11 ms·

YouTube Just Ate TV. It's Only Getting Started

92 points by wallflower 1y ago

ambicapter 1y ago
Is that why Youtube has become unwatchable?
- hectdev 1y ago
  It's a tool like anything else. I learn SO MUCH from Youtube. Watching someone DIY something where they show all the steps, makes it so accessible. I then learn from them and create some really intricate things from different domains without any formal training. I'm talking car repairs, electrical engineering, woodworking, metal work, gardening, 3d printing. The list goes on and on.
  - mouse_ 1y ago
    Google figured out how to get all those creators to work for free, to put a nice coat of paint on their fascism Trojan horse. It's a tool of oppression, masquerading as a tool of expression.
    - pixel_popping 1y ago
      sure, but it doesn't mean that the tool isn't actually useful. Gmail collects all your data, but it's still a great service.
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      Google gives creators 55% of ad revenue.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - cantor_S_drug 1y ago
    I don't understand, why isn't Youtube social yet. By that I mean why can't I subscribe to other recommendations by creator of the channel Posy or Martijn Doolaard or Sisyphus 55.
    - magicalhippo 1y ago
      In the web version, at the bottom of the channel page, there's a list of which subscribers that creator subscribes to, no? At least that's how I interpreted that section.
      - cantor_S_drug 1y ago
        I mean these creators can create their personal recommendation streams (of other videos they liked) and some weighted combination of those items could enter my recommendations. This feature is present in Soundcloud.
        magicalhippo 1y ago
        That does sound like it could be interesting, however it also sounds like it could be horrible. Just because I subscribe to a creator doesn't always mean I align with their views on everything, so could fill my feed with junk. I guess it would have to be another setting along with the subscription flag.
  - pengaru 1y ago
    It's true... but such an awful double edged sword. I have quite a bit of experience as an auto mechanic, and love using youtube to find footage of something I'm considering doing or some item I'm considering buying. Just the effort+time savings alone is a game changer. Previously I would download FSMs for something I was considering acquiring to see what it's really like to work on / maintain / something of the internals, to minimize risk of buyer's remorse. However, most the videos I find of people DIYing things are utter trash when it comes to actual guidance. The readily available footage of internals and failure modes is super valuable, but most these videos will do more harm than good when actually listened to. It's a whole lot of the blind leading the deaf. And the youtubers generally speak authoritatively about things they're clearly doing incorrectly to anyone experienced. We had the same problem in the web forums era, but the conveniently accessible instructional video format strikes me as far more problematic. At least in the web forums it was entirely a conversational text format, so you were already in the context of reading comments, and the discussion would usually call out idiots immediately front and center. In the youtube videos, especially viewed on mobile, the comments are something you must seek out past the ads, must mode switch from watching tv to reading something, and are usually filled with morons anyways.
    - hectdev 1y ago
      I could see that. Some times I'll also use it to gain consensus from a few different creators. The best ones will show when they fail so its a learning experience for everyone.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      The major problem with relying on YouTube content for general automotive diagnosis and repair is that it doesn't tend to be general purpose. It's always "how this one guy fixed this one problem on this one car." A video could have a title like "Fixing a 2002 Toyota Corolla that won't start" but all it shows is the guy jumping right into replacing his fuel pump. There can be many other reasons that a 2002 Corolla won't start, but you're going to have to search through 100s of other videos to find the one that exactly matches your car's root cause, which you don't know until you diagnose it yourself. The repair steps tend to range from so-so to excellent. The diagnosis steps are almost always very lacking.
  - jorvi 1y ago
    Google is planning to connect vidgen to YouTube. Expect a full-on slop tsunami, with people running bots that first generate half facts and outright hallucinations from Gemini, and then generate a visual tutorial for it to post to YouTube. "For the DIYer, a tutorial on strengthening beams. Step 1: rub glue on them."
  - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
    I used to think this. But over time everything just became infomercials. 'Ok lets install these parts from 123 parts' I hate it. I refuse to volunteer to be subtly (or not so subtly) manipulated by Youtubers. All the music production people are suddenly revealing tools they use, that oh wow, I'm so lucky, are going on sale for black friday. Weird that I've never seen them use these 'goto' tools ever before on their channels. Hmmm.
analog8374 1y ago
In a word, way less free. And more commercials. All you pirates with your archives and torrents. You are Luke Skywalker here.
- benbristow 1y ago
  SmartTube on Android TV. Brilliant, makes YouTube usable, Sponsorblock baked in.
  - analog8374 1y ago
    So I'm watching a thing on youtube. 5 minutes in I get a commercial. SmartTube can seamlessly delete that commercial?
    - benbristow 1y ago
      Yes, no ads from Google's side and ads by creators themselves (e.g. Raid Shadow Legends, SquareSpace, Manscaped, NordVPN etc. etc.) get skipped via a community-sourced database called Sponsorblock. https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ (Sponsorblock is also available as a browser extension for most browsers but has an open API for other developers to use)
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    I don't understand why you wouldn't just get yt premium. You get the same features and it pays out well. YouTube premium views are like gold nuggets for creators.
    - benbristow 1y ago
      No Sponsorblock (so doesn't block ads by creators themselves, the cliches like NordVPN/SquareSpace etc. you have to manually skip) They also keep upping the price every so often. SmartTube is free. I had YouTube Premium via a VPN subscription then they cracked down on it, sod em! Why do I have to pay more because I'm a Brit than if I were an Indian? Don't bull me on "because I live in a Western country I've got a better salary etc.". If they can afford to provide it to Indians for a lower price then why would it cost them more to provide it to me? Same bandwidth costs. Greed.
froobius 1y ago
YouTube has so much questionable content on it that gets millions of views... Parents who've found ways to monetize their kids. Dangerous / unpleasant pranks being pulled on members the public. Conspiracy theories. Fake game shows where the winners being given money are actually friends of the host. Or where the host pretends contestants are doing something dangerous, but actually it's CGI, (misleading young viewers into thinking the dangerous stuff is real / fun). Morons making content that's attractive to kids who don't know better. Etc. While there is some quality content on there, the amount of terrible content getting vast amount of views is pretty high. I guess one question is whether TV is much better.. I would say on average it probably is less bad, although there have also been / are questionable unethical tv shows. But at least with TV shows there's more likely to be a few more layers of questioning / analysing / looking at the ethics, with responsible people involved.
