Comment by alibarber | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alibarber | Hacker News Reader

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Uggh - this!

Maybe I'm so used to it for programming queries, but I've gotten back into electronics and ham radio after a long time, and have always dreamed of owning a decent oscilloscope. Googling 'good digital hobbyist oscilloscope' just now was a frustrating waste of time. It's just pages and pages of regurgitated specs and affiliate links, no useful _actual_ reviews or anything...

Take this top 10 result. It's on Medium which is new and hip and nice so must be of high quality...

https://medium.com/@Amyperlman/best-buying-oscilloscope-for-...

Oh cool, hmm ok - what else does the author write about? "Things to consider before buying a camera for hunting" - "Drug Rehab for Married Couples" - <<Several>> Reviews for a particular line of vaccum cleaner, Baltimore Security Cameras and Interior Design in India. I mean sure they could genuinely have diverse interests and a chaotic and international personal life - but these articles are just keyword stuffing for another bunch of 'content' that will helpfully let you 'check the price on Amazon' for just about anything...

Even though I generally prefer reading to watching, I've found in the past few years that YouTube is better for reviews, and I think it's actually because of this.

If you don't actually recognize the channel, you can usually tell if it's worthwhile by subscriber count, the other (types of) videos they've posted, and usually just by watching for tens of seconds. Most paid reviews seem to say so (unlike written blogs), and you can judge their bias appropriately. Plus for many things, seeing it in action is much, much better than written descriptions or (carefully chosen) pictures.

For example, it's hard to disguise a crappy oscilloscope UI in a video (and if the reviewer doesn't show that, be suspicious!)

Youtube is better, but over the last few years, I've noticed that it's getting harder to find decent reviews, because the algorithm recommends so many fake review channels. It's better than a google search, but there's still so many terrible results to sort through.

Youtube's algorithm encourages video farms that upload frequently even if they recycle content. Ann Reardon discusses this problem as it relates to recipe video's frequently on her cooking channel.

You can still get hoodwinked by youtubers[0] who (to the untrained eye) look like they know what they are talking about but are actually grifters[1] wasting your time

[0]: Siraj Raval (700k subscribers!): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWN3xxRkmTPmbKwht9FuE5A

[1]: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/10/16/why-siraj-ravals-...

> Even though I generally prefer reading to watching, I've found in the past few years that YouTube is better for reviews[..]

My pet theory why YouTube is better is that there is no incentive to make videos longer. Blog post end up bloated and thin on real information because it is considered good SEO and apparently Google really tends to rank longer articles higher. Same is true for tech books, which are often bloated because the author has to reach their target page count.

YouTube videos seem to be mostly as long as they need to be to tell the story they want to tell. This is not universally true for video content though. If you look at online learning platforms, like Udemy for example, you can find many courses that spread an hour worth of content over typically five or six hours. My fear is that Google will someday decide to make the length of a video a ranking factor and we will have the same bloated videos on YouTube too.

> Most paid reviews seem to say so (unlike written blogs), and you can judge their bias appropriately.

Producing decent video content is much more elaborate and expensive than written reviews. My suspicion is that on YouTube paid reviews are even more common than on blogs and the norm is just not to mention it. Doesn't mean they are useless of course, just as you wrote "judge their bias appropriately".

> My pet theory why YouTube is better is that there is no incentive to make videos longer. [...] YouTube videos seem to be mostly as long as they need to be to tell the story they want to tell.

I don't think this is an accident: YouTube apparently ranks based on watch time / retention, so if you make your video too long and people don't watch to the end it hurts you.

Ha. I strongly disagree.

Any kind of machine maintenance video has so much preamble, when what I'm really after is like 25 seconds of silently accessing the part, pausing to circle stuff in red, and narrating stuff that's hard to see from the video

The first paragraph:

> Best Oscilloscopes are not a common field where people would choose to spend their spare time relaxing. However, analyzing and measuring signals might be an interesting fact for most engineers or people looking for complexity, isn’t it? That’s what we actually thought about before doing our research.

Reads like it went through Google translate twice.

Google's own tools make flooding their main moneymaker with junk easier and more accessible. There's something in that but I'm not sure what...

Actually, that looks like a filled-in template with some relevant keywords for content marketing.

> _______ are not a common field where people would choose to ________ . However, _______ might be an interesting fact for most _____ or people looking for _____, isn’t it? That’s what we actually thought about before doing our research.

The king is naked!

Some search hits are deeper than others. Specifically, forums. EEVblog comes to mind. Figure out the spectrum of specific brands/models, then read and watch some reviews.

That Medium page on is hilarious! I recommend it if you are into oscilloscopes and want a laugh. My favorite parts are the opening paragraphs and the list of Key Points for each scope, which include:

• Available only in Grey. [Rigol]

• The color available is Grey. [Siglent]

• The devices comes only in blue. [LIUMY]

Yes, one of the main things I look for in a scope is what color it comes in!

• Works with both laptop and desktop PC. [Hantek]

Uh, why would any USB device not work with both a laptop and desktop PC?

Google should ban all sites with Amazon affiliate links from its search engine.

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