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Comment by poulsbohemian | Hacker News Reader

Teen dad checking in here. YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat seem to be the mainstream among teens right now. I'd argue it is less a reflection on Facebook and more about what they admire and desire. YouTube and Instagram enable them to follow the people and activities that interest them, and entice them to be future "internet stars" too.

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Youtube fulfills the desire to broadcast your life in a way Facebook really can't. I think the subscribers vs friends distinction is important here. Twitter followers work the same way. I don't get excited about random people adding me on Facebook, but if a bunch of people follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my channel, it's a different story.

And Instagram + Snapchat are more about looking at what your friends are up to, and offer way more intimate experiences than Facebook. I have never seen a link to a news website or political ad on either platform, but Facebook is littered with them, and it crowds out the content I want to see: pictures of my friends doing cool stuff. If I want astroturfing and news, I go to reddit and HN :P

So Facebook occupies the awkward middle ground, and most people I know use it to collect acquaintances and to exchange Instagram/Snapchat handles.

Source: am teen

As a 29 year old, I’ve just found YouTube much more interesting and actionable recently. Almost every topic is covered and the best content rises to the top.

The recommendation engine is really good now. I’ve added more to my watch later list in the last 6 months than I have in the last 6 years combined.

As an SEO I’m surprised to admit, but I find it better to search directly in YouTube than actual Google search for certain searches.

Google was playing the loooong game on YouTube and it seems to be paying off.

Yup. I’m 33 and stopped using Facebook a year ago. YouTube is what I’m all about. I use it to listen to ML lectures mostly, and I share videos of my robots. Facebook seems like it’s for old people now or something, and I’m disgusted with how creepy that site became.

> Yup. I’m 33 .... > Facebook seems like it’s for old people now...

In the world the article is talking about, you do realise that YOU are one of these 'old people' right?

I'm 34 and recently got into YouTube in a really big way - as a consumer, not a content creator. I still have a Facebook account (for event invitations and Messenger, go figure) but don't look at the newsfeed at all and my hours spent on there are dwindling as the content becomes more and more useless.

My few younger relatives who use FB have very basic "token accounts" that they don't actually seem to use.

Off-topic slightly, but is there a way to change my YT username? In other words, changing https://www.youtube.com/user/[mycurrentusername] to [newusername] ?

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2657968?hl=es

You need +100 subs

What a bizarre requirement. Why should someone need 100 subscribers to do a simple action like changing their account name?

Why not limit how often you can change it, or make some other kind of limitation?

It's weird to me as a (former?) voracious reader how much I get through audiobooks and YouTube now, because it's easier to multitask with them. I listen to a lot of fiction on audiobooks while commuting or working on my house, because I don't have time to laze about reading. I get technical information through conference talks on YouTube, because I can watch it on a treadmill (it doesn't tell you everything you need to know, but you usually get a good idea if eg Kubernetes does a thing you want to do by watching the "Intro to X using Y" talks).

Same here. Since I started listening to audio books a few years ago my commute became so much more enjoyable - I even look forward to longer business trips now-a-day, especially with the new genres coming out, like LitRPG. Sometimes I even look forward to gardening or cooking if I can have the headphones on. A also frequent YouTube, but more as a replacement for TV (try watching John Oliver in Europe over regular TV on demand..).

> I’ve added more to my watch later list in the last 6 months than I have in the last 6 years combined.

Me too, in fact the wife and I save videos over the course of the week to cast to the TV on a Friday night over a few glasses of wine. We've even started to get into a few vlogs, which up until very recently we assumed were talentless narcissistic rubbish. Turns out there are at least a few good ones (mainly travel related in our case).

Have you found Geography Now yet? I find his presentation style and energy really pleasant.

> I’ve added more to my watch later list in the last 6 months than I have in the last 6 years combined.

Are you actually watching it though?

