[HN Gopher] Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making...
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Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]
Author : Philpax
Score : 628 points
Date : 2024-01-01 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Godspeed, Tom Scott (and thanks for your help on POPFile all
| those years ago).
| chris_wot wrote:
| What's the story there?
| mhasbini wrote:
| Tom Scott was an early contributor to POPFile.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| As a teenager Tom Scott helped write the documentation for
| POPFile. By chance he interviewed me years later on stage at
| some conference and just before we went on stage he told me
| that some of his very first contributions to anything on the
| Internet were to POPFile documentation. I had no idea.
|
| https://getpopfile.org/docs/welcome
| user_7832 wrote:
| Huh, that really feels like one of those "small world"
| occurrences. Interesting to think about.
| wcarss wrote:
| I've learned a great deal from him over this time. Thanks Tom!
| junon wrote:
| End of an era. I knew this was coming and it still was a shock to
| see it hit my feed today.
|
| Best of luck on everything Tom Scott!
| skywal_l wrote:
| You'll be missed. Each video was interesting, fun and well made.
|
| I recommend to anyone to have a look at the backlog, especially
| the series about linguistics inspired by the "lingthusiasm"
| podcast.
| mtmail wrote:
| Well deserved. The amount of travel he's done was crazy. I'll
| still listen to the Lateral podcast and whatever he'll come up
| with in the future.
| orenlindsey wrote:
| Tom Scott has been one of the best YouTube creators ever. He
| deserves a break.
| djmips wrote:
| I agree with his self assesment. I liked many of his videos but
| many I also found disagreable and opinionated without much of a
| sound argument. Sounds like he doesn't like those videos either.
| All in all, his videos are heads and shoulders above most of
| YouTube and I wish him well.
| kioshix wrote:
| One of my favourite youtubers, a well-deserved break.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| What struck me was "it's either keep growing and become a manager
| or stop and do smaller projects"
|
| As someone who many years back looked at a team of 40 developers
| I was leading and went "nah, I want to be an IC again" that
| resonates
| mooreds wrote:
| Same same. I get the desire to manage more folks (status,
| money, org impact, joy of mentoring) but the ability to see
| what you directly build help solve problems... Well, that's
| hard to beat.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there. He said that he uploads
| a video every week which is a brisk pace. Why not a video every
| month? Every quarter?
|
| Perhaps he really just wants a break and this explanation
| sounded the most reasonable. But I hope he didn't get burned
| out because he was afraid of switching things up.
| jacooper wrote:
| Well, smaller could also mean moving this project to a
| monthly basis.
| Kye wrote:
| Some YouTubers did this quietly. hbomberguy and
| Contrapoints come to mind. Fewer videos, more
| unscripted/lightly scripted stuff like streams, podcasts,
| and collaborations.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I don't think it matters what you buy. He just doesn't want a
| schedule, I think he explained it pretty well.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| Sometimes we don't really understand why we do things until
| later. No need to be passive aggressive.
| kevingadd wrote:
| The algorithm on YouTube strongly favors a fast upload
| cadence, so that would lower the profit on his videos most
| likely
| charcircuit wrote:
| The algorithm does not care about upload cadence. At worst
| it breaks viewer's habits of watching someone's videos
| despite the viewer not actually enjoying it. Or with the
| extra time they have they find someone who can make better
| videos. There are plenty of examples of successful
| youtubers like Mr Beast who can go months between uploads
| and still perform well.
| mixdup wrote:
| he specifically said he doesn't care if what he does in the
| future is "less" in terms of views and reach
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there.
|
| Not everything is more than it seems. Its ten long years of
| uploading weekly. Thats hard graft.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| It's really not a stretch to think maybe it would have been
| a good idea to change up his schedule instead of doing the
| same thing for 10 years.
| mixdup wrote:
| >I'm not sure I buy his reasoning there. He said that he
| uploads a video every week which is a brisk pace. Why not a
| video every month? Every quarter?
|
| Yeah, this immediately came to mind for me as well. There's
| nothing set in stone that his production has to be weekly. He
| could move to monthly, or whatever. It doesn't even have to
| be a schedule, just whenever the next thing is ready push it.
| Which, he did leave the door open to but he also definitely
| seemed to couch this whole thing in "I'm completely done". It
| is a little weird, but of course he's free to do it how he
| wants
|
| Although, he's not quitting completely and retiring, as he is
| still going to do all the other stuff (podcasts, other
| channels, etc) so maybe he's just shifting into different
| types of content, which is fine
| schiffern wrote:
| >There's nothing set in stone
|
| It's not about setting in stone, it's about setting a goal.
| That means something to some people. >he's
| just shifting into different types of content, which is
| fine
|
| He wasn't waiting for your permission. ;-)
| namtab00 wrote:
| maybe it's about being able to adequately pay his team, which
| might require posting regularly to insure a steady income for
| payroll...
| ysavir wrote:
| He definitely could, but I imagine his immediate goal is to
| manage expectations, and making sure no one is disappointed.
|
| Leaving it as he did, he's open to do anything he wants:
| upload monthly, upload in indeterminate times, never
| uploading again, etc. And no one will feel let down or
| deceived.
|
| If he said he'll start doing monthly, but then finds that he
| much prefers not doing the primary Tom Scott stuff at all,
| many people looking forward to those monthly videos will be
| let down.
|
| If there's one thing that I feel comfortable saying about Tom
| Scott (as a casual viewer, at least), is that he likes doing
| right by people. I doubt anyone, including he, knows what to
| expect will be next, and the best thing he can do for his
| audience is to set an expectation that there ought to be no
| expectations. Let any surprises be surprises for the better,
| and let him have the peace of mind that he can do what he
| wants without feeling external pressure to deliver.
| al_borland wrote:
| I was lucky to have a boss who let me dip my toe into the water
| of management. I dealt with a team of 10, I was formerly a IC
| on, and they required very little effort. After a year I
| decided to go back to being an IC as well. I was glad I was
| able to see I didn't want to do it when the stakes were low and
| the team was actually easy to manage. It also gave me some more
| empathy for those in those management roles.
|
| Interestingly, back in YouTube land, Matt D'Avella also just
| announced he got rid of his team and is back to doing things
| himself. He fell into that trap of thinking he needed to hire a
| team and scale a few years back, then found himself as a
| manager and wasn't happy. It's good Tom was able to see the
| paths ahead to avoid the headaches and layoffs when he
| ultimately decided he didn't like it.
