the problem with videos is that they require a lot more of a time investment to determine if they're worth watching. I can skim an essay or an article to deter

the problem with videos is that they require a lot more of a time investment to determine if they're worth watching. I can skim an essay or an article to determine if the content is worth a proper read, but i can't skim a video. So i'm a lot more likely to ignore a video, unless it's already been heavily upvoted or endorsed by somebody i trust. Video is a great medium to convey an idea to people who already trust that you aren't going to waste their time, and that's why youtube works so well - subscribers to a channel have made the decision to trust that channel up front. but it's a poor medium for a link aggregator site like HN. It's not that HN readers don't take video seriously, it's just video is not a good fit for the HN format, where the default assumption on clicking a link is that the content is probably not interesting, and it's up to the content to prove otherwise before losing the reader's interest.