Video title: “How to unlock the demon door on the fourth level of Demon Smasher Elite”

“Hello, video game fans! Don’t forget to like and subscribe! Last week I posted a video that isn’t relevant to this video, but I need to drag out the time on this one to game the algorithm, so I’m going to rehash and plug that video. I’m going to shout out to my Patreon subscribers with ridiculous usernames I won’t pronounce well. Now let’s get to the part you’ve waiting for: I’m going to play through the entire thirty minutes worth of level four before you get to the demon door and I will stop to make useless commentary on the bad guys you encounter. Okay, now you’ve skipped forward to what looks like the area before the demon door part of the stage, but I’m going to talk about some unrelated anecdote about this game or maybe the game devs, and then plug my Patreon account and mention a completely different game that I’ll be streaming next. Oh and here’s the five seconds of the video you wanted to see when I tell you to click the right mouse button on the hidden lever next to the demon door in order to open it, except you aren’t seeing it because you skipped forward too far and gave up. Don’t forget to like and subscribe! This video has been brought to you by Nord VPN.”

Drives me crazy when I see this kind of format for things like programming. Nothing like pausing the video and trying to see what their code says.

1996 is on the latter end of what I consider the early internet, but I really miss the Video Game FAQ Archive (GameFAQs) which was murdered by a thousand cuts culminating in the death of the gamefaqs.com domain. FAQs used to be so good, these days the same information is dispersed over 50 pages of an HTML “guide” that is more ads than information, and often for less complete information, if it’s not just a YouTube video that’s even worse and shows you things but doesn’t explain them at all.

Wikihow is pretty good. Most offer a written and illustrated article as well as a video

Same. I missed those days where you can just control F to the part of the page and get the info you wanted. Now it’s wait for 2 ads to play, scroll through the intro and then a bunch of scrubbing to find it.

Has writing really become that hard to do?

It’s probably more to do with discoverability and monetization. I’m generalizing a ton, but I feel like there isn’t even a ton of super useful YouTube tutorials outside of beginner content because that gets the most views.

YES, this is such a peeve for me!!! I’ve developed an aversion to viewing video content unless it’s for something I truly need to see done. And even then, I’m more likely to check wikihow and endure their gifs than I am to watch someone’s video. It’s just so overdone.

@bstix Yes. Also when you’re blind, software tutorials in particular are either 15 minutes of nothing but music, or someone going “to do x thing, all you need to do is click this button, drag this slider to here, click this until it says this, type this into there, and you’re done.”

@bstix

YES. And when you find a written version you have to scroll past a mile of backstory to get to the point.

@bstix @Provider 👏👏👏👏

I have resorted to going to the YouTube video page and reading the garbled bot translation underneath because it’s still better than sitting through a video with a bunch of filler.

@bstix damn, I thought I was alone with this. It’s incredibly frustrating that everything is a bloody YouTube. My theory is that people dream of those €€€s coming in from viewers.

@bstix @Provider Strongly endorsed. For me, watching a video is possibly the least-effective way to learn how to do something. Learn to write or find someone to write for you if you want me to use your stuff.

@bstix soon will be very hard to find written ones that aren’t done by AI and full of dubious info.

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@bstix @Provider same for most other written content. Everything is a Podcast these days … very annoying as you can’t search for content in those …

@bstix @Provider God yes. I recently bought a bottle of rum that has a ridiculous ball valve built into the neck so my first attempt to pour it yielded nothing. Googled it & a YT video came up—something ridiculous like 7 minutes or longer—that could have been handled by a single sentence on the label. (Or better yet, not using a ball valve)

@bstix @Provider

Well, we write detail rich, history filled, alternative versions presented tutorials and how tos all the time on CoffeeGeek.

They can be found here:

https://www.coffeegeek.com/guide/howtos/

@bstix @Provider Chances are three video doesn’t contain the answer anyway. It’s all about monetizing your tech support needs.

@bstix @TechEnthusiast 100% This is especially annoying when I’m trying to find out how to do something in Python or whatever programming language I happen to be playing with. I am blind and use a screen reader. If the text is written, I can review word by word, line by line, character by character, ETC. This is important when trying to learn programming.

I love Whisper for this. Turns these videos into nice transcripts that I can search through.

@bstix It’s that writing doesn’t earn money like YT does. :(

@bstix @Provider Writing was always hard for most technical people. Technical writing was always a nightmare to read. Noone has ever cared about language.