| graypegg wrote:
| Tom Scott's work stands out as some of the best examples of how
| interesting and valuable web content can be. In a sea of short
| derivative junk-food content, he made things that i honestly
| learned from, without demanding more than 10 minutes of my time a
| week! There's of course a lot of people also doing the same sort
| of great content, but it does feel like a slowly dying breed. Tom
| definitely deserves an indefinite break though. If/when he goes
| back to short form web video, I'll be happy to watch again! :)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I agree! But the thing is-- I've got about fifty Tom Scotts in
| my subscription list. I'm perplexed by doomsaysers' laments
| about the state of online educational media. I've got far more
| high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I've
| ever had before.
|
| My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds
| one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of
| garbage. You'll likely perceive quality as having gone way
| down. In a limited sense, sure: it might be in the way. But it
| didn't replace the good stuff.
| phillryu wrote:
| Yeah but the burden is now on you to sift through the garbage
| to find the good stuff, especially since it's mostly mixed
| together in recommendations or search results etc. It feels
| more limited to me the other way around, like yes we have
| added some more good stuff, but good luck finding it.
|
| If my favorite hobby store kept on expanding and expanding
| and the ratio of great stuff to garbage kept going down, I
| would definitely perceive the overall quality as being well
| into some death spiral.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| This affects the other end too.
|
| Quality niche creators are partially motivated (and
| sometimes supported) by viewers. The bigger the sea of
| garbage they are swimming against, the less inclined they
| will be to start or continue.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| People are motivated by viewers, but once it gets above a
| certain amount I think it becomes a different motivation.
| When I write things on reddit on a specific topic
| subreddit that have few posts in it, and those things get
| a few upvotes, I am more motivated to continue than posts
| in huge subs which get boatloads of upvotes. Because in
| order to get those one or two important ones, you need to
| know something specific and valuable, but to get
| thousands you have to find a way to appeal to a lot of
| people in a broad way.
|
| Trying to chase the broad appeal will lead, in my
| experience, to a downslide where content gets less and
| less useful and more pop-culture oriented, or it becomes
| outright fraud or manipulation.
| kbenson wrote:
| Is it really on you to sort and sift, or is it on you to
| find a good guide? In the hobby store example, there are
| other people around to ask, and I think that is similar as
| well.
|
| The future is more content, not less, so finding mechanisms
| to cope with that is well worth the effort.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Not exactly. Assuming the number of people in the hobby
| store didn't grow exponentially, you would be completely
| empty in your favorite isle, most of the time.
| bombcar wrote:
| And the guides do increase in the 5 crappy to 1 good
| ratio also. Eventually it's infinite crap even thought
| there is gold in there.
| kbenson wrote:
| But you aren't, because there's really only a few stores,
| not thousands, so people congregate at the same ones, and
| if there's nobody in those aisles continuously, they stop
| getting stocked (people create less content if nobody
| consumes it).
|
| The problem is almost never that there's nobody in your
| aisle, it's about finding the right way to connect with
| them. There are numerous ways to do this. Even just
| leaving a comment on a video asking a question or
| responding to someone else's comment. That's about as low
| effort as you can get, but actually works.
| j-bos wrote:
| Youtube makes it pretty easy for me. The algorithm
| recommends videos nd channels, and I say 'not interested'
| to the garbage, the result: a high quality subscription
| tab.
| qup wrote:
| I do the same thing, but they just show me more garbage.
|
| My "subscriptions" tab is pretty good, though.
| tstrimple wrote:
| There seems to be a few topics which will cause your
| recommendations to spiral into conspiracy theory nonsense
| pretty quickly. Unfortunately you've got to be very
| careful with any gun content in YouTube as they almost
| always lead to bullshit in your feed.
| jebarker wrote:
| This has always been the case since the printing press
| practically. There's always been way too much quality
| 'content' to manage and you have to sift your way through
| it. What has changed is that everything is now at our
| fingertips and we expose ourselves to the recommendation
| feed. I guess I'm saying that the problem hasn't changed,
| just our awareness of it.
| georgesimon wrote:
| Are those fifty Tom Scotts all competing with each other to
| become 'experts of the week' on the same topics in slightly
| different ways? (that's what my 5 or 6 Tom Scotts do)
|
| I wish YouTube channels could be viable by following the
| Periodic Videos model - stick to a single domain but keep it
| fresh by improving on old content.
| graypegg wrote:
| Dr. Brady Haran really hit this perfect balance with his
| channels. Each one has a perfect niche.
| graypegg wrote:
| That's a good point, it's the absolute numbers that give a
| bad impression. I think the main thing tainting my feeling
| about the whole situation is TikTok/Reels/Shorts content.
| Feels like the sort of video I like just can't exist in that
| sort of format, and it's a pretty over-emphasized format
| currently. (at least in the YouTube app)
|
| still though, so many cool and interesting things to learn
| online from interesting folks! :)
| JoBrad wrote:
| I've also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love
| his content. I've put a few others that I enjoy below, that
| also produce what I consider to be high quality and
| entertaining content. Mind sharing any others?
|
| Nile Red
|
| Nick Zentner
|
| Practical Engineering
|
| Real Engineering
|
| Ivan Miranda
|
| Joe Makes
|
| Tom Stanton
|
| Veritasium
|
| Numberphile
|
| Deep Sky Videos
|
| Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady's channels are great)
|
| 3Blue1Brown
|
| CGP Grey
|
| Undecided with Matt Ferrell
|
| The B1M
|
| Kurzgesagt
|
| Scott Manley
|
| PBS Space Time
|
| Deep Look
|
| Looking Glass Universe
|
| Institute of Human Anatomy
|
| Smarter Every Day
|
| Be Smart (formerly Its OK to be smart)
|
| I've also recently started watching Scam Nation, which is a
| walkthrough of various magic tricks, in a relaxed setting.
| It's not as dense as some of the others, but very good.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Great list and the majority I watch also. But you are
| missing Technology Connections. You'll probably find them
| interesting.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/TechnologyConnections/videos
| pjerem wrote:
| Hehehe. This channel is full of videos about "boring"
| topics and still you play them and bam, you are sucked
| into 15 min of nerdy details about a 90's microwave that
| doesn't even exists anymore and now you are wondering why
| you can't have it. Amazing channel.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| What sold it for me, was the Sunbeam toaster. I always
| wondered why in the cartoons people would get shocked
| sticking a fork in a toaster. And into the rabbit hole I
| went...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y
| pjerem wrote:
| I don't see Steve Mould and Technology Connections, but
| thanks for your list :)
| riffraff wrote:
| One more vote for Steve Mould. I don't follow him
| directly but I still end up watching a bunch of his
| content through random suggestions, he's quite good.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Through the magic of subscribing to both of them...