- analog8374 1y ago
  You don't like conspiracy theories? You prefer everybody agrees with the truth?
  - benbristow 1y ago
    Conspiracy theories nowadays are about a year away from being conspiracy fact. Digital ID is being HEAVILY pushed by the Labour government in the UK. Scary times.
    - analog8374 1y ago
      If I was a billionaire I would prioritize identifying, monitoring and controlling the underclass.
      - benbristow 1y ago
        But that's a conspiracy theory! Why would they ever do that? ... come back to this comment in a year.
      - 1y ago
INTPenis 1y ago
In my circle, piracy is making a comeback. We're tired of having to hunt down streaming services, and be extorted for hundreds of euro a month, just to see ads for their own programs. Streaming was fun for a while, but as always these greedy execs are ruining it.
- timmg 1y ago
  > Streaming was fun for a while, but as always these greedy execs are ruining it. I've been doing a lot more digital purchasing. Like movies and TV shows. I know there is some risk to the services shutting down. But Disney's MoviesAnywhere mitigates that some. I typically buy stuff when it is on sale. Generally a digital movie is (way) cheaper than a single ticket at a theater. And I've kinda built a decent sized library where I usually can find something to watch. And, generall, my library is way better than Netflix at any given time. (Though I still have a couple(!) streaming subscriptions...)
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - gchamonlive 1y ago
    > digital purchasing That's an oxymoron if you can't have a local copy
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  Just let me buy an MP4 legally for $5 and I will buy every movie.
  - jll29 1y ago
    This is a good point. I paid many movies on iTunes, and there's no way to access that content anymore, certaily not from my Linux (main) machines. Also, people who "bought" 1984 on Amazon only to see it disappear from their Kindle will not have been amused. Nobody likes to have things they spend money on cluttered across 20+ services with changing subscription fees and licensing terms. It's a mess.
mouse_ 1y ago
I swear to God, I can't go three clicks on YouTube without seeing a recommended video like "BASED Trump OWNS woke moralist!" Every time I see anything like that, I'm always clicking not interested, don't recommend channel, etc. But it doesn't help. I would think it's something to do with my searches, or someone in my household watching this sort of content behind my back, but if you look at the front page of YouTube before having searched anything (you can do this through third party services such as GrayJay; it was getting so bad that YouTube itself had to disable their front page when you're not logged in. Seriously, try opening YouTube in an incognito tab. I promise you they would not disable their front page without an extremely important reason to; front pages are prime space!) it's all the same kind of content. Youtube as it stands is worse than the most hyperbolic satirizations of Fox News. FAANG are the ones pushing the fascism. FAANG are the mouths of our owners.
- rjdj377dhabsn 1y ago
  Why even look at the recommendations? Just watch videos that you searched for or those from known accounts. If you can't help yourself scrolling through the recommendations, there are browser extensions that will hide them.
  - mouse_ 1y ago
    Those extensions are ostrich hats https://calisphere.org/clip/500x500/26157/0c7951eaf2251821c174c49dd38b0d96 https://calisphere.org/clip/500x500/26157/0c7951eaf2251821c1...
    - deaux 1y ago
      They're very different. If everyone bought an ostrich hat, the problem in the cartoon would grow only bigger, more and more victims being claimed. If everyone used those extensions, the exact opposite would happen - the problem would be solved, there would be no more victims. Sure, it would become a cat and mouse game, but the premise still holds.
      - 1y ago
wetpaws 1y ago
[dead]
ls-a 1y ago
Yet it still has the worst UI/UX for a TV
cft 1y ago
We need a politically uncensored version (within the law) of YouTube. Things like Rumble do not work well, they are not technically polished. It's a good side project for X.
- wilg 1y ago
  [flagged]
- lagniappe 1y ago
  Rumble works great. What issues are you having?
  - cft 1y ago
    Tried to upload a large video, "processing" failed after 1 hour. Repeated three times and did not succeed in the end.
- pstuart 1y ago
  > We need a politically uncensored version (within the law) of YouTube What does that mean "politically uncensored within the law"?
  - cft 1y ago
    Means for example, that this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnR4Xw74_is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnR4Xw74_is had only <0.1% of YouTube algorithmic views (like 7 total), all the rest were "direct" link. All other videos in the same channel had >70% of the algorithmic views (YouTube "suggestions" or "related content"). They did not ban it outright, so you cannot complain or rigorously prove their bias, but they algorithmically suppress dissenting content.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      I don't know how you can draw any statistical conclusions from a very small channel with 76 subscribers and videos that all have very low view counts.
softwaredoug 1y ago
My personal theory on this is prestige TV is in a recession. After Game of thrones season 8, people wonder why they should invest into a show when there’s a high chance it won’t pay off. Even for a good show it can feel like work. That plus the high cost for studios and over abundance of supply, meant studios pulled back. Instead we’re seeing a reemergence of low effort TV. And YouTube plays nicely into that. At some point this pendulum may swing back (remember in 2000s when everything was low effort reality TV).
- ac29 1y ago
  > After Game of thrones season 8, people wonder why they should invest into a show when there’s a high chance it won’t pay off. GoT was going downhill way before the final season. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by investing in a show. TV watching should be enjoyable, you dont have to watch things you dont like hoping for a payoff later on.
  - softwaredoug 1y ago
    When I see a show has 2 seasons (like Andor) and it’s finished. And I see it’s well reviewed I’m definitely in. The creators thought out a compete arc. When a (non episodic) show is in 3 out of ?? seasons even if everything is good so far, I’m now skeptical. Not just GoT but shows like Westworld leave me wondering if I wasted my time.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    Many people (myself included) enjoy TV shows that have an ongoing story. Ideally we want that story to come to a satisfying end, eventually. It's disappointing when, after watching it for tens or hundreds of hours, the team behind the show delivers a sub-par ending, or no real ending at all. Sure, there are lots of episodic shows out there where each episode can be enjoyed (or not) on its own, and if the show starts going downhill, you can just stop watching, and it's not that big a deal. > you dont have to watch things you dont like hoping for a payoff later on. No, but it's disappointing when I watch something I do like for years, and then the payoff never materializes. Sure, that doesn't erase the enjoyment of watching it over those years, but not getting that payoff feels like leaving us hanging off a ledge.