Bad Videos are just easier to produce than bad written docs, and they don’t reflect back to you as bad as bad written docs do.

@bstix 💯 embedded videos forced to fit into 256x256 pixels where you can’t read shit.

@bstix

OMFG this so much. Especially since most tutorials are ponderously slow and tedious. At the other extreme, are the ones with no subtitles and no sound where you are expected to follow a cursor flying around the screen clicking on things and are supposed to understand what happens. Those in particular should die in a fire.

@bstix @Provider This! I’m not sure who is more at fault. Is it that writers don’t want to write or that readers don’t want to read (causing writers to shift from writing)? Either way it is torture. I’m a fast reader. Videos go at their own agonizing pace. Who thought this was a good idea???

@bstix @Provider
Totally agree, it’s awful. I recently noticed that the YouTube android app seems to have built in auto-transcription that is often (but not always) searchable. I haven’t been able to find this on the desktop webpage, only on the mobile app.

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@bstix @Provider

I hate YouTube tutorials. Because I can read a lot faster than the tutorials can speak.
I am also perplexed by the rise of audio books. It is not a good idea for a driver of an automobile to listen to an audio book. Otherwise I do not see the point

@bstix
And wondering why you need X or Y that doesnt relate to what youre doing only to find out it was a commercial 🙃
@Provider @rhinocratic

@bstix @Provider I was trying to work through an online class on Python, and every hour video included ten minutes of encouraging the viewer to keep at it, and five minutes of lame puns. The actual instruction was fine, but text would have been much easier.

@bstix @Provider I’ve been a programmer for over a decade. I inevitably spend part of every day searching the web for very specific or very general problems. Not once have I watched a video to find those answers. There is nothing more boring than watching someone else write a todo list app (seriously, stop making these) for exactly 10:01 minutes.

@bstix

I know what you mean. “-site:youtube.com” has become part of a lot of my Google searches.

@bstix @Provider it really makes it hard to learn at your own pace. Rewinding the same part of a tutorial video over and over again to get what a particular section is saying is just tedious compared to a quick Alt+Tab to reread a paragraph.

Yeah, you could skim pages, or read thoroughly, search in the text, easily jump back to the previous paragraph to skim a bit again, google (or DDG) for terms you remember from an article to find it again, etc.

Not just tutorials, I enjoyed reading tech or product reviews, like the original Anandtech when Anand was there, that all seems to be going the way of obnoxious youtubers.

@bstix @Provider I read considerably faster than people talk, so written information is a lot faster for me to get. Written tutorials are way better too because you can easily re-read difficult parts.

@bstix The ones that annoy me are the youTube videos that are text on the video but just a music overlay… no verbal instructions at all and since Ic an’t see the video period it is useless to me.

@bstix @Provider @gvwilson writing is as hard as it ever was, but monetization of ad-hoc tutorial content is far easier and more lucrative on youtube. People are literally being paid to pollute your search results with video.

I’m actually optimistic; I think eventually youtube will face too much flak for this kind of garbage, it’ll start affecting viewership, they’ll tweak the algorithm or the partner program to punish bad tutorials and there’ll be a renaissance of the written stuff.

@bstix @Provider I love Instructables.com

@bstix A friend once said “videos are for marketing; text is for instruction” and it made it all make sense.

@bstix@feddit.dk @Provider@feddit.de

Written tutorials are not hard to do, but before I tell you what they are, just a reminder to like and subscribe to this post, it really helps me out.

Now let’s dive in!

Written tutorials are just not as easy to “monetize”

@bstix @Provider @benjiweber

You also can’t “copy and paste” code from their video screen.

@bstix @Provider Same. I hate video tutorials. I play a lot of video games and sometimes I need to look something up, which sometimes means I get lucky and someone has written a decent walkthrough down, but often times means I have to start and stop a damn video over and over and over to get the information at the pace I need.

@bstix @Provider

It seems so, and this is not good because many times written tutorials (including technical ones) are better.

@bstix @Provider
Heard on NPR this morning, that UNESCO has declared “computer learning” ineffectual. It goes with a study I read some years back that showed that retention is poor when reading from a computer screen instead of textbooks containing the same information. Physiologically speaking (brain function), a textbook provides tactile and spatial memory “hooks” that the sameness of a computer screen does not, that enable superior recall at a physical level. “Muscle memory” if you will.

Has writing really become that hard to do?

The cynic in me says yes.

