Clickbait is Unreasonably Effective

The video in question for reference: ▶ this video Interestingly, when I saw that I figured this channel for a goner because he was going to turn to the darkside, but quite contrary to expectations I feel like his channel has actually blossomed since then. His older videos are fine, but often just explaining concepts that you can find a lot of other explanations on, but some of his recent videos have rocked the boat even among physicists and IMHO he was ultimately proved to be correct for them. I particularly point at his videos about how nobody has measured the one-way speed of light ( link ), which was well-known among people very very deep in the field of relativity but not very well known outside of that (even amongst physicists in other fields, let alone lay people) and the electricity videos he's done in the last year ( link , link ) which attracted a whole whackload of "debunking" videos, which were themselves wrong (the best "bunking" video, if I may call it that, is probably AlphaPheonix's: link , since he actually set up the experiment, albeit on a smaller scale). They aren't all of that caliber, but the knot theory video was very good too and not something I've seen a hundred times elsewhere, and the airships video that preceded that one clearly had a high degree of research put into it beyond just the hype.

Take a look at Veritasium's perspective on this issue [1]. Veritasium reflects on clickbait thumbnails from the content producer perspective, and balances that against the motivation behind YouTube's algorithms. His final conclusion is that cilckbait isn't all bad, and that it serves an important purpose for both viewers and content creators. His classification of clickbait into different types is also fascinating. [1] ▶ this video

Derek of Veritaseum made a video laying out why "clickbait-y" titles like that are necessary, and I feel like it makes a pretty good case. ▶ this video The tl;dw is that the most effective titles come right up against the edge of what an average target audience member would consider unacceptable on the axes of withheld information (to create a curiosity gap) and misleading sensationalism (to maximise the perceived importance of the topic); and you have to play the game of having effective titles because otherwise no one clicks on your video and it stops being recommended to people who would find it valuable.

Actually, Veritasium posted a brilliant way for optimizing thumbnails and headlines to improve click-through rate on Youtube: ▶ this video I plead guilty and say that I've repeatedly posted the same link on HN but with different query parameters to understand its performance. But I've come to understand that users will notice this behavior and start to generally downvote. As a creator with a small audience, the only success with tapping into a high throughput feedback loop has been by painstakingly write articles and submit them one by one to HN. I've gotten much better at it already and frankly I've also noticed that engagement and "likes" isn't everything either. I've realized too that if you truly do what you believe in consistently, I've found that I suddenly start having "impact", which I think is different from engagement. How I see it: - Engagement: clicks, views, comments - Impact: The world changes, there's consequences and substantial changes as a reaction But I think you can't have one without the other. High engagement means you're a popstar. High impact means you're a politician. Ideally, I want to be able to pick my position on the gradient.

YouTube allowing creators to change Title and Thumbnails as many times as they want after a video has been uploaded, and providing realtime analytics after a change is what is driving this. They basically are constantly optimizing, until they find what sticks. The crap you describe obviously does very well. Veritasium does a great video on this. ▶ this video

It's funny you mention Veritasium in particular, since he hates the clickbait as much as anyone, and made a video specifically about it: ▶ this video tldw You're basically forced to structure your thumbnails and titles that way if you want your videos to actually be seen. Blame YouTube's recommendation algorithm, not the creators.

Youtubers regularly swap the video thumbnail + title. Youtube even has tools to A/B test various thumbnails + titles nowadays for different users. I can confirm that the title "I Hacked My Friend's Phone to Show How Easy It Is" was the actual title when the video was uploaded. However you're right that it now looks like it changed to "Exposing The Flaw In Our Phone System" a day later. Watch an older Veratasium video about Youtube's title+thumbnail clickbait: ▶ this video

as a content creator who mixes reach and professional standards i mostly just subscribe to the veritasium school of ethics here ▶ this video

From "Clickbait is bad, and I don't do it." to "I am working to efficiently clickbait people." Reminds me of: ▶ this video

> I would classify this as marketing and self-promoting hyperbole Or probably better, "clickbait". The author actually did a video about why he started using clickbait titles; basically, his goal is to make actually educational videos and have them seen, and clickbait titles means a lot more people see them. ▶ this video

The current HN post title of "Standard Reference Materials" is accurate and neutral. Veritasium's title as you mentioned is clickbaity. Veritasium also admits to changing the title to test viewer responses, as mentioned in ▶ this video "Clickbait is Unreasonably Effective" [2021-08-17]. He also explains the problem with titling a video with a term that you would only understand after watching the video.

Titles rarely do. And sadly, if you want to thrive by producing content, you need to juice up the title a little. Yeah, I hate it too. ▶ this video But on topic, Apple's official stance, as provided by this repair manual, is that replacing a battery requires you to replace vast portions of the final product. Car analogy time: Got bad seals on your block? Send us the engine; who knows what kind of damage those bad seals have done. Oh, and only we, your car manufacturer can get you the tools and an authorized engine replacement. Can the battery be replaced without the assembly? iFixit says yes. Is this how Apple does it? Sure, but it's generating a lot of cost and waste. They can write both of. Can you?