speak_plainly 1y ago
There was a time when the algorithm was truly amazing and the recommendations were smart, spot-on, and mostly high quality. I don't know what happened but you have to search now for decent content. The recommendations part of YouTube just seems to give me old content or will show me things I've already watched. Despite it feeling almost user-hostile, I still use Youtube,
- agumonkey 1y ago
  It's also filled with ads, sometimes as long as the video, it's insane I'm either gonna drop youtube, or hope something like peertube starts to grow
- Gigachad 1y ago
  They seem to give totally different suggestions based on platform. On the TV app I get great high quality content every time and I love it. While on mobile it just pushes junk and shorts.
- malshe 1y ago
  YT has a bad tendency for over-recommending. I watch one video about stock market and my next ten videos are about stock picking from random guys. I also immediately get advertisements for crypto platforms! The only time I appreciate over-recommendations is when I search for old standup videos of Dave Attell, George Carlin, and others and it suggests more of these gems.
  - Ylpertnodi 1y ago
    > I also immediately get advertisements for crypto platforms! Ad-blocker.
  - rcxdude 1y ago
    I recommend turning off the watch history. It means the only recommendations you get are related to the video you're currently watching. It's not perfect but it's a lot better.
    - 1y ago
froggertoaster 1y ago
https://archive.is/2kNrh https://archive.is/2kNrh
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
paul7986 1y ago
Yeah past few years 95% of all the content I watch is through YouTube. All the studios just need to put 50% or more their content on there! I haven't subscribed to any streaming service in a few years. YouTube is free on my Roku TV, through Firefox on my TV/Mac Mini set up (wireless mouse as remote) and on my phone.
jll29 1y ago
I remember when people laughted off the valuation at the time of Google acquiring YouTube.com ($1.65 billion). With the benefit of hindsight, this was a wise move that has payed enormous dividends, and more benefits no doubt still lie ahead.
zkmon 1y ago
Monopolistic online platforms such as amazon, youtube, netflix arise due to quantum nature of the internet. Lack of spatial location. lack of time duration, lack of distance, instant multiplicity with identical copies are all quantum things attributable to information at speed of light. For life on Earth, locations, distances, time durations, lack exact copies are natural. So Internet directly interfers with everything that is natural. Platforms like Amazon can spawn millions of virtual workers attending to the needs of every customer. This conflicts with natural limitations of traditional businesses and thus destroys decentralization and localization that is vital to human life.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
gorbachev 1y ago
Not that TV is all that great most of the time either, but if YouTube is the future I feel sorry for people who have to live in that timeline. As a thought exercise, what would YouTube recommend as related videos next to Breaking Bad episodes?
- zacmps 1y ago
  NileRed?
captainkrtek 1y ago
The cycle of: Cable TV Cable TV with a million add-on packages, eg: “oh you want to watch hockey? Thats extra. Oh you want this channel too? Different add-on” A couple streaming services Tons of streaming services with a mess of territorial ownership, eg: Thursday night football on Amazon, other games on different services. We just took the cable + tons of packages model and instead ended up with a ton of services. These days I just have HBO, Netflix, and pay for ESPN for Hockey, and even those 3 feel ridiculous. I can see why piracy is easier and more appealings
- gorbachev 1y ago
  I time shift with torrents. Tivo is dead, long live the new Tivo! Most live sports events come out as torrents 2 - 3 hours after. Sometimes sooner.
jonesjohnson 1y ago
I really love newpipe[1]. No ads, continue playing with screen switched off, download option, and i appreciate the lack of recommendations (This way I only see news from the channels I'm subscribed to and don't get drawn into a recommendation-loop). I'm not sure what will happen to it once google enforces their developer registration thing [2]. I assume that f-droid and newpipe will still work on rooted phones, but in general I don't like the direction in which this is going... [1] https://newpipe.net/ https://newpipe.net/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45409794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45409794
estimator7292 1y ago
I just don't really care for TV that much, but my husband was on at least three streaming services. I would occasionally manually pirate shows and movies when he asked, but a while back I hooked up radarr to my jellyfin server. Now he's canceled all our streaming services and gone full pirate. Our entire tv and movie budget is now condensed into a single subscription: the VPN behind my torrent box. And also all the new disks I have to keep adding to the media array to support his new habit.
- pentagrama 1y ago
  Can you share a good resource on how to set up Radarr with Jellyfin? I tried but couldn’t get it to work. I just want to have it running on my PC (not a dedicated server), my computer is connected to my TV via HDMI and that’s all I need. Right now, for pirated content, I use the Stremio app for Windows [1] with the Torrentio [2] and PirateBay+ [3] addons. It’s a “sandboxed,” relatively safe way to pirate. Stremio itself is a legal piece of software (for now), and I feel safe using those illegal addons without worrying that they might inject malware into my PC. It works well for most movies, but not always for older or more obscure ones. There’s also a UX issue: you have to choose between different pirated versions of the same movie and test several to find one that works properly. Also, I don’t need a VPN because in my country ISPs don’t really care about that (yet), so a lot of people just pirate content, it would be a nightmare otherwise. [1] https://www.stremio.com/ https://www.stremio.com/ [2] https://stremio-addons.net/addons/torrentio https://stremio-addons.net/addons/torrentio [3] https://stremio-addons.net/addons/thepiratebay+ https://stremio-addons.net/addons/thepiratebay+
  - twelvedogs 1y ago
    dunno man, if you're struggling that much probably just download movies of the pirate bay and use vlc to play them. radarr isn't that massive of an upgrade i use it but i have a server if i had to run it locally i'd probably just skip it
jnaina 1y ago
I subscribe to Amazon Prime/Apple TV+/NetFlix. But I also have subscriptions to 2 Usenet services, a paid Plex account, couple of Nzbget instances running full-time attached to a Qnap NAS and an instances of Sonnar. Just so that I can get unfettered access to 4K content and consume it anyway I want it (Stream using Infuse on Apple TV box or AVP, or download them to my MacBook Pro for watching it while travelling, etc). But suprisingly I am watching more content on a paid YouTube subscription. The Youtube Apple TV app sucks somewhat, but there is always YT-DLP.
Havoc 1y ago
The streaming services really fucked up to an unbelievable degree. They had done the impossible - persuaded people to give them money instead of downloading for free. But no they had to get greedy and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
- kelnos 1y ago