| graypegg wrote:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=r_LG8FDt51U&t=59
|
| And I already have a subscription, right here!
| moffkalast wrote:
| Ahaha completely forgot about that one, perfect.
| c54 wrote:
| Applied Science
|
| Ze Frank
|
| Asianometry
|
| Premodernist
|
| Integza
| moffkalast wrote:
| There are just so many great educational/maker channels,
| here's a bunch more that are least known on my list (in
| no particular order):
|
| Not David
|
| iforce2d
|
| Chronova Engineering
|
| Posy
|
| SuperfastMatt
|
| Michael Rechtin
|
| AlphaPhoenix
|
| Hyperspace Pirate
|
| Nicholas Rehm
|
| James Biggar
|
| Casual Navigation
|
| Kraut
|
| Spanning Tree
|
| Geo History
|
| EgyptologyLessons
|
| Carl Bugeja
|
| electrosync
|
| Historia Civilis
|
| Jeremy Fielding
|
| there oughta be
|
| Andreas Spiess
| graypegg wrote:
| Posy!! I can't believe I forgot him on my list! +1
|
| Same with casual navigation! Have I ever worked on or
| piloted a boat? No. But will I watch little 10min
| explainer videos about bilge pumps and anchor chains?
| Definitely.
| graypegg wrote:
| Answer in Progress - a bit of everything, personal
| favourite right now!
|
| Simone Giertz - engineering
|
| EEVBlog - engineering
|
| ElectroBoom - engineering
|
| Technology Connections - stories about technology
|
| Cathode Ray Dude - stories about technology, watch if you
| like technology connections!!
|
| Socratica - math, science, programming explainers
|
| VWestLife - retro consumer tech
|
| TechMoan - retro consumer tech
|
| AvE - Canadian in a workshop, a special kind of content
|
| RobWords - language (Tom's Language File fans check him
| out!)
|
| Art of the Problem - math/programming but so varied, really
| worth a watch
|
| Patrick Kelly - medical history, how did we discover a
| drug, stories about research
|
| Epic Gardening - gardening! Big focus on fruit and veg.
|
| Paige Saunders - Transit, Montreal, whatever he's
| interested in!
|
| RMTransit - Transit policy and operation
| treyd wrote:
| To continue with the transit/urbanism channels...
|
| * Not Just Bikes
|
| * City Beautiful
|
| * Alan Fisher
|
| * donoteat01 (not really uploading anymore since he has a
| podcast that takes all his time)
|
| * Eco Gecko (also doesn't really upload anymore)
|
| * Adam Something
|
| And also others...
|
| * Folding Ideas (popular topics video essays)
|
| * hbomberguy (popular topics video essays)
|
| * Epoch Philosophy (drier more academic video essays)
|
| * BobbyBroccoli (intersection of science and politics,
| very well animated)
|
| * Jacob Geller (media analysis)
|
| * Explosions&Fire (aussie backyard chemistry, like
| NileRed, more of a vlog style)
|
| * Mustard (engineering, similar format to Real
| Engineering)
| graypegg wrote:
| YouTube has been trying to constantly recommend me
| BobbyBroccoli for a while! I'll give it a go on your
| recommendation, thanks!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| If there isn't a curated "Awesome Educational Channels"
| list, this should be the beginning of it.
| graypegg wrote:
| I would love a monthly "Where cool things are" post on
| here. Kind of like the Who's Hiring post, but simply for
| listing channels, blogs, people etc. No specific works
| that would be better served by a regular post, but a
| comment with [name] and [what they do].
| nayuki wrote:
| More urbanism/transit on YouTube:
|
| * Oh The Urbanity!
|
| * CityNerd
|
| * Yet Another Urbanist
|
| * RMTransit
|
| * Miles in Transit
|
| * The War on Cars (audio)
|
| * The Urbanist Agenda (audio)
| EE84M3i wrote:
| Geoff Marshall makes great videos mostly focused on UK
| trains too.
| viraptor wrote:
| I'll also chuck in:
|
| - Two minute papers (quick reviews/demos of new science
| papers in rendering and ai)
|
| - Extra history (historic events / stories detailed and
| animated)
|
| - Jeffiot (just recently gained popularity, hbomberguy-
| style)
| abound wrote:
| StuffMadeHere is also an absolute gem. Truly incredible
| feats of engineering for a single person to tackle,
| explained in an entertaining way.
| sgeisenh wrote:
| Stuff Made Here
| ljm wrote:
| Not quite in the same theme, but as far as gaming goes I'd
| put both videogamedunkey and MandaloreGaming there.
|
| Dunkey doesn't post hour long video essays, but I find that
| apart from the occasional filler and joke content, his
| focus is on _fun_ and it is completely infused with an
| empathetic passion for gaming.
|
| Mandalore does the occasional deep dives into the weird and
| obscure but he's thorough and doesn't take it too
| seriously. Again, seems like a guy who is passionate about
| games but prefers to go off the beaten path in terms of
| game coverage.
| comice wrote:
| This thunderf00t video made me avoid "Undecided by Matt
| Ferrell": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQDXqOfC61U
| j-bos wrote:
| Thanks, another sign removing the dislike button was
| terrible for mankind.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Neither of them are really worth watching imo.
| kurthr wrote:
| Thanks for these!
| fellerts wrote:
| Can't recommend Cody'sLab enough. A very curious and clever
| guy doing backyard experiments in most of the sciences.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Interested in the geology and history of industry in the
| Upper Peninsula of Michigan? Alexis Dahl is a great
| informative source.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X3EE_jNDRg&ab_channel=Alex
| i...
