Ask HN: Why are YouTube links unlikely to be upvoted on Hacker News?

People visiting HN are looking for interesting bits of things to discuss and move on quickly if they do not hold their interest. If they have to context switch into video watching this detracts from their purpose of being here on this text-only site. I link to videos I think people may find interesting to talk about even if I suspect it is unlikely to start a conversation. To help them decide if I might be wasting their time I not only list [video] in the title but I also list [hours/mins] so they might give it a chance or know to skip it all together. I would honestly never expect anyone to upvote a video even if it is interesting to them as they have been diverted to Youtube and may be further distracted from returning as videos take more time than a quick scan over a text article.

YT incentives are not aligned with dense/high-signal content. If you have something interesting to say -- you have to stretch it to a certain length (I think the sweet spot is 10mins?) in a desperate attempt to manipulate the recommendation engine, you then spend a few breaths begging the audience to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell; maybe even join the patreon which gives you access to the private discord channel -- then a quick word from our sponsor -- then maybe you blab a few sentences which would fit onto a 1kb notepad file.

Based on my own preferences, I would say it is because Hacker News is a silent medium. You can safely read articles without fear of sound suddenly playing.

In contrast, if you click a YouTube link, it will almost certainly have audio that will play, and you have no idea whether you will open up something that is NSFW.

In general, popular YouTube videos are low quality and too long. I also assume it’s just something the algorithm put into someone’s feed, not anything particularly exceptional or interesting.

One problem is licensing.

I like to post links to music videos in comments and even got some upvotes for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDFx8hJY5x8

But I hear from many people outside the U.S. that that video does not play for them (tell us if you can play it here!)

Also I think I can size up a text article to know if I want to read it in just a few seconds compared to a video that I may have to watch a few minutes of. Also I can read text articles in more situations (do what you want but I do not wear headphones for safety’s sake when I am out in the city or on the trail) but I can browse HN and most web sites rapid-fire on my tablet on the bus.

I can skim the start of a plausible-sounding article in ~5 seconds, to see if it's worth any more of my time.

Vs. on YouTube, I probably can't get past the pre-content ad in 5 seconds.

Life is too short to waste any of it watching long-odds content on YouTube.

I do not have the patience to watch a video end-to-end.