This is a very nice hack, and I enjoyed the writeup (minus the fact that the site isn't easily readable on mobile).
As someone who does a lot of this stuff too, I've kind of realized that it's hard to get an audience unless you're making YouTube videos. I've heard of many "YouTube makers" but very rarely has someone sent me an article like this one.
Does anyone have first-hand experience with this? I don't much like making videos, but if that's what gets more people to see my stuff, maybe it's worth it. Am I correct or do I just see the videos from creators because they managed to already get popular, and they just happen to be on YouTube?
Videos are easier and more entertaining to consume than text for most people. The audience of a text post like this is mostly hacker types; if turned into a video that’s as much about the entertainment value as the nitty gritty, your audience now becomes 99% bored tech enthusiasts and 1% hackers, and you could plausibly go from a few thousand reads to your article to a few hundreds of thousands views for your video as on top of that, the YouTube platform itself acts as a reach multiplier.
So yes, if your goal is to make money/get an audience rather than purely documenting (nothing wrong with that), you’re much better off making a 10 minute YouTube video than writing a 5 page article.
This. Your target audience is the determining factor. Though, you can do both: Put the gritty technical stuff in an article while the live demo and a talk goes into a video.
Personally I don't care for video and most videos people send me go unwatched. It's just not productive and I can scroll and skim text for interesting bits faster than skimming a video.
Most "technical" videos are simple tear downs for entertainment or a lengthy demo with a long winded how-to or technical overview. ZZZZzzzzzzz.
As someone who does a lot of this stuff too, I've kind of realized that it's hard to get an audience unless you're making YouTube videos. I've heard of many "YouTube makers" but very rarely has someone sent me an article like this one.
Does anyone have first-hand experience with this? I don't much like making videos, but if that's what gets more people to see my stuff, maybe it's worth it. Am I correct or do I just see the videos from creators because they managed to already get popular, and they just happen to be on YouTube?