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Comment by nickjj | Hacker News Reader

> It's pretty simple to understand - when a user opens a tool, it's because they want to do the thing that tool does, now.

Yes and this also applies to other things like videos.

I'd be curious what others think about this:

If you see a video on YouTube and choose to click it, you as the viewer already know the title of the video and have seen the thumbnail. Those things together gave you enough detail to be interested.

The first 15 seconds of the video probably doesn't need to repeat what you already know.

But on the other hand, outlining what you're about to see in the video doesn't seem like a bad idea so folks know what they're getting into.

As someone who has made hundreds of videos and have seen thousands, whenever I hear someone explain what I already know I'm immediately put into a state of "cool story, give me the information I clicked to see".

Does anyone else feel the same?

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I think that you underestimate the portion of people just letting Youtube play videos in a continuous flow. They are doing the dishes, sewing, folding clothes, watching the entrance of the building... Stating the subject of the video makes a lot of sense for them.

I use DeArrow to remove clickbait titles and thumbnails, so indeed, I don't need that information to be repeated. I don't mind a few seconds at the beginning, what I hate is the person rambling about why they didn't post the day before and what not. That time multiplied by the number of viewers makes me wanna cry.

There's a workaround for this problem on PC, just in case you're not aware of it. Just press "2" or "3" to skip forward to 20 or 30 percent, which just usually long enough for the filler. And if not, you use "j" or "l" to skip forward or backwards in 10-second increments.

> The first 15 seconds of the video probably doesn't need to repeat what you already know.

Ah, the Wadsworth Constant: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-wadsworth-constant

> The first 15 seconds of the video probably doesn't need to repeat what you already know.

Consider looking at how Mr. Beast does it. He explains in detail in https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6623b7720b009050313e701c/...

WRT to me: The first 15-45 seconds of a video need to convince me to keep watching. There's more videos on YouTube that I want to watch than I have time to watch, and that 15 second summary is how I decide to keep watching or move on to something else.

People also don't like to hear to "like & subscribe" but it's just what YouTube incentivizes. At the end of the day these decisions and incentives are formed around what makes viewers do the most total viewing on the platform, which (perhaps unintuitively) is not the same as making the viewing experience ideal.

For the individual, consider the extension SponsorBlock. Despite the name, it can be hsed to block more than sponsored segments (and blocking sponsored segments is a configurable option if you like them for some reason. There are several "filler" categories you can choose from and it'll auto skip the exact e.g. intro length rather than needing to guess 100% of the time

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