  I have a hard time blaming the earlier services, especially Netflix. They had a great product, and a great catalog. But then all the studios wanted to run their own streaming services, and pulled their content from Netflix. So then Netflix has to go and find ways to retain customers and increase revenue, and once you get into that game, the customer experience is going to suffer. If the other studios had just left well enough alone and left everything on Netflix, it would have been fine. I'm not a fan of monopolization, but in this case it worked. A better model would be compulsory licensing under RAND terms. Then every studio would be required to license all their content to every streaming service, and then the streaming services would actually have to compete on quality of experience.
qwertox 1y ago
Don't worry, Google will find a way to break it so badly that heavy users will stop using it frequenty. AI translation forced even on those who know the language are just a example of what they fail to understand and don't bother to discuss internally.
- menshiki 1y ago
  YouTube's automatic and forced AI translation has to be the worst feature of this decade.
  - netsharc 1y ago
    At least it's optional.. YouTube thinks if you're accessing from country X, you want the video titles in language X. Utter fucking geniuses. I say "thinks", it sometimes does this and sometimes doesn't. And there's no "Leave the fucking titles alone" option anywhere... Reminds me of IMDb pulling the same genius move of "Hey, here's the title of that movie as it was released in the region we've geolocated you in!"
    - isaacremuant 1y ago
      It's not optional. It auto dubs stuff assuming no one in the world speaks more than one language or would rather listen to original audio with subs
      - netsharc 1y ago
        Optional in the sense that there's a way to switch it back after a "wtF?! @#%$#@ you YouTube!!!"...
  - ta1243 1y ago
    I wonder what proportion of decisions makers in youtube speak more than one language on a regular basis. I suspect it's near-zero.
mgh2 1y ago
https://archive.is/2kNrh https://archive.is/2kNrh
bdcravens 1y ago
I recently noticed that a channel I subscribed completely gave up. She used to have a lot of reselling and business content, and even had an Amazon Liquidations storefront, etc. Now all that's gone, and she's showing typical rage bait BS, like Walmart shoplifters getting caught and the like, and every video she's wearing low-cut tops to get extra cleavage out there. I have no doubt she's getting more engagement than she used to.
- swarnie 1y ago
  At that point just pivot to a MindGeek video service, their pay per 1k views is significantly better than Youtube.
  - bdcravens 1y ago
    She already had a decent following and a channel that was several years old, and I assume that played a large part in her initial content pivot success. I assume most of her original followers would be annoyed and eventually unsubscribed, but honestly, I didn't notice her shift for a while (looks like her last legit business content was about six months ago)
  - stillatit 11mo ago
    I've seen this repeated all over the internet, but it's far from true. CPM/RPM on adult video is way, way, WAY lower than YouTube or other SFW ad networks.
lm28469 1y ago
My youtube experience: - open video - 2 unskippable ads - click somewhere in the video to skip the creator's sponsor section (more ads) - 2 more unskippable ads - video plays, the original audio was automagically replaced by a dogshit 1995 tier "ai" dub - it's not the part I wanted to see, click somewhere else - 2 more unskippable ads At that point I spent 5 minutes watching ads and forgot why I came here...
- bestouff 1y ago
  Use the Force .. err use Newpipe
- EZ-E 1y ago
  Youtube is squeezing more and more to push subscribing to premium. Youtube is where "everything" is - they know they can squeeze hard, where else are you going to go? Ironically it looks more and more like TV with the non stop ads and sponsors.
- world2vec 1y ago
  Either pay for their Premium service or use uBlock Origin (Firefox) + SponsorBlock. Otherwise YouTube is unusable.
- tim333 1y ago
  My experience - ublock lite. Haven't seen an add for ages. Watch two seconds of creator's sponsor section then skip to next bit.
  - majora2007 1y ago
    Add sponsorblock to skip those sections automatically as well.
- theonething 1y ago
  try Brave browser
0dayz 1y ago
Highly ironic for me this is the case as I've embraced (state) TV instead of YouTube. Mainly because it's gotten so awful in the last few years: - aggressive ads for everything - content creators has gotten worse over time (doing abhorrent things, fermenting cult like audiences) - ragebait/political content is so damn popular and common it sneaks into recommendations despite me not watching it - Ai is everywhere - general fatigue with how predictable the content is even with interesting topics
keiferski 1y ago
These comments are a good example of why HN can be way, way off sometimes. YouTube is clearly becoming the dominant media platform of the future. Random acts of piracy or obscure video platforms are not indicative of how 99% of the population acts.
- _vqpz 1y ago
  I don't see anyone in this thread even implying that's how most of the population acts, they're simply stating their take on streaming.
  - keiferski 1y ago
    Pretty much every comment here is talking about how their YouTube experience is suboptimal, how streaming platforms are getting worse (and not how YouTube is getting better), and other dismissive takes. It's skepticism all around. The same kinds of comments are on threads about TikTok, which are equally clueless about how big of a deal TikTok is culturally to young people. Sorry if my comment comes off a bit cranky, I just find the lack of any substantial comments here about the future of video media, etc. to be disappointing.
    - VertanaNinjai 11mo ago
      And how is YouTube becoming better? Because in recent years if they detect ad blocking on a network? They will shadow ban the entire network. I can no longer use YouTube without a VPN because every single video cuts at the 1:00 mark. No explanation, no pop up. The videos simply load indefinitely. I have tried numerous solutions, but when I’m on my home network? I either VPN or I don’t get YouTube access. This has been my situation for at least 2 years across multiple devices and accounts.
- tim333 1y ago
  I muck about on HN and get ~80% of my video content on youtube. I think it's great overall. The rest ~5% twitter, 0% TV although I have one sitting switched off with a £174 bbc fee. 5% pirated maybe. If you go with the official HN guide of "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" and avoid "stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities" then youtube is much better - watching Hinton explain AI and neural networks at the mo. https://youtu.be/jrK3PsD3APk https://youtu.be/jrK3PsD3APk and https://youtu.be/IkdziSLYzHw https://youtu.be/IkdziSLYzHw which is kind of interesting.
j-kent 1y ago
We're going back to discs. Rerouting a fraction of the money we spent on streaming services buys a lot of DVDs/BluRays. Plus it stopped the brain rot dead in its tracks. The family TV was turning into a constant stream of YT shorts AI voices non-stop talk shouting over 3 vids of brainrot. I own the tv, yet have no way of just blocking yt shorts, or even easily blocking the YT app on the tv. So YT is blocked at the router level. edit: a word
- The_President 1y ago
  [dead]
mtnygard 1y ago
Seems like the medium is the message here. There's nothing interesting in the content of the article, but that The Hollywood Reporter is saying it is what matters. It's a signal to Hollywood types that it's now OK to talk about how Youtube is eating their lunch.

