Comment by franciscop | Hacker News Reader

Comment by franciscop | Hacker News Reader

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Note that this is "average time on app", which draws two potential pitfalls:

• Youtube is consumed A LOT on the website, including some people using the mobile website (not the app) to keep it playing in the background (duh). This only compares average time on app.

• It could also be totally skewed, if let's say 100M people spend 2h/day on average on Youtube, and 1k (a tiny amount) spend 2.5h/day on average on Tiktok, that'd be already good enough to say "average time per user spent on the apps is higher for TikTok".

I haven't read the report, but wanted to point out these two warnings. As we say in Spanish, the easiest way to lie is with statistics. And of course any half-decent PR person will take any numbers and blow it up into a headline, so tread with caution.

(Absolutely not wanting to discount on Tiktok, which has been growing at an incredible rate, just wanted to say that the wording on how exactly they are "winning" sounded a bit contrieved).

The article also says "Data from app monitoring firm App Annie indicates that average time per user spent on the apps is higher for TikTok, indicating high levels of engagement."

Now, I don't know for sure, but I cant imagine that YouTube is integrating App Annie metrics into their YouTube App, right?

It's not like Google dont have their own metrics platform...

And is TikTok really using App Annie?

So where are they getting the data from?

Are they including media streaming devices like ATV, Chromecast, Roku, and so on?

Overall it's a misleading report that misrepresents the attention graph of platform consumption!

> Now, I don't know for sure, but I cant imagine that YouTube is integrating App Annie metrics into their YouTube App, right?

It's based on Android battery stats. You can download 3rd party battery stats from Google Play and view other app's usage time.

Novel but this, and any other metric that App Annie is using, is only a crude approximation.

An inefficient video codec would result in higher battery usage.

I'm pretty sure the battery stats also show the time the app was on the screen / active.

They use hours, not battery drain.

any source for AppAnnie employing this method? Also user has to explicitly give apps permissions to monitor, it's not that simple.

You can find out which app is currently opened in Android. Do this repeatedly and you get an impression for how long which app gets used. All App Annie needs to do is pay popular app vendors to ship their data collection SDK. They might not get perfect data like Google does, but large enough samples to make statements like this.

They use VPN, Ad blocker and every other apps which people indiscriminately give permissions to, They buyout such apps with significant number of users from the play/App stores and extrapolate the data collected through those apps.

I wouldn't be surprised if publishers directly pay App Annie under the table to boost their stats.

As far as YouTube screen-time is concerned Web, Game Consoles, Media centers & smart TVs would account significant screen-time and it's unlikely App Annie's data hoarding apps are installed in them(Unless say shoddy media center bought from Ali express).

That said, TikTok might well indeed take over YouTube sometime in the future as they are doing what YouTube did in the beginning - Home videos sans shitty cameras, Now YouTube is all about top 1% creators with Michael Bay movie budget for each video.

P.S. Not an endorsement for TikTok, Never used it, Will never use it for their moderation practice against the disabled.

What are their mod policies against disabled? I think I read they don’t promote them at all due to any social risk..?

That's what they would say, but they told moderators to suppress posts by "Ugly", "Poor", "Disabled" because it's not glamorous enough to attract new users.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...

I refuse to use the YouTube app. The ads have gotten so bad. The website I can use an ad blocker and it’s fine to watch. I try using the app iOS or TVOS and it’s 3 ads to start and an ad every 5 minutes.

I recommend buying YouTube Premium. I’ve been a happy customer for a couple years now. It’s better for the creators compared to blocking ads too and they get paid based on your watch time. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276

I do pay for YouTube premium. But the amount of ads in the video itself is just too much. Everybody has a sponsor to talk about multiple times in theirs video. And then there is the various interaction reminders. And YouTube stills shows me ads for movies and whatnot.

I am now combining YouTube Premium with uBlock Origin and SponsorBlok to get a decent experience.

I also have YT Premium. Those in video promos are so easy to skip. Most creators put them in the same spot every video, some even at the end.

These are mostly regular people trying to earn a living making high quality content. I’m not seeing how you can begrudge them the few seconds of skippable ad copy.

I think many people have forgotten just how many ads are shown on television, where commercials typically occupy around 25% of on-air time.

Everyone thought it was cool how episodes of The Walking Dead kept getting longer. But then someone ran the numbers and it turned out the episodes were still the standard ~40 minutes, and every single new minute past that was ads. And not just ads, but lots of super short ads, so they're even more annoying.

https://old.reddit.com/r/thewalkingdead/comments/86o9du/i_ti...

AMC does it in the spinoffs too.

I did not forget. But ads were the reason I entirely stopped to consume TV.

The same happend with youtube. I cant stand it anymore.

There is an add-on called SponsorBlock that automatically skips the sponsor 'ads' in the video content itself.

Unfortunately this doesn't work for the app.

(Yes, I've heard of NewPipe - I want to use the official app.)

There is YouTube Vanced if you want and it already incorporates Sponsorblock

As a full-time YouTuber person, I wholeheartedly endorse this statement. I say that as someone who pays the bills from YouTube and as someone who pays for Premium every month.

It's been a while, but last I checked Premium views were worth more on a per-view basis than ad-watching views. We're talking tiny fractions of a cent, but they obviously add up. Moreover, so-called "demonetized" videos remain eligible for Premium revenue, despite the reality that they will earn little to nothing from ads.

I have YouTube premium and love it. I mostly watch it for music videos and technical talks, and love not having ads. Watch some kids shows too with the 5yo.

I nearly always use the web site, even though I have the app on my phone. Full screen browser tab on the desktop just feels more “TV-like” and engaging than staring at the phone screen.

why not use ublock origin, rather than buy youtube premium? UO will remove every single ad in browser. It's obviously 100% fine to buy premium; I am just curious about the reasons, if any.

As someone who lives very comfortably on a software engineer’s salary at a big software company, I generally avoid trying to “work around” their business models. If I’m going to use the software/service, I’m happy to pay those engineer’s salaries too. (And if it makes the product unusable, then I don’t use it).

I like the simplicity of paying for it and knowing it’ll work everywhere without having to deal with work arounds. (I watch on at least 5 different platforms)

I don’t mind the price - I love the straightforward model.

I watch a ton of YouTube and want to support the business as well as creators (they get a cut of the subscription).

To remove ads on Mobile and Android TV

It’s a shame that you’re forced to buy Google’s music subscription in order to pay for removing Youtube ads.

Vanced is a fantastic YouTube alternative app for android - https://vancedapp.com/

If I'm not missing anything it seems to have about the same features as NewPipe, which additionally supports downloading video/audio for later consumption. Any particular reason to switch?

Was gonna day exactly this. YouTube venced is amazing.

After YouTube introduced the age verification for stuff like game demos it has not been the same.

It would be interesting to see what kind of content TikTok excels in if such a list exists.

The nice thing about tiktok is I haven't seen an ad I can't immediately skip. And since I don't follow influencer accounts I also don't see "product placement" or promotional videos.

Truly, I can't remember watching a single advertisement on tiktok because it's so easy to skip them. The moment they force ad watching ala youtube I'm out.

Note particularly:

> However, YouTube retains the top spot for overall time spent - not per user - as it has many more users overall.

The HN title directly implies this, not the real start. It's misleading and needs to be changed.

I imagine NewPipe users alone could account for a large chunk of time. I leave it on overnight frequently.

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