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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

> Its also not eating traditional TV. You don't sit down to watch a series on youtube. There is no such thing as longform youtube. There are no profitable 30minute episodic videos on youtube that aren't pirated.

Minecraft UHC (ultra hardcore) competitions are one example of longform youtube series. Each episode is 20 to 30 minutes; you'd probably watch a couple of different people.

I assume bigger channels make money from doing it.

I'm currently watching LapisDemon (associated with the now broken ZipKrowd server) and Xisuma (Hermitcraft) playing as a team and I dip in and out of other viewpoints.

This definitely reduces the amount of telly I watch.

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Is that a good thing, though? I'm not a gamer, and there are times when I take a break from YouTube and Reddit because it can be difficult to discover new content without the results being dominated by gaming (especially Minecraft).

To an outsider performing random searches, it would seem our civilization is based on games, guns, fingernail polish and BDSM.

I make no judgement. Parent post said you don't get serial content on youtube, and that's just false. You do.

If you like watching Minecraft it's great - there are thousands of hours on YouTube.

FWIW Once you start watching something YT tends to recommend more of the same.

Watching this "World's smallest v12 engine" video leads me to more engine engineering videos, no Minecraft in sight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3KdpzL3Hkk

>There are no profitable 30minute episodic

By episodic TV I mean drama, comedy, traditional TV format. Stuff that people are prepared to pay for (see netflix et al.)

Broadcasting sports is super cheap, and has little value for anything other than tier 1 events. (the expense is the rights management, something that games broadcasting has yet to really encounter.) Also note that like I said, its a niche thing, which limits its profitability. Niches always exist.

Also note the profitable. Channel4 in the UK used to deliver its catchup TV via youtube. Despite the heavy promoting it failed to get more than a few hundred thousand views across the entire library.

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