92 points by wallflower 1y ago

ambicapter 1y ago

Is that why Youtube has become unwatchable?

hectdev 1y ago
It's a tool like anything else. I learn SO MUCH from Youtube. Watching someone DIY something where they show all the steps, makes it so accessible. I then learn from them and create some really intricate things from different domains without any formal training. I'm talking car repairs, electrical engineering, woodworking, metal work, gardening, 3d printing. The list goes on and on.
- mouse_ 1y ago
  Google figured out how to get all those creators to work for free, to put a nice coat of paint on their fascism Trojan horse. It's a tool of oppression, masquerading as a tool of expression.
  - pixel_popping 1y ago
    sure, but it doesn't mean that the tool isn't actually useful. Gmail collects all your data, but it's still a great service.
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    Google gives creators 55% of ad revenue.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- cantor_S_drug 1y ago
  I don't understand, why isn't Youtube social yet. By that I mean why can't I subscribe to other recommendations by creator of the channel Posy or Martijn Doolaard or Sisyphus 55.
  - magicalhippo 1y ago
    In the web version, at the bottom of the channel page, there's a list of which subscribers that creator subscribes to, no? At least that's how I interpreted that section.
    - cantor_S_drug 1y ago
      I mean these creators can create their personal recommendation streams (of other videos they liked) and some weighted combination of those items could enter my recommendations. This feature is present in Soundcloud.
      - magicalhippo 1y ago
        That does sound like it could be interesting, however it also sounds like it could be horrible. Just because I subscribe to a creator doesn't always mean I align with their views on everything, so could fill my feed with junk. I guess it would have to be another setting along with the subscription flag.
- pengaru 1y ago
  It's true... but such an awful double edged sword. I have quite a bit of experience as an auto mechanic, and love using youtube to find footage of something I'm considering doing or some item I'm considering buying. Just the effort+time savings alone is a game changer. Previously I would download FSMs for something I was considering acquiring to see what it's really like to work on / maintain / something of the internals, to minimize risk of buyer's remorse. However, most the videos I find of people DIYing things are utter trash when it comes to actual guidance. The readily available footage of internals and failure modes is super valuable, but most these videos will do more harm than good when actually listened to. It's a whole lot of the blind leading the deaf. And the youtubers generally speak authoritatively about things they're clearly doing incorrectly to anyone experienced. We had the same problem in the web forums era, but the conveniently accessible instructional video format strikes me as far more problematic. At least in the web forums it was entirely a conversational text format, so you were already in the context of reading comments, and the discussion would usually call out idiots immediately front and center. In the youtube videos, especially viewed on mobile, the comments are something you must seek out past the ads, must mode switch from watching tv to reading something, and are usually filled with morons anyways.
  - hectdev 1y ago
    I could see that. Some times I'll also use it to gain consensus from a few different creators. The best ones will show when they fail so its a learning experience for everyone.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    The major problem with relying on YouTube content for general automotive diagnosis and repair is that it doesn't tend to be general purpose. It's always "how this one guy fixed this one problem on this one car." A video could have a title like "Fixing a 2002 Toyota Corolla that won't start" but all it shows is the guy jumping right into replacing his fuel pump. There can be many other reasons that a 2002 Corolla won't start, but you're going to have to search through 100s of other videos to find the one that exactly matches your car's root cause, which you don't know until you diagnose it yourself. The repair steps tend to range from so-so to excellent. The diagnosis steps are almost always very lacking.
- jorvi 1y ago
  Google is planning to connect vidgen to YouTube. Expect a full-on slop tsunami, with people running bots that first generate half facts and outright hallucinations from Gemini, and then generate a visual tutorial for it to post to YouTube. "For the DIYer, a tutorial on strengthening beams. Step 1: rub glue on them."
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  I used to think this. But over time everything just became infomercials. 'Ok lets install these parts from 123 parts' I hate it. I refuse to volunteer to be subtly (or not so subtly) manipulated by Youtubers. All the music production people are suddenly revealing tools they use, that oh wow, I'm so lucky, are going on sale for black friday. Weird that I've never seen them use these 'goto' tools ever before on their channels. Hmmm.

analog8374 1y ago

In a word, way less free. And more commercials. All you pirates with your archives and torrents. You are Luke Skywalker here.

benbristow 1y ago
SmartTube on Android TV. Brilliant, makes YouTube usable, Sponsorblock baked in.
- analog8374 1y ago
  So I'm watching a thing on youtube. 5 minutes in I get a commercial. SmartTube can seamlessly delete that commercial?
  - benbristow 1y ago
    Yes, no ads from Google's side and ads by creators themselves (e.g. Raid Shadow Legends, SquareSpace, Manscaped, NordVPN etc. etc.) get skipped via a community-sourced database called Sponsorblock. https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/ (Sponsorblock is also available as a browser extension for most browsers but has an open API for other developers to use)
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  I don't understand why you wouldn't just get yt premium. You get the same features and it pays out well. YouTube premium views are like gold nuggets for creators.
  - benbristow 1y ago
    No Sponsorblock (so doesn't block ads by creators themselves, the cliches like NordVPN/SquareSpace etc. you have to manually skip) They also keep upping the price every so often. SmartTube is free. I had YouTube Premium via a VPN subscription then they cracked down on it, sod em! Why do I have to pay more because I'm a Brit than if I were an Indian? Don't bull me on "because I live in a Western country I've got a better salary etc.". If they can afford to provide it to Indians for a lower price then why would it cost them more to provide it to me? Same bandwidth costs. Greed.

froobius 1y ago

YouTube has so much questionable content on it that gets millions of views... Parents who've found ways to monetize their kids. Dangerous / unpleasant pranks being pulled on members the public. Conspiracy theories. Fake game shows where the winners being given money are actually friends of the host. Or where the host pretends contestants are doing something dangerous, but actually it's CGI, (misleading young viewers into thinking the dangerous stuff is real / fun). Morons making content that's attractive to kids who don't know better. Etc. While there is some quality content on there, the amount of terrible content getting vast amount of views is pretty high. I guess one question is whether TV is much better.. I would say on average it probably is less bad, although there have also been / are questionable unethical tv shows. But at least with TV shows there's more likely to be a few more layers of questioning / analysing / looking at the ethics, with responsible people involved.