| amelius wrote:
| StyroPyro :)
| drstewart wrote:
| Sebastian Lague is in the same vein, makes some of the best
| code exploration project videos I've seen. Highly
| entertaining and informative.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| Camden Bowen (dude is making a 3D printed internal
| combustion engine)
|
| AustinMcConnell (random shit)
|
| Two Minute Papers (ML paper review)
|
| Plainly Difficult (industrial accidents/disasters)
|
| Perun (military science)
|
| EEVBlog (electronics engineering)
|
| Summoning Salt (speedruns)
|
| High Performance Academy (cars/tuning)
|
| Ordinary Things (random shit)
|
| Grind Hard Plumbing Co (cars/fabrication)
|
| Engineering Explained (cars/explanation)
|
| Half as Interesting (random shit)
|
| Wendover Productions (random shit, but high quality)
|
| Economics Explained (self explanatory)
|
| Mini Air Craft Investigations (self explanatory)
|
| Renegade Cut (leftist content)
|
| LegalEagle (law)
|
| Townsends (historical foods)
|
| Casual Navigation (maritime/shipping)
|
| How To Drink (mixed drinks)
|
| Huygens Optics (optics/fabrication)
|
| EmpLemon (weird video essays)
|
| minutephysics (physics, and general science communications)
|
| All of these I'd recommend for a general audience/nerdy
| person. Some of them are informative, some of them are
| funny. I've got much more that I'm personally interested
| in, but generally won't be interesting for the average
| person.
| EE84M3i wrote:
| On the food topic, Tasting History with Max Miller is a
| favorite - it's interesting seeing him try to recreate
| recipes from historical primary sources and provide
| historical context.
|
| Also, Adam Ragusea has some good content on food science,
| among his regular cooking videos.
| namtab00 wrote:
| I'll add some:
|
| AlphaPhoenix - science
|
| Jay Foreman - UK centric cartography skits, very funny
|
| Atomic Frontier - various, Tom Scott style
|
| Climate Town - US centric climate related skits, very
| informative, also very funny
|
| Dr. Becky - astronomy
|
| Into Europe - light, EU related informative skits
|
| Johnny Harris - journalist turned YouTuber, opinionated but
| tries to keep a politically neutral stance
| lopis wrote:
| Atomic frontier definitely feels like a baby Tom Scott.
| It's been lovely to see him grow.
| orenlindsey wrote:
| Don't forget Vsauce! He doesn't make as many videos anymore
| but he has a huge backlog of great videos.
| leeter wrote:
| Retrotech:
|
| Adrian's Digital Basement (retrotech repair)
|
| RMC The Cave (retro curation and stories)
|
| Cntl Alt Rees (retro eclectic)
|
| Jan Beta (repair)
|
| LGR (eclectic)
|
| Mr. Carlson's lab (repair of generally older RF, but some
| newer)
|
| CuriousMarc (repair, testing, stories. Did a complete
| repair of the Apollo Guidance Computer)
| yardshop wrote:
| There are so many great channels on there! Here are a few
| of my recent favorites:
|
| Laura Kampf - german maker and problem solver, currently
| renovating a 120 year old house
|
| Jimmy Diresta - maker and designer, also renovating an old
| house in upstate New York
|
| Adam Savage - from MythBusters, interesting builds, and
| interesting discussion of shop and building techniques
|
| Rambling Wild Rosie - former long-distance hiker and
| interior designer, renovating an old house in the forest
| Sweden, figuring things out as she goes - very beautiful
| and peaceful videos
|
| Also loads of great wood working channels: Paul Sellers,
| Woodworking for Mere Mortals, Izzy Swan, Samurai Carpenter,
| and on and on!
| graypegg wrote:
| Laura Kampf is new to me, and right up my alley!
| Subscribed!
|
| Mattias Wandel for the woodworking channels list as well!
| yardshop wrote:
| Absolutely, I was just outside working, thinking of
| building some shelves, and thought, "what about
| Matthias?!"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QeXOb9rxRY
|
| Laura Kampf is wonderful, very inventive and
| knowledgeable builder, and great attitude.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Some of my subs I haven't seen mentioned yet in no
| particular order:
|
| FarmCraft101 (fixing and learning)
|
| ProjectsInFlight (IC manufacturing at home stuff)
|
| Lafayette Systems (rockets)
|
| Air Command Rockets (air rockets)
|
| Tod's Workshop (medieval weapons, history and testing)
|
| Les' Lab (lasers!)
|
| Erin's Audio Corner (speaker reviews)
|
| Lubrication Explained (100% lubrication)
|
| Process with Pat (process engineering)
|
| Clough42 (fabrication etc)
|
| Breaking Taps (machining and materials)
|
| Stapleton42 (NASCAR history and more)
|
| Projects With Everyday Dave (mostly solar power stuff)
|
| Brandon Acker (classical guitar and more)
|
| Building Integrity (building engineering and construction)
|
| Nebula Photos (astrophoto)
|
| Teaching Tech (3d printing)
|
| Machine Thinking (machining history)
|
| Stumpy Nubs (woodworking)
|
| Andy Cooks (cooking)
|
| Yesterdays Machinery (vintage machines and restoration)
|
| BPS.space (rockets)
|
| Jim's Automotive Machine Shop, Inc. (automotive machine
| shop stuff)
|
| Ballistic High-Speed (Slowmoguys but weapons only)
| kragen wrote:
| the problem i have with educational youtube is that it's
| competence porn. it's quite satisfying to watch lyle
| peterson, kiwami japan, grandpa amu, nigel braun, grant
| sanderson, andy george, or xyla foxlin working through the
| problems involved in creating something, to the point that
| hours spent getting satisfied that way displace the far more
| effortful hours required to work through those problems
| myself. but i don't gain skills by watching someone else work
| through problems (or, in the less praiseworthy cases,
| glossing over problems); at best, i might get an idea to try
| out, or a feeling of inspiration, or a declarative, factual
| understanding of a particular mechanism--a kind of
| understanding which still requires exercise to convert into
| knowhow. but it's much easier to just click on another video
| and vicariously enjoy someone else's stunning competence than
| to close the window and struggle with my own
|
| worse, sometimes it isn't actually competence. yesterday i
| watched a video where a guy made opaque soda-lime glass and
| convinced himself it was a better refractory than his
| insulating firebricks because he was, among other things,
| confused about thermodynamics, confused about different
| material properties, confused about the composition of
| waterglass, confused about the composition of garden lime,
| and confused about the temperature of his oxyhydrogen torch
| (and, I suspect, in significant danger of blowing his foundry
| to kingdom come)
|
| watching porn or sex tips videos won't make you a great
| lover. neither will reading alt.sex.wizards
|
| fifty tom scotts is ten hours a week of, basically, watching
| porn. i spend more time than that on watching the youtubers
| listed above and others; what if i spent that time on
| deliberate practice instead? ten hours a week of etudes might
| not get you into juillard, but pretty soon you're better than
| the average garage band member
|
| where do you get your etudes or katas, and how do you judge
| your success on them? textbooks are pretty okay for that, and
| it's _possible_ to make youtube videos with exercises in
| them, but those aren 't the videos that become youtube hits.
