They're so well done. Sadly, he doesn't do them anymore because Youtube's algorithm doesn't make it worth his while. Evidently, he gets the same traffic & revenue from a 10 minute video reviewing "stupid bike gadgets" into the camera as he does for spending a month building a cool bike jump and editing together one of those amazing videos on the playlist.
If youtube rewarded evergreen stuff like that instead of cheap "reaction" videos, it'd be a much cooler place.
Is it the YouTube algorithm's fault? Or viewer preferences? I think YouTube would be happy to recommend the videos to more people if more people watched them.
I watch photography videos on YouTube, and camera review channels consistently have far more subscribers than channels who make content about taking photos. (Or at least they did in the past - in recent years camera tech has really matured and interesting releases are much less frequent, and reviewers seem to have taken a hit).
I think people just like gear. Should YouTube not show people what they like to see?
I've watched some Berm Peak videos in the past and I mostly know the channel for its videos about builds/repairs, or his video about the history of valves. The mountain biking videos are good too, but only hold my interest for so long. If I want to see mountain biking I'm more likely to look at some of the stuff Red Bull is putting out.
I’m gonna say it’s YouTube. They are obsessed with pushing short form shit videos to me despite me never wanting to watch them. I hate YouTube shorts so much
I think it's the algorithm. Occasionally I get recommended videos that are 5-8+ years old (so old in terms of Youtube years) with no new comments so presumably not getting a lot of recent views. But soon comes a wave of fresh comments wondering why they never discovered this video before. So the algorithm starts the cycle, not the organic user preferences.
> Is it the YouTube algorithm's fault? Or viewer preferences?
I didn’t read the rest of your comment but it’s the fault of the algorithm because that tail wags the dog. It’s physically impossible to watch all videos so we are all at the mercy of the (a) algorithm.
Youtube seems to regularly suggest old videos to me so I think it's less a problem with evergreen content and more that youtube pays for minutes watched so someone who does cheap reaction content can produce more minutes to watch than someone who spends a long time on one video.
I don't have that model but I can very confidently say :
- do NOT buy an e-bike with custom parts, no matter how "cool" it is!
I bought a CowBoy years ago and honestly, it was great. Until it wasn't. Inexorably, it does not matter how good the parts are, how well designed it is, wear and tear WILL create problems. You WILL need to replace parts. If nobody but the company making the bike sell them you will get in trouble. It's the same with the App, if it's not open source relying on standard AND with existing, not upcoming, GadgetBrige support they will stop supporting your bike and brick it.
Please, pretty please, as consumers who expect to keep on maintaining your bike over years, ASK your repair shop what THEY think is a good bike to fix. Not what is a good bike to ride.
PS: I now ride a Fixie because screw CowBoy and all those e-bike startups who believe they are the new Apple. They aren't and I was the one paying for their delusion.
I hate how he’s doing the kind of project a ton of people would like to help with, for free and on their own time, yet he’s making an LLM do all the interesting work. He can’t code so he vibecodes the whole frontend. He can’t reverse engineer so he leaves Claude with the uart connection. He doesn’t understand something so he makes an LLM explain it.
With his platform he could easily find a person (or a couple) who could do this work themselves, not only saving him money, but nerdsniping someone into hacking a bike. A win-win for everybody.
A bit of a tangent, but I hate the way this channel uses AI. There's moments where the creator doesn't really know what they're talking about so they ask AI which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, I don't mind it! However, the way it's repeated verbatim mimicing the speech style of the creator is so offputting I don't really know how to describe it, sounds like someone trying to speak a language they don't know is the best way I can describe it. Might just be me though.
edit:
Actually the comment the creator left on the video is almost purely AI and is just as yuicky to read: "There are lots of questions about runaway Reevo mode, and it's a fun topic. Let's go deeper. First of all, I did add a "PAS Timeout" that turns off PAS after a few minutes, and is selectable in the menu. If you set this up from my Github repo, that feature is active. A lot of you also suggested a weight sensor on the seat, but that would disable pedal assist if you stood up out of the saddle, which is when you would need it most. Another suggestion was the dead man switch. That one would work! This is all fun to think about, so keep the ideas coming. I just MIGHT get another Reevo for myself."