analog8374 1y ago
You don't like conspiracy theories? You prefer everybody agrees with the truth?
- benbristow 1y ago
  Conspiracy theories nowadays are about a year away from being conspiracy fact. Digital ID is being HEAVILY pushed by the Labour government in the UK. Scary times.
  - analog8374 1y ago
    If I was a billionaire I would prioritize identifying, monitoring and controlling the underclass.
    - benbristow 1y ago
      But that's a conspiracy theory! Why would they ever do that? ... come back to this comment in a year.
    - 1y ago

INTPenis 1y ago

In my circle, piracy is making a comeback. We're tired of having to hunt down streaming services, and be extorted for hundreds of euro a month, just to see ads for their own programs. Streaming was fun for a while, but as always these greedy execs are ruining it.

timmg 1y ago
> Streaming was fun for a while, but as always these greedy execs are ruining it. I've been doing a lot more digital purchasing. Like movies and TV shows. I know there is some risk to the services shutting down. But Disney's MoviesAnywhere mitigates that some. I typically buy stuff when it is on sale. Generally a digital movie is (way) cheaper than a single ticket at a theater. And I've kinda built a decent sized library where I usually can find something to watch. And, generall, my library is way better than Netflix at any given time. (Though I still have a couple(!) streaming subscriptions...)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- gchamonlive 1y ago
  > digital purchasing That's an oxymoron if you can't have a local copy
giancarlostoro 1y ago
Just let me buy an MP4 legally for $5 and I will buy every movie.
- jll29 1y ago
  This is a good point. I paid many movies on iTunes, and there's no way to access that content anymore, certaily not from my Linux (main) machines. Also, people who "bought" 1984 on Amazon only to see it disappear from their Kindle will not have been amused. Nobody likes to have things they spend money on cluttered across 20+ services with changing subscription fees and licensing terms. It's a mess.

mouse_ 1y ago

I swear to God, I can't go three clicks on YouTube without seeing a recommended video like "BASED Trump OWNS woke moralist!" Every time I see anything like that, I'm always clicking not interested, don't recommend channel, etc. But it doesn't help. I would think it's something to do with my searches, or someone in my household watching this sort of content behind my back, but if you look at the front page of YouTube before having searched anything (you can do this through third party services such as GrayJay; it was getting so bad that YouTube itself had to disable their front page when you're not logged in. Seriously, try opening YouTube in an incognito tab. I promise you they would not disable their front page without an extremely important reason to; front pages are prime space!) it's all the same kind of content. Youtube as it stands is worse than the most hyperbolic satirizations of Fox News. FAANG are the ones pushing the fascism. FAANG are the mouths of our owners.

rjdj377dhabsn 1y ago
Why even look at the recommendations? Just watch videos that you searched for or those from known accounts. If you can't help yourself scrolling through the recommendations, there are browser extensions that will hide them.
- mouse_ 1y ago
  Those extensions are ostrich hats https://calisphere.org/clip/500x500/26157/0c7951eaf2251821c174c49dd38b0d96 https://calisphere.org/clip/500x500/26157/0c7951eaf2251821c1...
  - deaux 1y ago
    They're very different. If everyone bought an ostrich hat, the problem in the cartoon would grow only bigger, more and more victims being claimed. If everyone used those extensions, the exact opposite would happen - the problem would be solved, there would be no more victims. Sure, it would become a cat and mouse game, but the premise still holds.
    - 1y ago

wetpaws 1y ago

[dead]

ls-a 1y ago

Yet it still has the worst UI/UX for a TV

cft 1y ago

We need a politically uncensored version (within the law) of YouTube. Things like Rumble do not work well, they are not technically polished. It's a good side project for X.

wilg 1y ago
[flagged]
lagniappe 1y ago
Rumble works great. What issues are you having?
- cft 1y ago
  Tried to upload a large video, "processing" failed after 1 hour. Repeated three times and did not succeed in the end.
pstuart 1y ago
> We need a politically uncensored version (within the law) of YouTube What does that mean "politically uncensored within the law"?
- cft 1y ago
  Means for example, that this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnR4Xw74_is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnR4Xw74_is had only <0.1% of YouTube algorithmic views (like 7 total), all the rest were "direct" link. All other videos in the same channel had >70% of the algorithmic views (YouTube "suggestions" or "related content"). They did not ban it outright, so you cannot complain or rigorously prove their bias, but they algorithmically suppress dissenting content.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    I don't know how you can draw any statistical conclusions from a very small channel with 76 subscribers and videos that all have very low view counts.

softwaredoug 1y ago

My personal theory on this is prestige TV is in a recession. After Game of thrones season 8, people wonder why they should invest into a show when there’s a high chance it won’t pay off. Even for a good show it can feel like work. That plus the high cost for studios and over abundance of supply, meant studios pulled back. Instead we’re seeing a reemergence of low effort TV. And YouTube plays nicely into that. At some point this pendulum may swing back (remember in 2000s when everything was low effort reality TV).

ac29 1y ago
> After Game of thrones season 8, people wonder why they should invest into a show when there’s a high chance it won’t pay off. GoT was going downhill way before the final season. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by investing in a show. TV watching should be enjoyable, you dont have to watch things you dont like hoping for a payoff later on.
- softwaredoug 1y ago
  When I see a show has 2 seasons (like Andor) and it’s finished. And I see it’s well reviewed I’m definitely in. The creators thought out a compete arc. When a (non episodic) show is in 3 out of ?? seasons even if everything is good so far, I’m now skeptical. Not just GoT but shows like Westworld leave me wondering if I wasted my time.
- kelnos 1y ago
  Many people (myself included) enjoy TV shows that have an ongoing story. Ideally we want that story to come to a satisfying end, eventually. It's disappointing when, after watching it for tens or hundreds of hours, the team behind the show delivers a sub-par ending, or no real ending at all. Sure, there are lots of episodic shows out there where each episode can be enjoyed (or not) on its own, and if the show starts going downhill, you can just stop watching, and it's not that big a deal. > you dont have to watch things you dont like hoping for a payoff later on. No, but it's disappointing when I watch something I do like for years, and then the payoff never materializes. Sure, that doesn't erase the enjoyment of watching it over those years, but not getting that payoff feels like leaving us hanging off a ledge.