| and i think it runs counter to the nature of the medium: not
| just memetic fitness, but also the effort gradient for both
| creators and consumers
| coeneedell wrote:
| It's interesting to hear your perspective. I personally
| have had the opposite effect from watching these people on
| YouTube. I find it highly inspirational and I've gone out
| and made interesting projects on my own without them. Not
| all educational content needs to be structured like school,
| in fact most of it shouldn't. With this stuff it just needs
| to humanize the process, so you can see the process for
| yourself, and follow it for yourself.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| >what if i spent that time on deliberate practice instead
|
| Well yeah. What if I spent all the time I spent on various
| types of consumption on deliberate practice. I'd be some
| kind of wizard by now.
|
| There's nothing specially bad about these kinds of video in
| that respect.
| pixl97 wrote:
| The particular problem I have with your reply is it is half
| wrong.
|
| Textbooks tend to be filled with crap themselves. I have a
| feeling you're judging the contents of 'educational'
| textbooks rather than the corpus of all textbooks.
|
| Next, you are not an island. You need both things, insight
| from other people that are learned in said thing your
| attempting _and_ practice. If you practice without the
| insight you 're going to waste most of your life
| accomplishing something you could have learned from someone
| else in a few minutes.
| ramenbytes wrote:
| I definitely agree that these sorts of videos have the
| potential to be a poor substitute for the real thing.
| Sometimes I notice that I've spent all my time watching
| videos about stuff I'm interested in and not actually doing
| the stuff I'm interested in. On the flip side though, as
| another commenter mentioned, they have the potential to
| serve as motivation too. For example, when I'm learning a
| particular technique on guitar I'll intentionally watch or
| listen to performances that exemplify what I want to learn
| in order to remind myself of how great it'd be to play that
| and of why I'm training. I find it helps boost and sustain
| motivation. Of course it can't be the only thing I do, but
| when I can't practice (much) on guitar because, say, I'm
| eating lunch and need both hands, I can loop some Paul
| Gilbert or EVH performances and get fired up for the next
| practice session.
| ecuzzillo wrote:
| You might be unfair to yourself in the sense that not all
| hours are created equal; some hours were never going to be
| productive hours, and so if you can immerse yourself in a
| subject with some easy-to-watch videos, that might be
| better than trying to force productivity where none is
| available.
| trogdor wrote:
| Going to the symphony is similarly "competence porn." It
| does nothing for your musical skills, but it's a joy.
|
| There is nothing wrong with entertainment for
| entertainment's sake.
| wussboy wrote:
| Perhaps. But I wonder how much of this completely passive
| entertainment was in our ancestral environment? Before 50
| years ago, the percentage of all humans who had ever
| experienced the symphony was so low it was essentially
| zero. Perhaps the boredom is integral to good living?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| the problem i have with educational youtube is
| that it's competence porn. it's quite satisfying
|
| It's a balance we all need to find, for sure -- competence
| porn vs. actual practice.
|
| I think it's only a problem when you fool yourself and/or
| hurt yourself.
|
| Late in 2023 I started watching some streaming coders (a
| thing I did not know existed) and I've found it beneficial.
| Definitely exposed to some things I wouldn't have been
| otherwise.
| DanielHB wrote:
| Educational youtube is modern age what Discovery Channel
| documentaries used to be
|
| And they are better, way better
| graypegg wrote:
| Part of me misses watching Daily Planet after school.
| Mythbusters on weekends. How It's Made too! There's some
| gems from that channel in the 00s that got me excited about
| engineering. I definitely wouldn't sell them short either.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I have the same feeling. I was sad to see Tom be done, but
| I'd also prefer that to watching his quality decline, and as
| you say - I have a lot of Tom Scotts that come up in my feed.
| Tom's excellent, but there's other people, and no doubt some
| new people inspired by Tom will enter the space.
|
| I do worry that too many garbage aisles might mean people
| choose the garbage and never make it beyond, pushing non-
| garbage into a greater and greater minority.
| j45 wrote:
| Helping more people create videos sustainably is a definitive
| challenge
| tupac_speedrap wrote:
| RIP you solid lad
| graypegg wrote:
| He's not dead! His other projects are worth a look. Different
| kinds of content, but same creative spark.
| ninju wrote:
| A little premature on the Rest In Peace declaration...he's
| still alive (I hope)
| Kiro wrote:
| What happened to the "Six months from now, this channel stops"
| video he posted?
|
| https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1675158819629064192
| tripdout wrote:
| Today is 6 months from then.
| Kiro wrote:
| Yes, exactly. So why was it removed? The only reason I can
| think of is if he changed his mind, which he obviously
| didn't.
| dharmab wrote:
| He usually hides channel announcement videos after they're
| no longer relevant. I assume so he doesn't receive
| ideas/pitches he solicits in them.
| supernova87a wrote:
| I remember asking at some point what seemed to make Tom Scott so
| successful compared to the thousands of others who have probably
| tried to make it big on Youtube/social media. Was it the
| format/length/style, the topics, the camera work, the
| commentary/research, etc?
|
| I think the consensus was that he came out with generally
| interesting content, but most of all, _predictably_ and
| _sustained_ , which generated viewership. Interesting how that
| can be the main factor -- maybe both in keeping people's
| interest, but also developing the skills to create content that
| was improving each time and becoming more engaging. And I guess
| he points to that explicitly in this last video, where he says he
| challenged himself to make it his real job. For 10 years.
| CM30 wrote:
| Yeah this makes sense to me. He covered interesting and unique
| topics, and posted about them on a regular basis. That's
| extremely difficult to do in any medium, let alone something
| like video where filming and editing demands are significantly
| higher and a well researched piece just takes far longer to put
| together.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I'd imagine he hasn't been editing the bulk of his content
| for a while.
| jameshart wrote:
| There's something grounded in a very particular kind of
| 1980s/90s BBC Television content in the values Tom Scott's
| videos embody. It's sort of like he managed to give himself a
| job roleplaying as a _Blue Peter_ / _Tomorrow's World_
| presenter. He basically carried forward the kind of Reithian
| 'mission to inform' BBC values that largely disappeared in the
| John Birt era and somehow brought them onto YouTube.
| ben_w wrote:
| IIRC in one of his videos, he explicitly said he was
| modelling himself on the Blue Peter style he grew up with. If
| I had to guess, somewhere in this video, but I'm not watching
| 17 minutes again even at double speed just to make a comment:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUF4afxMpQk
| mhh__ wrote:
| He tried and AFAICT failed to do TV in the past -- this is
| probably not a bad thing given how the tides have changed.