I've been watching Seth for years, that comment is pretty in line with his writing style. I expect he's using AI, but I don't think he would be lazy with it. I would expect him to prefer not replying at all over using AI to reply.
As a very very very long time viewer I've only noticed this in last 10 videos where there's verbatim reads like this from time to time. Ironically where you can notice this the most is the same kind of video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPe3cY3oeu4
I've seen a pretty big percentage of his videos, dropped off past few years or so, but the writing style is heavily influenced by AI in some parts of the script. It might sound like Seth, but AI cannot replicate it perfectly and it just sounds very off.
It seems to be Claude that was doing the majority of the work on the software, so I find it appropriate that Claude responses (as in Claude-in-a-harness-with-the-task-context-available responses) were passed through. Attribution should be clear though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAsuk8OndHs&list=PL5S7V5NhM8...
They're so well done. Sadly, he doesn't do them anymore because Youtube's algorithm doesn't make it worth his while. Evidently, he gets the same traffic & revenue from a 10 minute video reviewing "stupid bike gadgets" into the camera as he does for spending a month building a cool bike jump and editing together one of those amazing videos on the playlist.
If youtube rewarded evergreen stuff like that instead of cheap "reaction" videos, it'd be a much cooler place.
I watch photography videos on YouTube, and camera review channels consistently have far more subscribers than channels who make content about taking photos. (Or at least they did in the past - in recent years camera tech has really matured and interesting releases are much less frequent, and reviewers seem to have taken a hit).
I think people just like gear. Should YouTube not show people what they like to see?
I've watched some Berm Peak videos in the past and I mostly know the channel for its videos about builds/repairs, or his video about the history of valves. The mountain biking videos are good too, but only hold my interest for so long. If I want to see mountain biking I'm more likely to look at some of the stuff Red Bull is putting out.
I didn’t read the rest of your comment but it’s the fault of the algorithm because that tail wags the dog. It’s physically impossible to watch all videos so we are all at the mercy of the (a) algorithm.
- do NOT buy an e-bike with custom parts, no matter how "cool" it is!
I bought a CowBoy years ago and honestly, it was great. Until it wasn't. Inexorably, it does not matter how good the parts are, how well designed it is, wear and tear WILL create problems. You WILL need to replace parts. If nobody but the company making the bike sell them you will get in trouble. It's the same with the App, if it's not open source relying on standard AND with existing, not upcoming, GadgetBrige support they will stop supporting your bike and brick it.
Please, pretty please, as consumers who expect to keep on maintaining your bike over years, ASK your repair shop what THEY think is a good bike to fix. Not what is a good bike to ride.
PS: I now ride a Fixie because screw CowBoy and all those e-bike startups who believe they are the new Apple. They aren't and I was the one paying for their delusion.
With a conversion kit? ^_^
I guess I won't be riding them anytime soon. But I am glad to know there is a way to resurrect/improve them!
With his platform he could easily find a person (or a couple) who could do this work themselves, not only saving him money, but nerdsniping someone into hacking a bike. A win-win for everybody.
edit:
Actually the comment the creator left on the video is almost purely AI and is just as yuicky to read: "There are lots of questions about runaway Reevo mode, and it's a fun topic. Let's go deeper. First of all, I did add a "PAS Timeout" that turns off PAS after a few minutes, and is selectable in the menu. If you set this up from my Github repo, that feature is active. A lot of you also suggested a weight sensor on the seat, but that would disable pedal assist if you stood up out of the saddle, which is when you would need it most. Another suggestion was the dead man switch. That one would work! This is all fun to think about, so keep the ideas coming. I just MIGHT get another Reevo for myself."