@bstix @Provider hear hear. Fucking video tutorials… they always skip over the one tiny thing you need to know …

@bstix @Provider I can’t see any of the responses (must be a mastodon thing) but I can tell you that this not the first time I’ve seen this complaint and it has had an impact: I had several tutorials to produce this summer and planned on doing them as videos. As the summer approached I saw comments like this and switched to blog posts instead. So, I just wanted to let you know you’re not shouting into the void.

@bstix @Provider it drives me insane that I can’t type text into a box and have an article come back to me. I’ve found videos that explained a thing beautifully, and then I can never find it again because the phrase I remember wasn’t in the tags.

@bstix @Provider not to mention the dreadful wait to see whether this tutorial is even applicable to your situation 🥴​

or when something is updated but you still only find videos about the old version because videos can’t be edited after the fact 🥴​🥴​🥴​

This is one oft the longest Threads I’ve eher Seen in lemmy.

@bstix @Provider sometimes I want a video to walk me through it and *still* get irritated by trying to drop it in exactly the right spot 50x to execute the steps. . . Give me written instructions any day. And link to the damn video.

@bstix couldn’t agree more!

Most of my students preferred video, even if with very few exceptions slides + text was better for them (for the stuff we did).

Also *good* video takes forever to make, good text+image tutorials slightly less forever but the search is much easier!

@bstix

Worst I remember was a printer Manual that explains the error codes. As Slides, in a video. So you cannot even really google it.

@Provider

@bstix @Provider video is better for certain things, but does not replace a written tutorial at all. If anything, they complement each other.

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@bstix
I couldn’t agree more. I want a manual. A text. But I don’t think it’s writing that’s become hard to do - a lot of people just really hate to read.

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@bstix @Provider I wish the videos would all simply have the written directions in the description so regardless of how a person absorbs best it’s there.

@bstix @Provider I’m dyslexic and even I can’t stand these Youtube tutorials. The irony is probably that the script they write to make said tutorial is likely many times more useful than the tutorial itself, just because it’s a video…

@bstix @Provider

Oh gosh, this! I am way better at picking up what is relevant to me in a text article while scanning a text than waiting for thing to happen in a video. It’s so infuriating sometimes. Also, video streaming is using so much data that I would rather not do it when I am using mobile internet… So yeah, bring back text based tutorials…

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@bstix @Provider I was one of the guys who used to write those, for Microsoft and others. I was at Microsoft when the boom dropped and most and most written documentation projects in favor of minimal on line help files and CBT (pre-video scripted feature demonstrations. The project (the Word for Windows technical manual) was shuffled to Microsoft Press, which didn’t want it, leaving me in the middle. Fun.

@bstix @Provider Trying to copy snippets of code to try / adapt out of the video sucks as well. I often don’t need/want to download an entire sample project from a link in the description.
Plus, given time constraints, I occasionally try to grab a few moments for tutorials while hanging out with family, sitting at a restaurant, or whatever else, so I’d have to watch videos muted as well.
Definitely always look for written form.

@bstix @Provider Agree, provisionally. I mean, I do a lot of stuff where the visual element makes a great big honking difference & if someone tries to describe it in words & aren’t absolutely amazing at it, meaning can get really lost in written directions.

On the other hand I absolutely adore the printed how-to book that came with my 50’s sewing machine & it is, in fact, very meticulous in describing the physical situation (OK, it also has some drawings) 😊

@bstix best example ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ZTGpRMU04

@bstix
@Provider @bursaar Agreed! There’s no CTRL+F on a video, either!

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@bstix @Provider oh god I hate it when I try to look something up and the only thing I can find is some awkward person going “so uh, you uh, click on this and then, uh, type uh that.” Like why can’t they just type somewhere in a blog or forum or something “type X in a console”?

@bstix everyone wants to be a movie star

@bstix @Provider I’m guessing a big part of it is that writing blog posts doesn’t pay ad revenue these days. Also most text tutorials are drowned out by algospam and your content will probably get scraped and reposted with better SEO and worse ads the moment it’s out. :/

@bstix @Provider
Same, I prefer written instructions for most things. I don’t want to keep pausing, rewinding. That’s fine for work tasks, when I’m learning a new method, technique. Still lame to do the pause/rewind, but that’s necessary when it has to be hands-on.

@bstix @Provider Writing doesn’t pay. Youtube does, or at least can.

@bstix @Provider this ^

@bstix not hard, just hard to monetize

Yeah I hate that shit. I think it has something to do with monetizing on YouTube, has to be a certain length or somesuch

@bstix @Provider This and onobstrusive javascript.

