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Counterpoint: I do not understand the apparent massive appeal of video content. To avoid being too brief: • For entertainment: I have never cared for most tel
by joe-collins 5y ago
Counterpoint: I do not understand the apparent massive appeal of video content.
To avoid being too brief:
• For entertainment: I have never cared for most television or movies. I've watched the entirety (or even majority) of fewer than ten series in my life, and movies in the low double digits.
• Video is a terrible medium for covering most kinds of information. Its speed is often fixed, and it's barely searchable! It is good for showing process or sequence (e.g. some kinds of how-to content), and for showing 3D perspective it's an acceptable substitute for a freely movable camera on a digital model, but for almost anything else informative, text can convey more, and more quickly, and more responsively.
- asxd 5y agoThis is a band-aid on top of the searching issue you described, but it's a godsend when a youtube video is nicely subtitled, so you can open up the transcription and ctrl+f to find exactly when a specific word/phrase was said. Youtube also has limited speed controls at this point. I think the fact that those features exist highlight your second point. Searchability and fixed speed make video content less accessible.
- maven29 5y agoI believe that chromium is still the state for the art for realtime processing of playback rate increase at speeds greater than 4x. Forgive my stackoverflow bodge job (this isn't my bread and butter) but this is what I came up with, when I had to speedrun a couple of courses. I use the shift key to scroll the page sideways (which it can't) so that the script registers the event correctly without moving the page. I just scroll up to get through the sluggish parts and scroll down for the meaningless trivia that inevitably ends up being crucial insight when you least expect it. I would have attempted to implement acceleration with my limited skills, but my scroll wheel has mad detents so it wouldn't have helped. Not sure if it would work on youtube. javascript:window.addEventListener('wheel', function(event){ if (event.deltaY < 0) { console.log('scrolling up');for (vid of document.querySelectorAll('video')) vid.playbackRate += 0.1 } else if (event.deltaY > 0) { console.log('scrolling down');for (vid of document.querySelectorAll('video')) vid.playbackRate -= 0.1 }});
- DeathArrow 5y agoBut why should I have to search subtitles instead of Google doing it automatically?
- deepspace 5y agoNot to mention that you can copy and paste from a text site, while a video leaves you laboriously retyping everything.
- b112 5y agoI watch loads of series, movies, yet agree with text as preferable for most web circumstances. Most people are barely literate. Literacy figures are based upon grade 6 reading levels, and that's average reading levels. So when you see 99% literacy rate, yes, but that's for reading stop signs. It also pains some to read. You are doing them a disservice, to ask them to read. Most adults, pre-internet, never read books, and only some read newspapers. Of those newspapers, many only read tabloids (high school reading level, barely), or looked at magazines with large pictures, quizzes, and such. The rest often watched 4 hours of TV a night, no reading required. The modern internet does not want to exclude, profit is reduced if so. So picture books for all!
- DeathArrow 5y agoVideo is less useful to disseminate information but is good for entertainment and for learning purposes.