HACKER Q&A
📣 PaulHoule

Posting YouTube Videos to HN?


Of everything I contribute to HN I think I get the most negative feedback about links to YouTube video that I submit as posts or as part of comments.

There are many reasons people complain. Some think anything having to do with Google violates your privacy and is part of an "evil" advertising economy. Some find videos on YouTube to be obnoxious vacuous content the way I find image memes on Reddit are. Another is "why are you making me watch a 45 minute video to see a point that I could read in 45 seconds in writing?"

What I find most remarkable is that many people find the links don't work for them. I think that is because a lot of content with clearly identifiable copyright (say a music video or the intro of a television show) is identified by Google, which has a deal with the copyright holders to pay them advertising revenue for viewers in some geographies (like the U.S.) and block the video in other geographies.

One could make the case that a lot of that stuff is trivial but I still think there are independent Youtubers such as Techmoan, Technology Connections, and Anna Psychology that could be of interest to the HN community.

What are your thoughts?

  👤 detaro Accepted Answer ✓
I think >5min videos as submissions rarely "work" (as in attract a useful discussion) due to the time needed to watch them. If something seems interesting I might put it on the list to watch later, but that might be days later. As such I get why people might think they are noise. But I think that usually leads to them not getting upvotes either and just passing by.

In comments I don't mind recommendations for videos, as long as it doesn't show up as "you're wrong, here is a 45 min video of a podcast that somewhere says something about why".