speak_plainly 1y ago

There was a time when the algorithm was truly amazing and the recommendations were smart, spot-on, and mostly high quality. I don't know what happened but you have to search now for decent content. The recommendations part of YouTube just seems to give me old content or will show me things I've already watched. Despite it feeling almost user-hostile, I still use Youtube,

agumonkey 1y ago
It's also filled with ads, sometimes as long as the video, it's insane I'm either gonna drop youtube, or hope something like peertube starts to grow
Gigachad 1y ago
They seem to give totally different suggestions based on platform. On the TV app I get great high quality content every time and I love it. While on mobile it just pushes junk and shorts.
malshe 1y ago
YT has a bad tendency for over-recommending. I watch one video about stock market and my next ten videos are about stock picking from random guys. I also immediately get advertisements for crypto platforms! The only time I appreciate over-recommendations is when I search for old standup videos of Dave Attell, George Carlin, and others and it suggests more of these gems.
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago
  > I also immediately get advertisements for crypto platforms! Ad-blocker.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  I recommend turning off the watch history. It means the only recommendations you get are related to the video you're currently watching. It's not perfect but it's a lot better.
  - 1y ago

froggertoaster 1y ago

https://archive.is/2kNrh https://archive.is/2kNrh

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

paul7986 1y ago

Yeah past few years 95% of all the content I watch is through YouTube. All the studios just need to put 50% or more their content on there! I haven't subscribed to any streaming service in a few years. YouTube is free on my Roku TV, through Firefox on my TV/Mac Mini set up (wireless mouse as remote) and on my phone.

jll29 1y ago

I remember when people laughted off the valuation at the time of Google acquiring YouTube.com ($1.65 billion). With the benefit of hindsight, this was a wise move that has payed enormous dividends, and more benefits no doubt still lie ahead.

zkmon 1y ago

Monopolistic online platforms such as amazon, youtube, netflix arise due to quantum nature of the internet. Lack of spatial location. lack of time duration, lack of distance, instant multiplicity with identical copies are all quantum things attributable to information at speed of light. For life on Earth, locations, distances, time durations, lack exact copies are natural. So Internet directly interfers with everything that is natural. Platforms like Amazon can spawn millions of virtual workers attending to the needs of every customer. This conflicts with natural limitations of traditional businesses and thus destroys decentralization and localization that is vital to human life.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

gorbachev 1y ago

Not that TV is all that great most of the time either, but if YouTube is the future I feel sorry for people who have to live in that timeline. As a thought exercise, what would YouTube recommend as related videos next to Breaking Bad episodes?

zacmps 1y ago
NileRed?

captainkrtek 1y ago

The cycle of: Cable TV Cable TV with a million add-on packages, eg: “oh you want to watch hockey? Thats extra. Oh you want this channel too? Different add-on” A couple streaming services Tons of streaming services with a mess of territorial ownership, eg: Thursday night football on Amazon, other games on different services. We just took the cable + tons of packages model and instead ended up with a ton of services. These days I just have HBO, Netflix, and pay for ESPN for Hockey, and even those 3 feel ridiculous. I can see why piracy is easier and more appealings

gorbachev 1y ago
I time shift with torrents. Tivo is dead, long live the new Tivo! Most live sports events come out as torrents 2 - 3 hours after. Sometimes sooner.

jonesjohnson 1y ago

I really love newpipe[1]. No ads, continue playing with screen switched off, download option, and i appreciate the lack of recommendations (This way I only see news from the channels I'm subscribed to and don't get drawn into a recommendation-loop). I'm not sure what will happen to it once google enforces their developer registration thing [2]. I assume that f-droid and newpipe will still work on rooted phones, but in general I don't like the direction in which this is going... [1] https://newpipe.net/ https://newpipe.net/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45409794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45409794

estimator7292 1y ago

I just don't really care for TV that much, but my husband was on at least three streaming services. I would occasionally manually pirate shows and movies when he asked, but a while back I hooked up radarr to my jellyfin server. Now he's canceled all our streaming services and gone full pirate. Our entire tv and movie budget is now condensed into a single subscription: the VPN behind my torrent box. And also all the new disks I have to keep adding to the media array to support his new habit.

pentagrama 1y ago
Can you share a good resource on how to set up Radarr with Jellyfin? I tried but couldn’t get it to work. I just want to have it running on my PC (not a dedicated server), my computer is connected to my TV via HDMI and that’s all I need. Right now, for pirated content, I use the Stremio app for Windows [1] with the Torrentio [2] and PirateBay+ [3] addons. It’s a “sandboxed,” relatively safe way to pirate. Stremio itself is a legal piece of software (for now), and I feel safe using those illegal addons without worrying that they might inject malware into my PC. It works well for most movies, but not always for older or more obscure ones. There’s also a UX issue: you have to choose between different pirated versions of the same movie and test several to find one that works properly. Also, I don’t need a VPN because in my country ISPs don’t really care about that (yet), so a lot of people just pirate content, it would be a nightmare otherwise. [1] https://www.stremio.com/ https://www.stremio.com/ [2] https://stremio-addons.net/addons/torrentio https://stremio-addons.net/addons/torrentio [3] https://stremio-addons.net/addons/thepiratebay+ https://stremio-addons.net/addons/thepiratebay+
- twelvedogs 1y ago
  dunno man, if you're struggling that much probably just download movies of the pirate bay and use vlc to play them. radarr isn't that massive of an upgrade i use it but i have a server if i had to run it locally i'd probably just skip it

jnaina 1y ago

I subscribe to Amazon Prime/Apple TV+/NetFlix. But I also have subscriptions to 2 Usenet services, a paid Plex account, couple of Nzbget instances running full-time attached to a Qnap NAS and an instances of Sonnar. Just so that I can get unfettered access to 4K content and consume it anyway I want it (Stream using Infuse on Apple TV box or AVP, or download them to my MacBook Pro for watching it while travelling, etc). But suprisingly I am watching more content on a paid YouTube subscription. The Youtube Apple TV app sucks somewhat, but there is always YT-DLP.