|
| I have always found his patterns of speech interesting. Quite
| measured but untrained.
|
| I've never met him but I know a few people who have and I'm
| told that he's exactly the same in person (at least at a
| formal dinner!) which probably tracks.
| leros wrote:
| Which is interesting because he graduated with a degree in
| linguistics, so it's something he understands quite well.
| janvdberg wrote:
| Tom is why I understand UTF-8 [1].
|
| And it is not so much WHAT he explained but HOW he explained it,
| what really made it stick. It was his sheer unbridled genuine
| enthusiasm that put him on the map for me.
|
| One of the best to do it.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MijmeoH9LT4
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| And he's why I know I shouldn't roll my own time zone library.
|
| https://youtu.be/-5wpm-gesOY?si=eL38cruwJZDiuHVS
| chubot wrote:
| This is a great video! I've been writing about UTF-8 on my blog
| and I noticed that many programmers don't understand it, after
| 10 or 20 years
|
| The main impediment seems to be that languages like Java,
| JavaScript, and Python treat UTF-8 as just another encoding,
| but really it's the most fundamental encoding.
|
| The language abstractions get in the way and distort the way
| people think about text
|
| Newer languages like Go and Rust are more sensible, they don't
| have global mutable encoding variables
| omsimun wrote:
| It's misleading to describe UTF-8 as "the most fundamental
| encoding", because of the existence of UTF-32 (essentially
| just a trivial encoding of "raw" Unicode code points) and
| UTF-16 (which has certain limitations that later became part
| of the specification of what code points are valid in _any_
| encoding)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-16#U+D800_to_U+DFFF_(surro.
| ..
|
| UTF-8 is the most ubiquitous encoding on the web, but that
| doesn't make it more fundamental than any other.
| jfengel wrote:
| What's not to understand about UTF8? It's a way of coding up
| points in the Unicode space. You decode the bits and it
| yields a number that corresponds to a glyph, possibly with
| some decorations. The only thing special about UTF8 is that
| it happens to write ASCII as ASCII, which is nice as long as
| you realize that there is much outside that.
|
| Either that, or I'm completely off base and part of the vast
| horde who don't get it.
| henriquez wrote:
| I read your comment in the "Simpson comic book nerd" tone
| of voice.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Variable width encodings are inherently harder to
| understand.
|
| And while UTF-8 tries very hard to be simple whenever
| possible, it does have some nonobvious constraints that
| make it significantly more complex than the actual simplest
| variable-width encoding (a continuation bit and then 7 data
| bits).
| morelisp wrote:
| Even ignoring all the other advantages (mostly
| synchronization-related, which do objectively make
| implementing algorithms on UTF-8-encoded data simpler),
| "the number of set prefix bits is the number of bytes"
| doesn't seem meaningfully more _complex_ than a single
| continuation bit.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > "the number of set prefix bits is the number of bytes"
|
| Except when it's 1, because that's an invalid start, and
| except when it's 0, because that means the character is a
| single byte.
|
| And it also means you're dealing with _three_ classes of
| byte now.
|
| Plus UTF-8 has more invalid encodings to deal with than a
| super-simple format.
| morelisp wrote:
| > Plus UTF-8 has more invalid encodings to deal with than
| a super-simple format.
|
| If your format supports non-canonical encodings you're in
| for a bad time no matter what, so a whole lot of that
| simplicity is fake.
|
| > And it also means you're dealing with three classes of
| byte now.
|
| If you're working a byte at a time you're doing it wrong,
| unless you're re-syncing an invalid stream in which case
| it's as simple as a continuation bit (specifically, it's
| two continuation bits).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The simple encoding already allows smaller characters to
| have the same bytes as subsets of larger characters. Non-
| canonical is not a big deal on top of that. Also there
| are other banned bytes you don't need to deal with.
|
| > If you're working a byte at a time you're doing it
| wrong, unless you're re-syncing an invalid stream
|
| It's very relevant to explaining the encoding and it
| matters if you're worried that invalid bytes might exist.
| You can't just ignore the extra complexity.
|
| Also if you're not working a byte at a time, that kind of
| implies you parsed the characters? In which case non-
| canonical encodings are a non-problem.
| morelisp wrote:
| > Non-canonical is not a big deal on top of that.
|
| Unless you want to actually _do anything_ with the string
| beyond decode a codepoint.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If you're going _beyond_ decoding, then you 're _beyond_
| the stage where canonical and non-canonical versions
| exist any more.
|
| Non-canonical encodings make it difficult to do things
| _without_ decoding, but you have bigger problems to deal
| with in that situation, and the non-canonical encodings
| don 't make it much _worse_. Don 't get into that
| situation!
|
| Specifically, even with only canonical encodings, one and
| two byte characters can appear inside the encoding of two
| and three byte characters. You can't do anything byte-
| wise at all, unlike UTF-8. But you already said "If
| you're working a byte at a time you're doing it wrong" so
| I hope that's not too big of an issue?
| asveikau wrote:
| Unicode is variable length even if you use 32 bits,
| because glyphs sometimes require multiple codepoints.
| People sometimes write as if using more bits will remove
| complexity from Unicode but it doesn't really, you still
| need to handle multiple units at once sometimes.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Sure but that's at another level entirely. Dealing with
| two types of variable width is double difficult.
| nayuki wrote:
| More properties of UTF-8: It is self-synchronizing. It has
| the same lexicographical sort order as UTF-32. It allows
| substring matches without false positives. It is compatible
| with null-terminated strings.
| Nican wrote:
| I first came to learn about the complexity of character sets by
| finding out that SQL Server's default characterset is 2 bytes
| per character. I eventually came across Scott's video. UTF-8
| encoding is only as new as SQL Server 2019.
|
| https://sqlquantumleap.com/2018/09/28/native-utf-8-support-i...
