I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

Another once great channel (the loam ranger) did a deep dive into the phenomenon of why mountain bike youtubers were struggling with the old format.

Its nuanced, part safety, partly that its a tonne of work to produce good content when you can simply switch to fluff pieces like Berm Peak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNiCtWoGonw

"The Algorithm" doesn't reward hard work, imho part of the math is our short attention spans... there's only so many time you can watch someone else vlog from a sprinter in Squamish.

I'm with you on not liking shorts. I read there is a new option to limit time spent in shorts, if you set that to 0 they do go away. Have not tested it.

In what context do you get Short Form videos? I've never once been pushed to them.

I also hate YouTube Shorts. Just put them out on another website.

Luckily I use uBlock Origin and ReVanced, and I blocked all Shorts from even appearing.

Click-through rates are indeed very important, but that's not all they optimize for. They are also looking at watch time, what you do after watching the video (do you watch more videos from the same creator, or on the same subject, something totally different, or do you leave the site), whether you interact with the video by liking or commenting, channels you have subscribed to, things you have searched for, etc.

And I think that when you spend a significant amount of time watching videos on a certain subject or from a certain channel - or when you repeatedly decline to watch videos of a certain type when they are suggested - you are signaling a very clear preference.

Are the videos the algorithm serves up something that people will "derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from"? Probably not - but I also don't think that's what most people are looking for from YouTube. Sometimes, maybe, but more often they are just looking for mindless entertainment. Engaging with media on a deeper level requires effort. YouTube is where people go when even finding something to watch on Netflix is too much effort, let alone doing something healthy.

To keep this all in context - the parent comment was complaining that the algorithm doesn't promote videos of a guy building bike jumps in his back yard enough. I like Berm Peak - but is that something that most people would "derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from"? No, it's not.

Anyone who hasn't seen those videos hasn't lost out on very much. And for anyone who has spent any amount of time watching videos about bicycles on YouTube - they probably have been recommended Berm Peak videos on numerous occasions. I know I have. The guy has 2.77 million subscribers and 787 million total views on his videos. Whether or not people actually watched the videos when suggested is more likely a matter of personal choice than the algorithm doing him dirty.

Yes, modulo only that "what people like enough to keep going through the adverts" isn't exactly the same as "what they click on in a thumbnail", and the latter combines with "did these ads convince someone to get the paid ad free experience" is what YT optimises for.

You can disable suggestions and still subscribe to channels, I'd argue that's the easiest path while still keeping what you're actually interested in. If you have 200+ subscribed channels over the years it's less good, I'd just unscribe if you're not interested in it.

Yup and he talks about how it was unsustainable, and how his priorities have shifted now that he has kids. He does mention the algorithm and the introduction of shorts as something he had to compete with - but mostly he just frames the bike park as an idea that has run its course and he has grown out of.

I think that was actually Mr. Beast who said that [1]. The quote is also brought up in an interview with Rene Ritchie back when he was working for YouTube [2], and explaining what the algorithm does.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RsWJ_rq93F0

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as4I6aloi_A

I have long ago realized that I cannot buy more gear for my hobbies unless I commit to using it. I want a lot of cool gadgets, but using what I have needs more time than I put into the hobby. (I need to play mandolin several hours a day to get better, in reality I often skip days or only put in 15 minutes). It is one thing to say "I need X tool for the next step and buy the tool, but I only buy that tool if I really do use it, not because it is a gadget that looks cool (and then I have the tool). I've also found great fun in asking "how did they do this before modern tools" - often I can find an alternate path without the gear.

Old videos suddenly being heavily promoted again on YouTube is interesting. Sometimes there are obvious reasons, like this 6 year old video about the Straight of Hormuz that is recently making the rounds again [1]. Other times I think it's just the chaotic effects and constructive interference of 2.5 billion users interacting with 15 billion videos - like a rogue wave forming in the ocean.

There are two ways that I've noticed though that YouTube tends to consistently suggest older videos. One is when you first discover a new channel that you like and watch a few videos from that channel, YouTube will start recommending older videos from that channel until you've exhausted the back catalog (or lost interest).

The other way I've noticed is that when I hit the like button a video, YouTube will recommend it to me again after some time has passed. This also seems to depend on the type of video. Music videos are almost always recommended again after some time, while news videos almost never are.

I think these mechanisms are effective at driving traffic to older videos. If I look at my home page right now, most of it does tend to be newer content, but I'd estimate about 25% of it is more than a year old.

In response to your complaint about Berm Peak videos disappearing from your feed - obviously I don't know for certain, but is it possible that YouTube did suggest other Berm Peak videos after you watched a bunch of Reevo videos - but you didn't watch them? And that YouTube might have interpreted that as a lack of interest in the channel?

I've got a couple of channels that I consistently watch whenever they put out a new video. And I find that YouTube is really good about putting their videos at the top of my home page whenever a new video comes out.

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

I like Thomas Heaton for landscape photography. For gear reviews I like PetaPixel. And for tips/tutorials I think Simon d'Entremont is good.

There are a bunch of other channels out there too that I watch from time to time, but I think the above are the best in their respective categories.

different spokes for different folks :)

There was a sweet spot where there was. My road bike frame is from the 80s or 90s. It was built for downtube shifting, but now it has brifters. It has mixed shimano group parts from a maybe 2 decade span of time. Quill adapter to use modern handlebars made over the last 2 decades. Pretty standardized 8 speed stuff.

electro magnet hubs that go on a particular “ size wheel are pretty standard in the US now!

by hardware I meant the transformer to which the EL was connected.

Now instead of making the comparison with an automatic lawnmower, what would you say if I use your argument when you let a roomba vacuum your room unsupervised instead of asking the neighbor kid to sweep it a broom? This is why it is going to get real philosophical if we want to judge how lazy a person is based on the level of delegation he put on a tool.

The guy is not a software/embedded engineer. He's a bike engineer. He doesn't want to code more than needed to get his idea working. As for reverse engineering, he did plenty of it. He soldered the serial interface into the board, fired up a serial terminal, watch the output & note down the data sent through the wire for each event on the bike. Two things he used LLM for: - Work through the decompiled app & find the commands for controlling the bike - Write an app to run on the CYD.

What would be the things he would have needed to do face if he had somebody work on this project instead of Claude: - Find somebody in his close vicinity, and have him over the workshop everyday, because this project requires access to the hardware. - If he instead found somebody else with another Revo bike, they would have to collaborate really closely & replicate what each other have found to the other person's setup. All that for a vanity, 1-person project?

this is berm peak though, coding was never going to be the focus of the video

5 lines of prompt, with agents doing all the heavy lifting.

Just another abstraction layer that makes it easier for everyone.