
  I read some sports related sites. Many have auto play video that seems to pop up just a bit after you've already started reading. The video almost always is unrelated (different team, different story) to what I'm already well into reading. This is annoying 100% of the time. It's never useful to me. Even worse. Some stories will be just a few words and a video. So I go to a site, read, play video.... and that same site's autoplay video will pop up and play ON TOP OF THEIR OWN CONTENT. I don't even know what to think about that, what could they possibly feel they're accomplishing? Do they visit their own site? Do they feel like shotgunning content at me and having me fight to close different windows is a good thing?
  • cobbzilla 9y ago
    In Firefox, in `about:config` you can set `media.autoplay.enabled` to false to permanently disable auto-play video everywhere. I love it. Now videos only play when I press play. A slight annoyance when watching netflix/etc, but well worth the price everywhere else. If I could whitelist a set of domains to allow autoplay it would be perfect.
    • duxup 9y ago
      Thank you. I hear chrome is going to or maybe has and is going to make a similar option more visible. I agree, having to hit play is a small price to pay.
      • tarp 9y ago
        chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy
  • megaman22 9y ago
    I'm convinced nobody at ESPN has tried to use their website in a long time. I remember it not being a dumpster fire of UX once, but that was like 10 years ago.
    • adrianratnapala 9y ago
• patja 9y ago
  I hate the trend to video as well (I can read and comprehend faster than any video can speak), but I wonder if it is just the inevitable result of the continued expansion of who is on the web. Many people in the world are not nearly as literate as HN readers.
  • afarrell 9y ago
    I think it is the result of the reduced copyability of video compared to plain text. This makes it easier to monetize video. Since lots of writers don't have a secondary source of income and have to pay for housing/food/loans/etc, they have an incentive to spend the effort to write video scripts rather than essays/articles.
  • nyolfen 9y ago
    it's because video ads pay better
• mtgx 9y ago
  It doesn't help that Google (the owner of the biggest video platform) is giving videos increasingly more power in its search engines.
• DeusExMachina 9y ago
  If video content would be so "hostile", it would have failed on its own already. People would flock to other places where they can read instead. I don't buy this idea where everything is always imposed on us by evil corporations. More and more websites using video to me seems more like a proof that people prefer videos over written content. That's why videos usually autoplay, also on YouTube and Facebook: if a person starts watching and listening, it's much more likely that they will stay instead of closing the page. We have taught things to each other by talking for as long as hundreds of thousands of years, probably more. By contrast, reading has been common among a large percentage of the population only for a couple of centuries. We evolved using verbal communication, not written one. Written form has, of course, its advantages, but it does not mean that it's the preferred medium for most people. Videos and audio are also easier to watch/listen to while you are doing something else like cooking, gardening or commuting. There are a ton of contexts where you cant read, but you can at least listen. That's why even books are converted into audio formats nowadays. The fact that a small crowd on HN prefers reading is not the proof that video is "user-hostile". HN is rarely the reflection of the general public. Although I keep reading a lot of online content or books, lately I have consumed a lot more valuable information in a podcast/video lecture format than in a written one.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • blunte 9y ago
    The videos that I speak of are ones that have replaced basic informational articles -- information that might only take a few paragraphs to disseminate, and which allow the reader to quickly glean the content. When given as video, they impose a time and data penalty just for the viewer to either get the nugget of information or to realize there's nothing of value for them. +Edit autocorrect
    • s73ver_ 9y ago
      So write those articles yourself.
• pattle 9y ago
  This was my main reason for leaving Facebook, almost every post in my feed seemed to be a video or an image with text in, why not just type the words instead of wasting all that bandwidth? Generally the value of the content was extremely poor and very click bait-y. My analogy I use is I see using Facebook like eating junk food when I could be spending that time consuming more meaningful content. I've probably been off Facebook now for a year and I don't miss it one bit.
• Thriptic 9y ago
  > But many of the providers of "content" know they have little to provide, so they drag it out in video form, saving the actual information for the last 10% of the video (if ever!) 0:00 - 00:10 Useless video animation 00:10-2:00 "Hey guys welcome to my channel. Make sure to like and subscribe and let me know how I'm doing in the comments. Also make sure to check out [sponsor] and use coupon code [code] for 10% off" 2:00-5:00 Useless personal story about why creator is making the video 5:00-10:00 Useless history of the subject matter 10:00-11:00 The actual useful content
  • dictum 9y ago
    > 0:00 - 00:10 Useless video animation I'm happy when it's only useless. It's often useless and loud.