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Interesting... never heard of the "null problem" as a
| requirement before.
| palemoonale wrote:
| Half way in, i find this a tiring style of narration. Less
| enthusiasm would require less focus and thus less energy from
| the viewer.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I dislike montages and yet this was a wonderful one.
|
| You made countless lives better, in small ways times a million.
|
| If this is the best thing you'll ever do, it's already good
| enough. The rest is gravy.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| What a brilliant bit of foreshadowing with the helicopter
| statement.
|
| Given the other comments about the deep sea or space, maybe those
| are areas which he hopes he could've explored which he might end
| up tackling at some point!
|
| I'm really glad I was around for his journey. Sometimes creatives
| will keep pushing a form of media long past the point where it's
| interesting or exciting. It takes a great deal of courage and
| creative integrity to let great things come to an end.
| Rebuff5007 wrote:
| To this day when I have buffering problems with online videos I
| immediately think about his explainer-demo with confetti [1].
| Love his work!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Rp-uo6HmI&themeRefresh=1
| smitty1e wrote:
| Totally had not heard of the fellow. But HN is a gateway to so
| much goodness.
| beej71 wrote:
| That literally brought tears to my eyes. We love you, Tom!
| danwaterfield wrote:
| On the latest cortex, CGP Grey made the point that what's
| happening in youtube education-adjacent videos is much the same
| as what's happening for entertainment in those spaces: the law of
| the excluded middle. You either do long infrequent videos e.g.,
| like MrBeast, or frequent short videos. Both CGP Grey and Tom
| Scott did frequent mid-length content, which gets squeezed out.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I assume cortex is a channel or something you watch, not brain
| matter?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If you assumed that, was there a need to post that you
| assumed it?
|
| I mean, if you search that name and that word it fills up the
| results. It doesn't help for you to go "hint hint".
| withinboredom wrote:
| People who don't validate assumptions are made into fools.
|
| Without context, I wouldn't even know if the search results
| would be the right thing to look for without making further
| assumptions.
| ben_w wrote:
| Cortex podcast: https://www.relay.fm/cortex
|
| It... isn't my thing. But CGP Grey has a nice voice and is
| like an excited puppy, so I find myself listening anyway?
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| It's a podcast he is on:
|
| https://www.relay.fm/cortex/1
| FireInsight wrote:
| CGP Grey's podcast.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| CGP Grey did almost zero YouTube content in the past few years.
| Definitely not "frequent".
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| We need to figure out what "frequent" is here. Tom Scott was
| doing >4 videos per month, Mr. Beast does about 2 per month,
| CGP Grey has done 1 per month for a decade.
|
| Tom Scott, even on a very relaxing working schedule, could
| put out 1 video per month.
| maxglute wrote:
| What's the rational behind this?
| nativeit wrote:
| I started watching his channel at the beginning of Things You
| Might Not Know. He's one of the all-time greats. His RI lecture
| "There Is No Algorithm For Truth" is as prescient as ever. He
| truly helped make YouTube a special platform, even if it doesn't
| always recognize its own strengths, and chases trends it's
| fundamentally incapable of adopting properly.
| MrFoof wrote:
| Tom Scott was so sharp, he knew to end on a high note, and damn
| near his peak.
|
| It's one thing to produce a lot of great content, but it's very
| rare for someone to wrap it up when they clearly were still at or
| near their best.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| > There's nothing in my life right now except work
|
| Quite sad
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| There's a reason most YouTube accounts doing the 'numbers' he
| has are teams of many people.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| Tom's commitment to accessibility is fantastic.
|
| Turn on the subtitles on any of his videos (particularly when
| there are multiple speakers) and you'll see the effort that goes
| in to it.
|
| Far too many people who publish to YouTube just let users deal
| with the the auto-generated subtitles, even when they have the
| ability and budget to do it properly.
|
| "'Oh look at me I bought a Lamborghini!' Buy some damned
| subtitles" -- Tom Scott.[0]
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m__OZ3ZsO4Y&t=334s
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Turn on the subtitles on any of his videos (particularly
| when there are multiple speakers) and you 'll see the effort
| that goes in to it._
|
| He actually did a video on subtitles recently, "Why don't
| subtitles match dubbing?":
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU9sHwNKc2c
| alister wrote:
| His explanation about why subtitles don't match dubbing is
| not convincing. Basically he says that subtitling and dubbing
| are done by different teams with different goals. The dubbing
| crew tries to match lip movement. OK, so why not use the
| script that the dubbing team produced for the subtitles? Why
| do the translation twice?
|
| His explanation for that: (a) sometimes what's spoken is too
| long to fit as subtitles on the screen, (b) what's spoken
| needs to be summarized, like multiple people shouting over
| one another on a reality show, otherwise the subtitles would
| be a confusing jumble of words, and (c) jokes/slang/puns can
| be difficult to translate.
|
| I that agree (a) and (b) are legitimate reasons why subtitles
| might _occasionally_ not match dubbing, but (c) is
| irrelevant. Jokes /slang/puns might be difficult or
| impossible to translate, but whatever way it ends up being
| translated can be spoken and written identically. In fact his
| goose joke is spoken and written in Portuguese as _Eu estou
| gansado deles_ in the same way (timecode 3:57). I.e., the
| dubbing matches the subtitles. So the examples he gives do
| not support what he did in his own video.
|
| Furthermore, his video (like almost all videos and TV shows)
| is chock full of cases where the subtitles and dubbing are
| different for no plausible reason related to (a), (b), or (c)
| above:
|
| All examples below are when the video is set to Brazilian
| Portuguese audio and Brazilian Portuguese subtitles.
| Time: 0:22 Dubbing: E o motivo disso e que as legendas
| e a dublagem ... Subtitles: Isso acontece porque as
| legendas e a dublagem ... Time: 0:51 D: as
| legendas e a dublagem sao praticamente identicas S: as
| legendas e a dublagem sao quase identicas Time:
| 1:08 D: e sincronizar o movimento dos labios o mais
| proximo possivel S: e sincronizar os labios o mais
| proximo possivel
|
| Although I agree that reasons (a) and (b) above might be
| valid on rare occasions, I think the _real_ reason that
| subtitles don 't match dubbing is because they are done by
| different teams with no coordination, with different
| timelines and deadlines, and probably by completely different
| companies in different countries.
|
| If you cared strongly about this issue, I don't see any
| reason why the subtitles and dubbing couldn't be 99% or 99.9%
| identical in any particular target language. The 1% or 0.1%
| case being when the dialog is much too long for the screen or
| when you have to summarize a bunch of people talking
| simultaneously.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| I've lost a lot of my hearing so I play games, watch videos and
| people who put effort into subtitles are very much appreciated.
|
| Simple things like tagging who is talking is so helpful to
| understanding what is going on when there are multiple people
| in the video
| Twirrim wrote:
| In a number of his videos, they'll use different colours for
| different speakers. As best as I can see, while also choosing
| bright colours unlikely to cause problems for people with
| colour-blindness. It makes such a difference.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| Yes, a few people I watch do this and it's so helpful.
|
| I wish more people out the time in, given how the state of
| AI is going I'm not sure when the auto generated subtitles
| don't differentiate between different people.
| janeerie wrote:
| I'm glad he's still doing the Lateral podcast (as that's the only
| thing I know him from). I do wish he would get somebody besides
| Youtubers as guests, though. It's frustrating to hear
| 20-somethings with very little cultural and historical knowledge
| try to work through the problems.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| He's had a few "mainstream" people on as guests. Professor
| Hannah Fry is one guest who's a pretty established broadcaster
| (in the UK at least).
