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Comment by theshrike79 | Hacker News Reader

Nope, nope nope.

My kid is 10 and still doesn't know a single Youtuber by name and doesn't really watch Youtube. We did try Youtube Kids at one point, but it was just 99% toy ads masquerading as authentic content.

Netflix has a pretty good age limiter and well produced TV-shows. Disney+ has Bluey and a ton of other content. AppleTV+ has a few good ones too, but not as much as the two big ones.

Paying the few coins for a streaming service w/ age limits is highly preferable to risking your kid ending up on some Elsagate[0] video because of the algorithm. Or ending up in a parasocial relationship to some screaming jumpcutting Youtuber who shills their merch on literal children.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate

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>>My kid is 10 and still doesn't know a single Youtuber by name

Authentic curiosity - does your child not go to a normal school? In my experience you can literally detach your home from the internet and live without electricity, but the second your kids go to school they instantly know all the latest fads and videos and what not. To make it to 10 without being at least somewhat familiar with youtube through that exposure seems....almost impossible?

Dunno if the school is a weird outlier, but none of my kid's friends are obsessed with Youtube influencers either.

I haven't banned the kid from Youtube, just didn't specifically direct them there. Except for a few times. I think we looked up sign language tutorials (that was a big deal 3-4 years ago) and some drawing tutorials for watercolours.

I think they see Youtube as a source for information instead of entertainment? At least that's my theory.

Also: I'm not from a native english speaking country, so the amount of content is even more limited. Most of the local YT influencers are 100% insufferable.

I think your kid's school is a weird outlier. [USA here] All my 10 year old and her friends talk about is YouTube, Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnight, and so on, but primarily YouTube because it's the one unifying entertainment everyone has in common. The girls think the boys are stupid for being obsessed with Fortnight, and the Minecrafters sneer at the Robloxers, but everyone can agree on YouTube.

My kids know about youtube but that doesn't mean they are lost in it.

If anything they'd rather watch the harry potter series 100x times before asking for generic youtube access.

No YouTube for my kids either. What's really freaky is that some kids in their grade (elementary school) have YouTube accounts and make videos supposedly!

Also, Bluey is an incredible show. I'd probably watch it independently, the parents are hilarious.

> We did try Youtube Kids at one point, but it was just 99% toy ads masquerading as authentic content.

To be fair, this description fits a lot of regular (non-kids) platforms too.

True, Transformers, He-Man and My Little Pony were just toy ads in cartoon form, but they were mostly honest about it.

Youtube influencers form a "friendship" with the audience and are more sneaky/non-obvious about the stuff they're advertising, masking it as a "review" or something else. Just having a YT influencer play a game is a HUGE boost in sales.

My Little Pony has pretty serious storylines and developed characters. There is a reason why that particular show had rather full on fandom.

The new series yes. I'm old, so I'm speaking of the ye olde version that was ... not so good. =)

Most "content" is made by "influencers" and thats kinda the point

> We did try Youtube Kids at one point, but it was just 99% toy ads masquerading as authentic content.

Essentially like kids TV in the 80-90s. A lot of shows were made explicitly to sell toys, with Transformers being one of the best known. I don't know if it is still the case now.

Yes, but those 30 minute ads actually had content and you could enjoy them without the toy in hand.

I briefly let my son watch YouTube Kids and soon his stream was endless unboxing videos or weird knockoff cartoons with no words.

I’d gladly take 80-90s finite TV interspersed with PBS than infinite junk food.

The irony of the “gate” postfix, being such an old concept!

but is there any better alternative?

Actual produced content, made by professionals who don't get paid per view or swag sales.

Netflix and Disney+ have good content, you pay for it and they give you content. There is no parasocial relationship or algorithmic suggestions that direct the user to a dark hole of exploitative content.

Most countries have a PBS equivalent, a non-commercial public broadcast channel that produces quality content without.

Let’s not kid ourselves, Netflix, Amazon, etc put out a ton of crap content too (e.g. Blippi). PBS Kids, KIKA, etc put out a lot of kids content on YouTube as well. Heck there’s a ton of great public media on YouTube in general. My subscription list is mostly public media from various countries and I don’t have the algorithm issues what most are describing here.

My kid had a blippi phase but has moved on now. Blippi may monkey around but it’s educative after all. There are many other inane brain melting options to avoid

Nothing is perfect.

Amazon Kids+ is a huge step up from YouTube, with curation and categorized time limits. They sell Kindle Fire hardware with a year's subscription included.

https://www.amazon.com/ftu/home

ABCmouse advertises a lot, which is inversely correlated with effectiveness in my experience.

https://www.abcmouse.com

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