@bstix @Provider I cannot express how much I agree with this :D

@bstix @Provider dumbed down from the “Pivot to Video”.

@bstix @JenWojcik Agreed, life’s too short to watch people’s tedious meandering videos.

@bstix @Provider I couldn’t agree more. Stop wasting our time with videos when well-written tutorial is way better.

@bstix @Provider it’s harder to stuff ads in written docs 🤮

@bstix @Provider I feel like they’ve caught on because cookie notices/inline ads are more annoying than youtube ads

@bstix @Provider A 3 minute video where someone shows you how to change your car’s headlights does tend to be better than a text description.

But it’s no longer a 3 minute video. It’s 25 minutes with a 5 minute sponsor segment, 15 minutes of faffing about, 3 minutes to plug pateron, 1 minute of intro and outro, and then 1 minute where they show the changing of the lightbulb but they cut away to a wide shot so the host can be shown clowning around and you can’t tell what he did.

@bstix @Provider it’s easier to monetize a YouTube channel?

@bstix @WideAperture true that. “I’m a visual learner “ is all well and good, but why not cut to the chase, with your eyes? 🤷

@bstix you’re absolutely not the only one

@bstix @Provider I also prefer text tutorials too. Only this way I can skim through the contents and find what I need quickly.

@bstix @Provider “Has writing really become that hard to do?” Yes, reading is harder now for them, so you can imagine how hard writing is. Not only that, for the newest generations even watching a long video can be hard, what would explain the success of tiktoks, reels and all that crap.
Even worse, in a short time, if not already, AIs will read for them and will explain as if we were 5 year-old kids.

@bstix @Provider
Ugh yes I completely agree.
Especially when you have to pause the video to see the exact command being typed, and then you have to manually re-type the same (complex) command, rather than being able to cut-and-paste. ☹️☹️☹️

@bstix @Provider @stuartl yes unfortunately.

https://flameeyes.blog/2021/10/05/reader-is-dead-but-what-about-writers/

(Don’t get me started on bad video tutorials https://flameeyes.blog/2017/11/29/are-tutorials-to-blame-for-basic-it-problems/)

@bstix @Provider

I’m with ya here. I should have the option to, not HAVE to, watch a video on something. I’d rather skim text.

@Provider @bstix I’d add that for some topics, most of the top results on YouTube are poorly edited spoken versions of the docs. = audience traps

@bstix @Provider
Do both.

A written tutorial is quick to skimm for those that know, what they don’t know.

But if you don’t really know, what you need to know, a video can be life savior. I’m sure you’ve tried desperately to figure out, where that exact setting is located, when the written tutorial is a bit vague about it. Or the system has changed, since it was made.

@bstix @Provider People are still writing, but that isn’t what Google wants to show you.

@bstix @Provider SAME!
I don’t want to watch a video. I want something I can read in 60 seconds so I can move on.

@bstix @Provider I don’t mind some video tutorials. When you’re learning a specific technique or it’s a more thinky thing, sure. When I’m trying to configure a device/program, or doing builds for characters in a game, yeh, it’s bloody annoying.

I’m just thankful the cooking world still relies on written recipes. To the point that almost all recipe articles have a “jump to recipe” button these days. Hell, any video of a recipe worth its salt has a link to a written recipe 😆

@bstix @Provider And you can’t Ctrl-F a video to quickly find relevant bits.

Chances of the creator utilising the chapter markings (just edit in timestamps in the description) are slim for these things.

@bstix I have watched some very good video tutorials on how to do stuff in Excel and how to make things in wood. But I agree that it does depend a lot on the person doing the video, and the majority are really bad and to be avoided

@bstix @Provider
Such an incredibly loud AMEN to this!! 😡😡😡

@bstix @Provider beside the adv’s I love these tutorials on YouTube as this is the perfect way for an Dyslect #youtube # tutorials #dislexia

@bstix @Provider same here.

@bstix @Provider Totally agree. And the bad vocal cords hurt my ears. 👂 🙉

@bstix ☝☝☝☝ THIS!! THIS!! THIS!! THIS!! THIS!! THIS!! 💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

@bstix @Provider

Or how they waste your valuable time begging you to subscribe, click the bell, become a patreon supporter, which really is just padding to get the time past a certain point for monentization, and they also need the subs to achieve that goal.

