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I'd be surprised if this topic hasn't been covered on HN in the past, if not I'm sure it'll show up one day. When your role is "non-technical" (not my favorite term but using it for clarity), UI, CMS, and dialogue menus seem like the best solution. Why wouldn't I want to just point and click?

But the day I learned how to run a GET request, parse data, save it somewhere, analyze it later; my outlook completely flipped. Whenever I google "[organization] api" and get 0 official results I become irrationally angry. All this to say, I hope they approach the topic before it becomes a hard requirement, because it's a fun and useful skill to have even outside of work.

aamoscodeson I've got to host and serve videos on demand at my job. Any ideas?

...but I'm not a great developer

Yet*. You already shipped something which is more than many people can say. I understand not wanting to be a developer, I had similar thoughts for a long time, but knowing the tools and concepts developers use is helpful. Especially in situations like this. Also, it's usually not as complex as it seems from the outside. I'll be the first to admit: I spent a long time thinking I wasn't "smart enough" to do it, until I did it. If you'd like any introductory resources on how APIs work, how they can help you, how to use them, etc, let me know.

Pep talk aside I recommend price matching several different platforms:

- AWS Elemental

- Brightcove

- Bitmovin

- Cloudflare Stream (as mentioned)

- Cloudinary

- Mux[0]

- Wowza

- many, many others

The options above will give you the most control over the process, they'll host and handle streaming/delivery to any variety of users. If you'd like a managed offering you could try something like Uscreen.

Right now it seems like you're in the "get it to work" stage but at some point, you might want to integrate observability or data monitoring to track your user's experience, video performance, engagement, and other items. This is where doing a little bit of research gets you a ton of value further down the line. I recommend looking up terms like "QoE" and "QoS"[1] to get some more context.

[0]: for some context on video generally - https://howvideo.works

[1]: https://ottverse.com/beginners-guide-to-video-qoe-and-qos

aamoscodeson What We’ve Lost Playing the Lottery

Payroll tax currently caps at $147k, if we remove that limit it would reduce that deficit even further. This theoretical giveaway policy is a drop in the bucket compared to many other tax policies that exist right now.

aamoscodeson What We’ve Lost Playing the Lottery

Correct, most of the US does not make enough money to need to pay taxes. This proposal would actually decrease that number, because receiving $300k in one year (if we tax it as income) means you will need to contribute taxes that year...maybe they can even use part of their net earnings to contribute $60 to the fund, so someone else will have enough money to pay taxes the following year.

aamoscodeson What We’ve Lost Playing the Lottery

Except the PEC goes to political candidates and this money would materially help someone each year. Every person in the country could use the PEC and candidates would still need to court donations from PACs and other groups. $300k to a set number of families? We could write articles about them each year to see how this changed their lives. Even if the recipients are already wealthy it would turn into an interesting story.

aamoscodeson Netflix’s ad tier will cost $6.99 a month and launch in November

One, but my phone carrier gives me a few others for “free”

aamoscodeson Netflix’s ad tier will cost $6.99 a month and launch in November

Lower class children will become more adept at using ad blockers, or ignoring the screen while an ad is playing

aamoscodeson Netflix’s ad tier will cost $6.99 a month and launch in November

I mostly agree with you, with one clarification that you don’t personally need to know how piracy works to benefit from it.

Piracy is very common outside of the US. In the US piracy is an individual decision, you pick your storage and tools yourself. Other places it’s trivially easy to find someone selling pirated media in local markets.

aamoscodeson TikTok profits from livestreams of families begging

There is no way to completely avoid a certain type of content in an algorithmic feed. As good as the algorithm is, unless they have a "no variation or A/B testing" policy (doubtful), eventually you'll run into something that doesn't conform to your "profile."

aamoscodeson TikTok profits from livestreams of families begging

I don't interpret the parent (article) as saying that is all TikTok is, but that it is possible to encounter or host these streams on their platform, which is objectively true.

aamoscodeson Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

Did you use it at home or in an office? The emphasis of hybrid work makes it seem like this is primarily for offices.

aamoscodeson Google announces new Career Certificates and 100k scholarships

I believe you, but is there a source for the “0 people were hired” claim? It’ll be interesting to have as these programs become more popular.

aamoscodeson Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

My personal issue right now is that I have multiple accounts with MFA and there’s no easy way to differentiate them besides this generated account ID in the auth app. This means I have to create some type of mapping table between the ID and the account, or try to remember what’s available