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Comment by _davebennett | Hacker News Reader

I think DIY content is so hard to make. For me, it usually involves building stuff that I find interesting, but that is usually super niche and doesn’t appeal to a mainstream audience. Thus, less views which makes the whole time spent on making the video feel wasted compared to other projects I could be doing.

On the other hand, I could try to build projects that might be more mainstream for the better views, but then I’m spending time creating stuff I don’t want to make.

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As a consoomer I find interesting that the production quality has bigger say over which DIY projects I watch than if the thing they are building aligns to my interest. For example JohnnyQ90 is filming himself creating very high quality RC cars from scratch, and despite me not having interest in machining/rc cars I still watch basically all his videos.

Your interest being niche may not matter as much as you may think.

That’s a good point! Though, I would still argue that things like RC cars are more mainstream then a video about building a RISC-V emulator or re-implementing an existing protocol.

You are right. Such concepts are truly abstract, such for illustrations are hard to make. The matches may not be perfect, but examples in this case come to mind:

[0]braintruffle - took the concept of computer fluid simulation as main topic over detailing specific implementation, few videos a year.

[1]Reducible - His explanation of GJK algo, even after reading papers on it, made me appreciate it.

Both utilise extensive animation skills, mastering meaning of video.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXs_vkc8hpY

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajv46BSqcK4

People who are interested in DIY are interested in the process far more than the average person. They want to learn techniques on how to build the things they want.

You can't build a Youtube channel by highlighting what you've built. You have to explain how and why it's built the way it was. The end result is maybe 5% of the value.

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