@bstix @Provider Half of it is SEO garbage and no substance. The other half is written by people who’re apparently completely incompetent.

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@bstix @Provider Agree. However, written manuals don’t generate revenue for the maker (and Google).

I used an installation technicians’ manual today to troubleshoot one of my heating/cooling thermostats. The manual was smaller than A4, printed double-sided in a small font with small pics. It contained a busload of useful information. For the makers of such devices, enabling technicians to use and troubleshoot them easily, massively improvers their market adaptation and number of support calls.

@bstix @Provider Flip side: I started a project to teach people obscure skateboard tricks (blatant plug: www.freestyletricktips.com). I wanted to cover both sides, so I made videos, took screenshots from them, and made a website to write detailed information that was easily skimmable, searchable and translatable.

Something like 90% of the audience go straight to Youtube - and then ask questions covered on the website! It’s maddening.

@bstix @Provider 😂👍

@bstix I usually run youtube tutorials through https://github.com/obra/Youtube2Webpage to convert them to a usable format.

@bstix @Provider For a number of years I went into writing those after market user manuals but the market for those collapsed too. Nobody wants to pay for written docs any more, ESPECIALLY the people who make the software. YouTube is the major outlet now.

@bstix @Provider Totally agree!

@bstix I agree, but note that YouTube pays people who create popular tutorials, something that was never as lucrative for people writing

@bstix @Provider Yes!

YES!

@bstix @Provider I miss the writing, too.

@bstix @Provider no, writing has always been hard. However, a video is easily monetized whereas a text post is not.

Welcome to late stage capitalism.

@bstix @Provider I always skip those. Indeed terrible and useless.

@bstix God, I feel this. It doesn’t help that many written tutorials have been ceded to sites with sketchy or flat out wrong information.

@bstix @Andrewhinton So say we olds.

@bstix @Provider

“Has writing really become that hard to do?” According to Grammarly, it has! 😒

Other video peeves: background music too loud, person in vid trying to be a comedian, insufficiently rehearsed (“Umm, er, uhh, now take this wire and uhh … what was I doing? … umm … how come this isn’t working? …”), etc.

@bstix @Provider Yes, this! Youtube tutorial starts with music and graphics, then some mumbling around, “don’t forget to subscribe and like the channel,” then some trying to be funny, THEN the information starts to come but I’m already mad by that point.

@bstix i totally agree with that. videos are ok if they demonstrate how to do manual things like repairing a bike chain or drilling holes or even cooking things. but with cooking the usefulness of videos ends. mostly a written receipt is much better, more informative and faster to get than a 20 minute video of how to make pancakes. and videos that imitate computer tutorials are absolute nonsense. maybe for repair work like switching ram or installing some hardware, but even then i’d prefer a written instruction. you can’t really fast forward videos but you can easily skim a text or search for special words in it.

@bstix @Provider i think i like a mix of both, a written tutorial with a video just in case you cant understand something, tho yeah it’s becoming harder and harder to find a written one, thats why usually i just go to the comments and seek if someone has the same problem as me LOL

@bstix @Provider it would be great to have the best of both worlds: written instructions supplemented by short videos of the most complicated steps. By short, I mean a minute at most— probably no longer than 30 seconds in most cases, only illustrating a single step.

@bstix Sometimes it really is easier to show than to tell. Video tutorials make a lot of sense for navigating complex bike maintenance procedures. Much easier than reading the documentation provided by SRAM, for example.

@bstix
As a technical writer, I can’t agree more. Video tutorials are time sinks for most topics. I absorb a lot more information if it’s text I can refer back to.

@bstix @Provider Yes, but you can slap 4 ads on a 8 minute YouTube video that should fit in a toot

@bstix @Provider

channel intro
sponsor message
some facts
like & subscribe
more facts
outro

@bstix this, but also sometimes I do need the video tutorial for certain things

@bstix @Provider As someone whose brain makes no sense of visually presented information, I empathize; as someone who tries to teach writing to college first-years: Yes.

@bstix I don’t think it’s because writing things is hard but people have become increasingly passive. Why sit down and read for an hour when you can just have someone explain it to you in only 15 minutes

@bstix @Provider The Advantages of #Text-Based Information Versus #Videos, #Audio or #Images
https://karl-voit.at/2022/01/08/text-vs-video-audio-images/

#youtube #insta #podcasts #tiktok

@bstix @Provider I’m going to guess it has to do with monetization, but I 100% agree.

