Astro Hacker News - The Future of Veritasium [video]

DamnInteresting |next [-]

He makes a pretty good case that partnering with Electrify has not damaged the quality of the channel's videos so far. They've made multiple videos now under this arrangement, and they've maintained a high standard. I am not confident that it will remain that way indefinitely--capitalism will come for its pound of flesh--but for now it is holding on.

rwmj |root |parent [-]

It might depend on the ownership structure, for example if he had retained 51% or had shares with 10x voting power.

djmips |next |previous [-]

TLDW; Founder sold ownership of channel to company (Electrify) in 2023 but he retains some undisclosed percentage. Team has grown to over 30. Derek Muller has been stepping back as seen in recent videos and he will appear in less videos going forward to ' spend time with the family '

mrguyorama |next |previous [-]

Veritasium has some of the worst horseshit "clickbait" of anyone on Youtube. They know it too, because after they let the algorithm A/B test different clickbait titles on you for a month, they will change it to a real title that actually is relevant to the title and then I will finally be interested in the video because it actually suggest what it might be about.

He's very much "selling out" but meh, he was never really a "high brow" creator anyway. Still managed to cover lots of cool things, but just not trying to make good content. They were optimizing for profitable content.

However, the couple of discussions around "how to think about electricity" and "how do sails work" he participated in and somewhat spawned were great, and showed how actual productive discussion among people genuinely trying to come to a real understanding works. Lots of groups chimed in and actual experiments were run to support arguments and the end result was essentially "eh, there's nuance"! Wonderful outcome.

It was clear for a very very long time that he wasn't doing it for the same reason as most of the good people: A desire to share learning and lust for scientific inquiry.

I also think the new animation style is mediocre, but that's just opinion.

Get out of the way, enjoy the life you have left, and let someone else blossom into the space you left!

andsoitis |next |previous [-]

"... goal has always been to improve critical thinking ..."

bird0861 |root |parent [-]

Aren't they one of the worst physics channels apart from just outright fraudulent/fringe grifters like ElectricUniverse? Seems like every other week or so I see someone detail patiently why they have incorrectly explained something. I think the "[particles, like photons] take all possible paths" fiasco might be the latest one I can recall.

tim333 |root |parent |next [-]

I haven't watched that many, but for the few I did the physics was surprisingly good.

What was the many paths fiasco?

mc32 |root |parent |previous [-]

There are things physicists themselves cannot agree on, so there is no "true" interpretation of some things and you can only present your interpretation.

So, sure, they deserve criticism for the "all possible paths" brouhaha but by and large, I think it offers access to physics in a consumable form for many lay people while trying to maintain rigor better than most.

mortsnort |previous [-]

Legendary channel and dude, but everything must succumb to the Law of Enshittification eventually.