    • harshreality 9y ago
      That's because it's an unconditioned stimulus (classical conditioning theory). If you repeatedly watch their videos, and like them, you'll start to associate their intro animation with the content you like, and you'll like the intro animation. Later, you'll even come up with post-rationalizations for why it's not quite so loud or useless.
      • blunte 9y ago
        Unless of course you're so turned off by the intro that you bail out before giving their content a chance.
      • dredmorbius 9y ago
        The TED intro (standard series) bmakes me gag now Ten seconds. Mind, mobile YT doesn't have keyboard sip, but mpsyt does.
  • kfriede 9y ago
    I often feel this way about podcasts. Many great podcasts have a 0:30 intro, 1:30 of ads then 08:00 of random babble before getting into 5:00 of the meat of the podcast. The most recent one I can think of is 99% Invisible, though they're not even close to the only ones that do it.
• abritinthebay 9y ago
  Speaking as someone who works for a site who produces a lot of video content and is trending more that way I can give you a simple reason why. People consume it more. They stay on the site longer, they tend to watch more videos than read articles, and they share videos more. Now obviously the videos still need to be good content but the reason you’re seeing more video content is not because of some nefarious scheme: it’s because content producers see better user engagement with it.
  • Filligree 9y ago
    Well, of course people stay longer in the site. You're forcing us to, since skimming and searching is no longer an option. It's a worse experience, and I avoid that sort of site if at all possible.
    • abritinthebay 9y ago
      Yes, I know you may think that that but that's not based on the numbers I'm afraid. It can be true for you of course. But if so you're an outlier. Long story short - we see people actively engage with video content more (ie - they share it, they comment on it, they respond to it more positively, etc etc). The numbers don't lie, and they're pretty clear. Article-based/written content isn't going anywhere, but it's not the only delivery stream anymore. It hasn't been for years really but it was contained in YouTube for the most part. But social videos (instagram, twitter, etc) really blew the lid off that and now videos are becoming a whole new and different category of content. Now obviously sites that just do a 5 minute video full of junk instead of a 3 paragraph article are just that - junk. But that's why I said the video content still needs to be good content. Sites that don't do that deserve to be ignored - and not all sites are good at producing video content. I work at Bleacher Report and we very specifically craft our videos to be more than what you're describing (they respect the medium and don't replace articles at all). But we're still producing more and more videos because they are extremely popular.
      • anigbrowl 9y ago
        Are you giving people a real choice, though? And to what extent are they just hooked on your eye candy?
• autokad 9y ago
  an example of controling how the content is consumed is gifs. gifs work great, there needs not be a replacement for them. one of the beautiful things about a gif is you can save it. the current web hated that, it didnt have control. they are trying to 'wean' us off gifs through companies like giphy. how many people cringe when you click on a link on reddit and realize its a link to youtube and you have to watch a commercial for a 30 second video? I am like omg, youtube, close
• k__ 9y ago
  Same problem with messaging these days. People increasingly do voice messages. 1. Because messages are faster spoken than written 2. Your "listeners" can't interrupt you, like on a phone call 3. Your messages aren't searchable as easily as text-messages
  • anigbrowl 9y ago
    4. it's easier for people who are driving etc. which is at least somewhat valid
• coldtea 9y ago
  >It seems increasingly that web content is being delivered in video form. That itself is hostile to some people. Some of us want the freedom to read (or scan quickly). But many of the providers of "content" know they have little to provide, so they drag it out in video form, saving the actual information for the last 10% of the video (if ever!) This I find incredibly hostile Isn't that a kind of entitlement? I might prefer text myself, but it's up to the content provider, who gives me FREE content, to put up whatever they like. And they have a reason that they put out videos, as they are much more popular with certain demographics.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • woogley 9y ago
    It's not entitlement, it's just an opinion. OP said they move on to a different source with their preferred format.
    • s73ver_ 9y ago
      Saying it's inconvenient, or that you'd prefer text is an opinion. But that's not what OP said; they said it's hostile. That is an entitlement.
      • woogley 9y ago
        No, entitlement is demanding all sources conform to OP's preference
        • coldtea 9y ago
          It's enough having a problem with things others put out (and for free) not being to your specifications to consider it entitlement. Besides, one can't make actual demands when they have no power.