Havoc 1y ago

The streaming services really fucked up to an unbelievable degree. They had done the impossible - persuaded people to give them money instead of downloading for free. But no they had to get greedy and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

kelnos 1y ago
I have a hard time blaming the earlier services, especially Netflix. They had a great product, and a great catalog. But then all the studios wanted to run their own streaming services, and pulled their content from Netflix. So then Netflix has to go and find ways to retain customers and increase revenue, and once you get into that game, the customer experience is going to suffer. If the other studios had just left well enough alone and left everything on Netflix, it would have been fine. I'm not a fan of monopolization, but in this case it worked. A better model would be compulsory licensing under RAND terms. Then every studio would be required to license all their content to every streaming service, and then the streaming services would actually have to compete on quality of experience.

qwertox 1y ago

Don't worry, Google will find a way to break it so badly that heavy users will stop using it frequenty. AI translation forced even on those who know the language are just a example of what they fail to understand and don't bother to discuss internally.

menshiki 1y ago
YouTube's automatic and forced AI translation has to be the worst feature of this decade.
- netsharc 1y ago
  At least it's optional.. YouTube thinks if you're accessing from country X, you want the video titles in language X. Utter fucking geniuses. I say "thinks", it sometimes does this and sometimes doesn't. And there's no "Leave the fucking titles alone" option anywhere... Reminds me of IMDb pulling the same genius move of "Hey, here's the title of that movie as it was released in the region we've geolocated you in!"
  - isaacremuant 1y ago
    It's not optional. It auto dubs stuff assuming no one in the world speaks more than one language or would rather listen to original audio with subs
    - netsharc 1y ago
      Optional in the sense that there's a way to switch it back after a "wtF?! @#%$#@ you YouTube!!!"...
- ta1243 1y ago
  I wonder what proportion of decisions makers in youtube speak more than one language on a regular basis. I suspect it's near-zero.

mgh2 1y ago

https://archive.is/2kNrh https://archive.is/2kNrh

bdcravens 1y ago

I recently noticed that a channel I subscribed completely gave up. She used to have a lot of reselling and business content, and even had an Amazon Liquidations storefront, etc. Now all that's gone, and she's showing typical rage bait BS, like Walmart shoplifters getting caught and the like, and every video she's wearing low-cut tops to get extra cleavage out there. I have no doubt she's getting more engagement than she used to.

swarnie 1y ago
At that point just pivot to a MindGeek video service, their pay per 1k views is significantly better than Youtube.
- bdcravens 1y ago
  She already had a decent following and a channel that was several years old, and I assume that played a large part in her initial content pivot success. I assume most of her original followers would be annoyed and eventually unsubscribed, but honestly, I didn't notice her shift for a while (looks like her last legit business content was about six months ago)
- stillatit 11mo ago
  I've seen this repeated all over the internet, but it's far from true. CPM/RPM on adult video is way, way, WAY lower than YouTube or other SFW ad networks.

lm28469 1y ago

My youtube experience: - open video - 2 unskippable ads - click somewhere in the video to skip the creator's sponsor section (more ads) - 2 more unskippable ads - video plays, the original audio was automagically replaced by a dogshit 1995 tier "ai" dub - it's not the part I wanted to see, click somewhere else - 2 more unskippable ads At that point I spent 5 minutes watching ads and forgot why I came here...

bestouff 1y ago
Use the Force .. err use Newpipe
EZ-E 1y ago
Youtube is squeezing more and more to push subscribing to premium. Youtube is where "everything" is - they know they can squeeze hard, where else are you going to go? Ironically it looks more and more like TV with the non stop ads and sponsors.
world2vec 1y ago
Either pay for their Premium service or use uBlock Origin (Firefox) + SponsorBlock. Otherwise YouTube is unusable.
tim333 1y ago
My experience - ublock lite. Haven't seen an add for ages. Watch two seconds of creator's sponsor section then skip to next bit.
- majora2007 1y ago
  Add sponsorblock to skip those sections automatically as well.
theonething 1y ago
try Brave browser

0dayz 1y ago

Highly ironic for me this is the case as I've embraced (state) TV instead of YouTube. Mainly because it's gotten so awful in the last few years: - aggressive ads for everything - content creators has gotten worse over time (doing abhorrent things, fermenting cult like audiences) - ragebait/political content is so damn popular and common it sneaks into recommendations despite me not watching it - Ai is everywhere - general fatigue with how predictable the content is even with interesting topics

keiferski 1y ago

These comments are a good example of why HN can be way, way off sometimes. YouTube is clearly becoming the dominant media platform of the future. Random acts of piracy or obscure video platforms are not indicative of how 99% of the population acts.

_vqpz 1y ago
I don't see anyone in this thread even implying that's how most of the population acts, they're simply stating their take on streaming.
- keiferski 1y ago
  Pretty much every comment here is talking about how their YouTube experience is suboptimal, how streaming platforms are getting worse (and not how YouTube is getting better), and other dismissive takes. It's skepticism all around. The same kinds of comments are on threads about TikTok, which are equally clueless about how big of a deal TikTok is culturally to young people. Sorry if my comment comes off a bit cranky, I just find the lack of any substantial comments here about the future of video media, etc. to be disappointing.
  - VertanaNinjai 11mo ago
    And how is YouTube becoming better? Because in recent years if they detect ad blocking on a network? They will shadow ban the entire network. I can no longer use YouTube without a VPN because every single video cuts at the 1:00 mark. No explanation, no pop up. The videos simply load indefinitely. I have tried numerous solutions, but when I’m on my home network? I either VPN or I don’t get YouTube access. This has been my situation for at least 2 years across multiple devices and accounts.
tim333 1y ago
I muck about on HN and get ~80% of my video content on youtube. I think it's great overall. The rest ~5% twitter, 0% TV although I have one sitting switched off with a £174 bbc fee. 5% pirated maybe. If you go with the official HN guide of "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" and avoid "stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities" then youtube is much better - watching Hinton explain AI and neural networks at the mo. https://youtu.be/jrK3PsD3APk https://youtu.be/jrK3PsD3APk and https://youtu.be/IkdziSLYzHw https://youtu.be/IkdziSLYzHw which is kind of interesting.

j-kent 1y ago

We're going back to discs. Rerouting a fraction of the money we spent on streaming services buys a lot of DVDs/BluRays. Plus it stopped the brain rot dead in its tracks. The family TV was turning into a constant stream of YT shorts AI voices non-stop talk shouting over 3 vids of brainrot. I own the tv, yet have no way of just blocking yt shorts, or even easily blocking the YT app on the tv. So YT is blocked at the router level. edit: a word

The_President 1y ago
[dead]

mtnygard 1y ago

Seems like the medium is the message here. There's nothing interesting in the content of the article, but that The Hollywood Reporter is saying it is what matters. It's a signal to Hollywood types that it's now OK to talk about how Youtube is eating their lunch.