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| One of the more recent ones actually had a joke about this -
| one of his guests was significantly older than the other two,
| and some cultural references didn't quite land on either side.
| CM30 wrote:
| Damn, this is a video I didn't want to see today. I love Tom
| Scott's videos, and just about everything he's ever made has been
| a great watch. I still remember the VPN videos debunking common
| myths about them, and the one about how electronic/online voting
| was a bad idea.
|
| But sadly, I get what he means here. YouTube has basically split
| down the middle, with the assumption being that you'll either
| pump out content quickly without much time to prepare, or you'll
| work on more infrequent essay length videos on a monthly basis or
| longer. And in both cases... the expectation seems to be that
| most videos are a professional endeavour now, created by a team
| of people with pro level editing skills and different people
| working on things like the script, research, getting the footage
| needed, etc.
|
| It honestly feels like the platform isn't 'fun' anymore, and the
| kind of content we used to visit for is becoming less and less
| common by the day.
|
| Regardless, enjoy your break/retirement Tom! You've made some
| incredible videos over the years, and I'll be excited to see what
| you create in future too.
| nadermx wrote:
| Imagine making a video every week for ten years, 520 videos. I
| don't even think I've made git commits that consistently.
| lsllc wrote:
| What a great ending to a video to end a great channel!
|
| (If you didn't watch to the end, go back and watch it, one of the
| best ever outtros).
|
| Good luck Tom.
| ljm wrote:
| I honestly didn't feel I'd be so emotionally moved by this send
| off, but here I am.
|
| When you're done you're done, and 10 years of persistent,
| meaningful and education videos(not merely 'content'), published
| weekly, is more than anyone can ask of a single person and his
| crew.
|
| Onwards and upwards, the adventure of life, and not work, still
| beckons.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| gg wp
| imiric wrote:
| I always appreciate when authors of successful projects decide to
| stop after they've figured out the formula for success. Whether
| these are films without sequels, TV shows without dozens of
| seasons, or video content creators who are not compelled to keep
| uploading in perpetuity. It shows true care and dedication to
| their craft, and a desire to keep innovating in perhaps other
| areas of their career. It also avoids the pressure of keeping the
| high bar for quality, as there are not many authors who can
| consistently pull this off. I'd rather enjoy high quality content
| for a short time than see it gradually worsen over a long period.
|
| Still, 10 years is a long run for any type of content, and
| uploading every week without fail is very impressive. I'm sure
| Tom Scott used the "Seinfeld strategy" for this, which goes to
| show that great minds think alike, considering Seinfeld is one of
| the shows that ended at the peak of its success.
|
| Thanks for the interesting content over the years, Tom, and best
| of luck in whatever you decide to pursue next.
| leros wrote:
| He's in a nice position in that he's diversified his content
| with a game show and podcast, so he can stop his main channel
| content and still have some income flowing. That gives him time
| to take a step back and re-invent himself if he chooses. I
| wonder if he would be doing the same thing if he only had his
| main channel.
| al_borland wrote:
| I would think if he invested well and lives a modest life, he
| could live off the investments and effectively retire. Not
| that he'd want to stop doing things, but he could focus on
| what he finds interesting rather than what will pay the
| bills.
|
| Of course I have no idea what his financial situation is
| like, but he doesn't strike me as the type of YouTuber to
| blow all his income on fast cars and other "status" symbols.
| denvaar wrote:
| I first saw Tom Scott on Computerphile. He's so good at
| explaining topics with excitement and enthusiasm. It's amazing
| he's been so consistent with a video every week for the last 10
| years. Not only "a video", but videos that go above and beyond
| the norm in quality. He's an inspiration.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I'm not sure exactly how to define it but this is the end of
| something -- certainly something for that clique of British
| YouTubers (e.g. Tom Scott did the graphics for many jay foreman
| videos and so on)
|
| And really YouTube in general -- Tom Scott understood the medium
| of youtube very early on.
| https://youtu.be/MrppkAIVhH4?si=6y2yRkk2QY6hknwF from 17 years
| ago is basically the exact same rhythm as a modern video, Tom
| Scott doesn't like memes so its also not massively dated either
| (other than the obvious).
| dom96 wrote:
| Tom Scott is one of the great YouTubers. I don't know him
| personally but he does come across as a genuine down to earth guy
| who just wants to share knowledge with the world.
|
| I also only recently learned that he has a newsletter. He
| mentions it briefly in some of his videos but I have never seen
| him ask people to sign up. The only reason I found out about it
| is because he included one of my articles in it[1]. Definitely
| highly recommend checking it out[2].
|
| 1 - https://mousetrack.co.uk/blog/mosquitoes-at-disney-why-do-
| yo...
|
| 2 - https://www.tomscott.com/newsletter/
| medion wrote:
| When major YouTubers like this stop uploading, I assume they're
| still getting fairly generous Adsense checks each month, which
| may decline over time, but, are probably not nothing and would
| continue ostensibly forever? I wonder what the numbers are if you
| grind for 5 years to build a multi-million subscriber count, then
| just stop (but leave everything online)?
| maxglute wrote:
| It's nice to see Youtube channel end on their own terms. So many
| creators burn out without warning, maybe a written explanation
| somewhere. Very few would post a video saying this channel is
| dead for obvious reasons.
|
| It's probably against the rules, but I hope he reuploads every
| week from episode 1. I haven't gone through 10 years of backlogs
| and it's nice when new videos, as in videos that's never been
| watched comes to you.
|
| It would also be nice if he (and creators in general) reformatted
| the videos into season format. Way easier to mentally keep track
| whether you watched something or not. 20 seasons of 6 months / 24
| videos each.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| They're not seasons? Seasons have breaks between each one.
| petecooper wrote:
| 2 million views in about 5 hours. Wow.
| cassepipe wrote:
| You know you've made it as a cultural symbol when you are being
| parodied : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-IEVMwBEfo
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