@bstix totally agree… transcripts are like the only other option or setting the video speed playback really fast…

@bstix @Provider I really dislike video tutorials, when I can read the same content in much less time. I always wind up taking notes, since that way I can remember what was said.

Other thoughts (from the days of tape)- fast forward, or speed up play time. Then pause, and take screenshots.

@bstix @daviddlevine 💯 And you didn’t even include text searchable!

@bstix @hugo has AI not yet reached the point where it can watch video tutorials and provide a written summary. I mean, not just a transcript, but actually *watch* it describe the visual aspects effectively in the form of a step-by-step howto?

@bstix That’s the wrong question. Putting tutorials online instead of providing printed tutorials is one of the ways organizations cut corners and cut costs. Now, watch people normalize their experience by responding to you, “YouTube provides transcripts!” And they do (go to a video, click the three dots icon under video on right, see “Show Transcript” link) but a transcript isn’t usually written by a professional tech writer.

@bstix @Provider

Then there’s the utterly bizarre way that people feel compelled to have lift muzak playing in the background while they speak…

@bstix
This!!

I read faster, than I show video.

@Provider @boris

@bstix @Provider Not hard to do, but hard to monetise.

@bstix @Provider written is bad now too. try looking up a recipe. you are assaulted with ads, and a long useless story while trying to get to the actual data.

@bstix @Provider Yes, here a discussion https://forum.waarneming.nl/index.php/topic,505255.msg2568877.html#new about the document manual

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@bstix @Provider I’m so glad I’m not the only one!

@bstix @Provider This is why I almost always have a written version on my site and a Youtube video.

@bstix @Provider I agree 100% , I hate watching long videos for everything instead of a short read.

@bstix @Provider

@bstix @Provider for programming/ game dev / graphics, check out https://blog.demofox.org :)

@bstix @Provider

I try to play YouTube videos at 1.5 speed for this reason.

@bstix @Provider writing isn’t any more difficult, but the switch happened when YouTube views started paying more than banner ad impressions.

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@bstix @Provider agreed. I think it’s an overused format for material that can be more efficiently and still be accessibly presented in text, but it does get the views (and by extension, ad revenue).

Still, Ctrl + F FTW.

@bstix I HATE written tutorials. They have their place but I’d rather someone physically show me something than me reading up on it and oh I did it wrong cause I don’t understand what they meant.Videos can be slower but they are more clear on what to do and how to do. I can’t get a frame of reference from a text description.

@bstix I MUCH prefer to read tutorials/manuals that watch videos, for pretty much similar ratings to those you raise.

@bstix @Provider writing doesn’t monetize as lushly as videos

The worst are the videos that are little more than a Windows desktop and a syntesized voice of a tutorial that could be written. Additional negative points for instructions writen on Notepad on the screen on that video.

@bstix I use YouTube for product reviews sometimes but I almost always prefer the worn manual for ‘how-tos’

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@bstix @Provider
I generally prefer written instructions over video, too. Talking heads especially, no thanks.

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@bstix @Provider I tend to put the subtitle on. It’s easier then to find the relevant piece of information.

@bstix @Provider

I’ve gotten very frustrated with Blender YT tutorials for this very reason. There are a view good tutors out there who also provide written, internally linked e-books for a price that I’m happy to pay. Also another few tutors whose narration is clean and fully documents every click, that provide transcripts.

A pox on the #meshwithme types that speed through complicated builds at 2x speed with music and no screencast keys.

@bstix @Provider There are times & situations when a video demonstration of how something is done is very useful, but for the most part clear, well-written instructions w/ a clear illustration/diagram or two beats having to watch someone sell their YouTube channel for 10 mins before they breeze thru 2 mins of poorly filmed instructions.

(Also: why do people think it’s necessary to insert painfully unfunny animations, sound effects, etc to keep viewers entertained in a video <10-mins long?)

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@bstix @Provider Absolutely this.

@bstix @Provider Writing’s not harder to do - rather, publishing good video content requires a bunch of expensive equipment and editing software _in addition to_ the writing (you can’t publish decent video content without writing a script…).

But writing is harder to monetize.

I miss when people put their stuff out there without angling for ad revenue.

@bstix YouTube offers free hosting and a social network with a powerful search engine. I don’t know of any coding website that offers free tutorial hosting for any level of programmer/developer with anything similar to the robust visibility of YouTube. Stack Overflow is the closest analog, but it’s a question-based website, not an answer-forward tutorial website.