    • coldtea 9y ago
      Well, entitlement is just an opinion too -- surely it's not an objective fact that someone is entitled (except we're talking about a king, an inheritance, and so on). Specifically, it's the opinion that something must be a certain way because you want it like that.
• dep_b 9y ago
  It's strange that text content needs to be semantic having all kinds of divisions for different kinds of text. Yet video can remain an unstructured unnavigatable blurb of content. It should have semantic stuff like menu, header, footer, h1, h2 or p as well.
  • anon151516888 9y ago
    PornHub is making some headway there already. Though they are using other tags than h1, h2 and p.
• krapp 9y ago
  >that is the websites trying to control exactly how the content is consumed by the user You seem to be arguing against the content being served by websites, and by extension, the freedom of the owners of those sites to choose to serve content you don't like. I would agree with you as far as DRM and javascript dark patterns go, when sites try to take control over the browser in ways that are harmful to users' freedom, but if someone wants to serve video or ads (useless as they are) instead of plain text, then that's entirely their right, because it's their server, and they get to decide what goes on it, not you. It's not user hostility, it's merely a decision with which you personally disagree. Of course, once the response gets to your browser you're free to block, filter or do whatever you like to it, but user freedom is only half the equation here. Publisher freedom is important as well.
  • Firadeoclus 9y ago
    It's entirely my right (depending on country) to glare at people, or to offer them a contract that is significantly skewed in my favour in the hope that some of them won't read the small print. Hostility is not about rights or freedom.
• rayalez 9y ago
  Wow, I'm very surprised by the amount of people here who dislike videos. I absolutely love video courses, and I have learned 60-80% of everything I know about programming through them. As a specific example, Stephen Grider's udemy courses took me through the process of learning full stack Node/React app development, and it was awesome. I find it much harder to focus and be productive while reading books, videos (especially with good slides and diagrams) feel way more natural. I wonder what percentage of people prefer learning from books to learning from (good) video courses. Is this HN being contrarian, or does the majority really prefer text?
  • megaman22 9y ago
    I've got to be able to go through it at my own pace, rather than the pace dictated by the video/podcast. The worst is anything that has terminal commands or code displayed in a video. Screenshots aren't much better, although at least they stay put without having to futz with the pause controls. Text - that is searchable and copy/pasteable - is king [1]. I can do podcasts and videos for other subjects; I've been loving Dan Carlin and the Great War youtube series. But technical stuff is too hard. [1] Nothing boils my blood like a bug report with a screenshot of a logfile open in notepad, or a very low resolution, downsampled jpeg of the browser JS console... It means you worked harder to give me less useful information
  • the_jeremy 9y ago
    I think there is a large difference between searching for key info you need and trying to learn a bunch of information through a course. If I want quick information on how to install or troubleshoot something that realistically should only be one or two lines of code, watching someone's youtube video is a very inefficient way to provide that content.
    • sgslo 9y ago
      [Note: I am the aforementioned Stephen Grider] This comment is on point. I am told that many students on Udemy use videos courses as a reference, where they skip through videos to find the exact content they are looking for. I'm sure people do this, but I don't think its an effective use of video teaching. My goal with videos is to show the entire beginning to end process of building some arbitrary app. Many commenters here on HN are advocates of apprenticeships for learning tech; I view video courses as an easily distributable form of apprenticeship.
• banachtarski 9y ago
  As much as I dislike it, I don't understand your argument. They're the ones that produce the content and you consume it. They can make it however they want as far as I'm concerned as I always have the choice to be as discriminating or not.
• Feniks 9y ago
  Sadly a lot of people these days are TERRIBLE at reading.
  • dispo001 9y ago
    it wasn't required
  • dredmorbius 9y ago
    Consider that as of 1800 or so, perhaps 5-10% of the population were literate. That climbed to 90%+ throughout much of Western Europe and the US by 1900, but the level of education was still low: in the US, a high school diploma was an accomplishment only 6% of the population realised in 1900. That climbed to about 90% by 1950 or so. By contrast, more people have graduate degrees today. Though the content and quality expressed by education ... has shifted. On the one hand, there's clearly been advances in knowledge and education, but at the same time, those are being presented to a much, much larger share of the population. I've seen people (children, students, professionals) with widely varying levels of literacy and cognitive skills, ranging from frighteningly high to almost none at all. I think this may be underappreciated. Or, TL;DR: yes, a lot of people are terrible at reading.
• br0s 9y ago
  Dr