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Comment by Velc | Hacker News Reader

“If you’re taking AI or drop shipping startup ideas from online videos with hundreds of thousands of views, you’ve already lost.”

So nobody can find inspiration and learn about new things from YouTube videos? This seems like a fairly obtuse statement. I don’t watch these hustle porn guys on YouTube but I learn a hell of a lot from smaller tech YouTubers who produce educational content.

The author is clearly quite salty. Vox is just as bad if not worse than these guys on YouTube. Their whole schtick is riling people up for page views with no consideration for the wider societal impact.

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I think you’ve missed the point of the comment.

The point is that these people aren’t making their money from what they’re preaching, they’re making it from YouTube.

Even if there were some validity to what they’re saying in the videos, if the video has 3 million views by the time you’ve watched it then you’re at least the 3 millionth fish in the packed-to-the-gills salmon farm by then and there’s no margin left for you.

There's lots of similar programming videos, does that mean you should not learn programming because you'll be the 3 millionth fish? Competition exists in every niche, you still have to get better than others, there's no silver bullet.

If you learn programming you can create a completely unique and useful program. Dropshipping on the other hand is thousands of different people selling the exact same product, there is no value added.

Tbf, from the economical perspective both are a lottery of marketing.

Interesting and scary take.

My opinion is that you one hundred percent should not learn programming from YouTube videos. It is tremendously ineffective.

Vox also doesn't make their money from whatever it is they preach, but from Vox getting clicks.

And theatres need attendees, streaming services need plays, tourist attractions need eyeballs, etc. Just because a publication needs “clicks” does not make their argument invalid, or that they can’t achieve that viewership without debasing themselves.

It’s okay to be slightly provocative to get attention to a valid story, IMO. At no point does Vox tell me I too can run my own news publication and become influential like them; if they did then I think it’s fair to doubt them and their motivations.

Because two separate things can be true at the same time?

It’s a bit like people who write financial advice books. They don’t make their money from their clever investment ideas, they make it from selling self help books.

Exactly. Which should immediately raise questions over the value of their advice.

Given that the ideas they’re shilling are inherently scalable, logically it follows that if they knew how to make it work they wouldn’t have to snake oil people on YouTube for money, therefore, they’re advice has no value.

I'm not sure how you get from

"If you’re taking AI or drop shipping startup ideas from online videos with hundreds of thousands of views, you’ve already lost"

"So nobody can find inspiration and learn about new things from YouTube videos?"

If a startup idea is good, it doesn’t really matter if someone mentioned it in a video that got hundreds of thousands of views. Execution is still the key component.

‘You’ve already lost’ implies that every idea must be completely unique in order for you to ‘win’ whatever that means.

You are stripping all of the context of the statement and then responding to the universal form of it that you created yourself, I dunno that Vox can be blamed too much in this case given how much you're working in order to be mad about it.

eh, I think you're reaching. Saying I'm working on being mad about it is as unsubstantiated as me saying that you’re a Vox fanboy who can't handle having your worldviews challenged. Bit pointless isn't it?

> You’ve already lost’ implies that every idea must be completely unique in order for you to ‘win’ whatever that means.

This is not a correct interpretation. It implies watching YouTube influencer ideas is not a way that gives you much chances of success. That there are better ways to start your business than a youtube video idea. Your interpretation is the most extreme one you can take from what is written.

It's possible for an idea to not be unique but from unique to "3m people watched on youtube" goes a long way, and the type of idea that gets 3m views is probably optimized for entertainment more than business resilience.

I was going to say the same thing as you. The article has a good title but besides that it completely missed the point. And the sentence you quoted was only the cherry on top.

Elsewhere on HN’s front page today: negativity drives engagement. Vox and others on both sides of the political spectrum turned that into a business.

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