It's a fair question, but mostly irrelevant in this context. As long as users feel engaged with the site and are using it (and thus watching ads), it doesn't matter how long a users's 'watch later' list grows.

I say "mostly" because there's likely some small effect from users who get overwhelmed by the length of their watch list and bounce from the site, but it's hard to avoid links to YouTube if you spend any time on the Internet.

The YouTube links thing is an interesting point. I wonder if that’s how Facebook’s decision to be a walled garden will come back to them. They prevented other sites from indexing and linking to content, but as a result there’s not as much organic traffic into Facebook to reactivate lapsed users. They planned for growth which will hurt their decline.

The walled garden will continue being lucrative though. Especially if they win VR.

Yea a portion of the watch later. The main signal there is that the recommendation engine is so much better than I see tons of recommended stuff that I automatically add to the watch later. In the past it was always - watch one video and bounce because there was a lot of low quality, irrelevant videos recommended.

That last sentence is so true now. I think Facebook lost itself as it has begun to try to become everything to everyone.

The best version of the newsfeed was a newsfeed that could be filtered by content type. It was great when I could view just status updates or photos. Facebook serves a purpose, for me, that is similar to my Twitter now -- as a place to consume news from outlets I subscribe to, like ESPN, The Atlantic, Vox, etc.

Facebook's best move, as a company, was the acquisition of Instagram.

More is not always better. I think Facebook, some few years back, had a shot to build a video publishing platform that could have taken some slice of the pie from YouTube, but now they have a helluva lead. They also have broadcast television and have recently introduced easier ways to share content with those you're already connected to.

It looks like the "walled garden" approach to content distribution and ultimately, the views, which drive advertising revenue is really hurting Facebook as a destination site now.

I get the logic; I wonder if teen writers are attracted to platforms like medium which are both open yet have a certain "followers" aspect to it as well.

I don't have many writer friends, but I think most of them post fics and stuff on tumblr and the AO3. They have the same follower model as well. In fact, on the AO3 you can't even see who follows you, only a count of how many.

Medium to me feels like it's mostly oriented for technical bloggers (even though it sucks for technical blogging!) and success bloggers that tell you to wake up at 4 AM and meditate.

What is "the AO3"?

I had never heard of it but was curious enough to google it: https://archiveofourown.org/

"A fan-created, fan-run, non-profit, non-commercial archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, and podfic"

Lots of stuff for fans, apparently.

LiveJournal a decade+ ago.

That is not surprising to me at all. I'm in my 30s and have been using Youtube, Instagram and Snapchat to follow internet personas and keep in touch with family much more than Facebook. So if I am doing it then I am sure teens are well past that point haha.

Mid 20's, for me it's Youtube, WhatsApp and Instagram. Also, Messenger occasionally.

Mid 40's, for me it's Civilization: Beyond Earth and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

Wow, I thought I was the only person left to still regularly play that game.

> ...only person left to still regularly play that game.

It's no game.

Stay. Off. My. Lawn.

Good idea for a game though. I'm thinking waves of pesky kids that require warning shots from the porch (you lose points if you actually hit them, but you get more points the closer the warning shot goes), then periodic breaks where you can set lawn-traps, and then bonus targets who've come to ask your kids on a date.

All made more difficult because you're not allowed to stop rocking your chair.

I'm pretty sure there's a game like that somewhere in Newgrounds. Which is itself going on 23 years. Damn, I'm old.

Yeah, as if Sid Meyers would so easily return your soul to you.

Sid Meier

It's Sid Meier's Civilization, not Sid Mayers' Civilisation.

I thought the same. It’s a shame there will not be any updates (some aspects of war/diplomacy could do with changing) but it’s still a great game.

College age here, I've recently gotten back into YouTube because it really does seem to cover so much ground than it used to. Before I used to go to YouTube for random funny clips that my buddies send me. Now I find myself going for Tech Reviews, tutorials and an interest in the "internet stars" of YouTube.

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