Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw2ih020 | Hacker News Reader

HN audience prefers text to video; videos rarely do well here compared to other sites.

This. I never watch video posts. I can skim-read a text site in seconds to see if it's worth a real read. I can't do that with video, and there's always some ads in it, whether the author put them there or not. I hate ads.

And it's not just HN either, video is a very poor substitute for a well written article. Video can augment a well-written article, but it can't replace it.

Posting here for anyone who might not know this: you can click and hold on most YouTube videos and they will play at 2x. I find that to be a good test at whether the host is communicating effectively. If I can understand them perfectly clear at 2X they are talking too slowly.

I watch everything other than songs or something cinematic at 2x anyways.

Then you get things like the ATP (I can't bring myself to say ATP podcast because La Brea Tar Pits and all that) where two hosts are fine at 1.5x and the third becomes a chipmunk.

Maybe they can make Overcast have dynamic speed based on speaker.

Who of the three do you feel speaks much faster naturally?

Here's where I admit that I can't identify them - but offhand I think it was Siracusa. I know because I tried speeding up a recent episode and he started talking and I had to slow it back down.

Definitely Siracusa.

I prefer to download the video using yt-dlp and then watch at 2.5x in mpv.

Put podcasts in this category.

If you have YouTube Premium, you can use their Gemini AI to summarize videos. I've "consumed" tons more videos since I discovered it, since I can get a good idea from the summary if it's worth actually watching the video.

My overall minutes of YT have gone down, but I probably interacts with 2-3x more videos. Just like skimming on HN!

If you're Google you could transcribe and summarize all videos on upload for easier consumption, but then you lose your ad revenue so...

I ignore video posts. Why would I spend 20 minutes watching something when I can read the same in one or two minutes?

I read inhumanely fast.

The person presenting is also important. I may be interested in the topic but if I don't like the presenter or their delivery then I'm still not going to watch it. Text doesn't have this issue.

I ignore video posts because my video watching time is after-hours.

I browse HN at work in-between GH Actions runs, compiling and Claude thinking, so no time for videos.

I didn’t realise you were committing literary war crimes! Please read more humanely! Books have rights too!

No, if he reads humanely he reads slowly.

I'm not sure if you got it, that inhumanely != inhumanly. Where inhumanely is without consideration for the human race, whereas the other is non-human-like.

> I'm not sure if you got it, that inhumanely != inhumanly. Where inhumanely is without consideration for the human race, whereas the other is non-human-like.

Note they're also synonyms, so the confusion is understandable:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/inhum...

^This. I find it frustrating with how so many things seem to be moving to video, even simple instructions.

Monetization. It's incredibly hard to monetize text content, particularly these days where Google's search AI has all but killed clickthrough rates. Youtube however, that will reliably give you revenue share.

These says I just ask YouTube's AI for a summary of the video. Then I can decide whether the presenter is worth another 20 minutes of my time.

I do that too, and meditate if YouTube wounded themselves by adding that feature.

View rates must have dipped for a percentage we don't know of, but definitely made a dent.

I read at talking speed so not as much to gain with text.

That may be so, but are you skimming, or actually retaining the the things you care about? Video can have a lot more impact and staying power when it comes to things that matter in this context.

For me personally, I retain much less information from video vs reading it.

For text, I change my reading speed based on comprehension, going faster for things I know, and slower or rereading for things that are new or complicated. For video, you're expected to consume the info at the rate provided in the video, losing attention when they spend too long on info you're already finished with, and then blowing by other info that I want to spend more time considering.

There are options like adjusting video playback speed and rewinding, but that's not how video is typically consumed and is much less convenient than just altering your reading speed.

But do you comprehend it?

Agree. I almost never watch them when posted in comments. Sometimes if it’s a main article I might.

But still, there are many many HNers who binge watch YT videos all the time, and share it here, or suggest YT videos as "dive deeper" links on many topics.

I watch plenty of videos but it doesn’t coincide with my reading of HN.

Too much "Hey guys".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com